One wise man once said that there are two types of great managers: 1) those who meet people regularly, always keep their door open or delegate appropriately and 2) those who “leave you alone” 🙂
What is important to know is that experienced professional managers don’t always start as managers, because they’re generally promoted and they’ve actually spend most of their lives and careers doing something else. So by the time they’ve made managers, they’re once again beginners. The only way to overcome the lack of management experience is with the right kind of practice.
But how do we even practice management?
The hardest thing about business isn’t the business part, it’s the people part. When someone practice being a manager, he is already on stage and do the job. The management mistakes can cost our jobs, can cost a business money, customers or reputation. Bad managers make too many assumptions about what people know or don’t know, without any feedback, and this behavior is not efficient.
Experienced managers are rarely surprised at how people react, because they know a lot about their motivation and they ask for feedback, this is their job. “I had no idea they’d react that way” are the words of an inexperienced manager. If 2 managers have the same skills and professional experience, but only one is doing actual teamwork, it is obvious that there will always be preferred the one who has character attributes for building rapport with customers and coworkers, who has an adaptive leadership style, and also interpersonal and communication skills that can help him steer teams effectively.
An experienced manager is always able to build positive relationships with the customers, and the key is always the clear communication. Sometimes things can go wrong, and that is the challenge: to maintain rapport with unhappy customers. Here are some ways: to reiterate their views and to show that you understand, admit your mistakes and always let them tell you what they need, before you suggest any solution. Let the customers feel important, because if you take care of your customers all the time and ask for their feedback, you’ll be able to continue the great relationships with them.
In order to get the best results from the subordinates, a great leader needs to be assertive and determined, but not while disregarding people feelings and motivation. An experienced manager has to be respectful, while expressing his views honestly, he has to explain the reasons and how would they help the organization, has to be open to other people suggestions and always accept responsibility for the decisions.
Otherwise how will his subordinates believe in what he says?
Excellent communication skills mean also that the manager must know the people he collaborates with, know how they choose to process information and perceive his messages: visual ways (graphs, pictures and videos), audible ways (face-2-face meetings and phone calls) or pragmatic (experience site visits or product testing).
The 7 qualities of great experienced managers are: performing teamwork, maintaining rapport with the team of employees and with the customers, determination while considering other people feelings, adaptive leadership, assume decision responsibility, realistic positivism and clear communication.
If the leader is able to maintain rapport and influence his co-workers and employees, he can help his team reach the target and objectives, and makes an efficient job. The 2 main PUSH influencing styles are: LOGICAL – point out the loopholes of an argument and offer a counterproposal and CARROT and STICK STYLE – where you show the reward they’ll get if they comply and highlight the potential threats if they don’t. The 2 main PULL influencing styles are: CONSULTATIVE – suitable if the team members are capable and committed of offering ideas. The BIG PICTURE SHOW style is suitable if the teamwork is made with senior, independent people – and there must be promoted values, great mission and life goals.
Bad management sometimes means to put up an ego against any feedback and to have terrible difficulty admitting the mistakes and the responsabilities. Other bad managers claim competence in the areas they truly have no idea about. The best managers know how to assign tasks in a clear manner, how to communicate exactly what is the expected target of the people who work under them, they are open to suggestions about how to improve processes and procedures, they have positive but realistic attitudes, their leadership is adaptive and they know how to maintain morale, they are good at spotting interpersonal problems between people , and they are exceptionally good at dealing with these problems.