Effective management is a key part of any organisation and its employees’ work life. If management is lacking, it’s easy for teams to lose motivation, enthusiasm for their role and for their overall performance to deteriorate. This could have a drastic effect on your business and it could even lead to employees seeking new opportunities. To ensure this doesn’t happen, take a look at these six tips to becoming an effective manager.
People ultimately look to their manager for guidance. However, if your attitude reflects that you’d rather not be at work, this will eventually rub off on your employees. Although you might not be able to crack a smile 24/7, try to keep up your general enthusiasm to encourage employees to work at their best. Just because you might be having a bad day, doesn’t mean the whole team has to join you. The most important thing is that you encourage people to be happy in their job and if you aren’t, they’re going to know about it.
In your team, no two people are going to be the same (unless they’re identical twins or something). What I mean by that, is everyone’s going to have individual strengths and weaknesses in their job. It’s important as a manager that you get to know what these are and show appreciation for them. It could be that you’ve got a task that would suit a particular employee, giving them a new opportunity and in turn strengthening your relationship. They will recognise that you’re aware of the successful work they’re doing and rewarding them with opportunities to utilise their strengths.
One of the best traits you can have as an effective manager is to keep your employees in the loop and include them in developing ideas, goals and strategies. If you’re talking at them and not with them, this will soon become demotivating and make them feel like they aren’t part of a team.
Being able to participate in discussions and contribute their ideas, will give them motivation to perform at their best. Although you’re ultimately in charge, you don’t want to come across as a know-it-all who doesn’t have time to listen to their employees.
Most employees are motivated by the opportunity to extend their knowledge and work their way up in a role. That’s why it’s so important for an effective manager to delegate responsibilities to their team members, which will give them greater ownership in the efficient functioning of the department. If there’s no chance for personal or professional growth in an organisation, this will quickly lead to loss of motivation and potentially becoming too comfortable/lazy with their work. Delegating responsibilities also gives you the chance to free up your time for more pressing activities, knowing that the work is in trusted and capable hands. It’s a win-win!
Employees should always feel like they can talk to their manager. If they don’t, something has seriously gone wrong. It’s vital that you make it clear that they can come to you whenever necessary to discuss relevant issues. Especially if you’re giving them new responsibilities and opportunities, they might require you to answer questions or give occasional guidance. However, if you’re going to encourage interaction, make sure you’re ready to actually pay attention. You may be a busy person, but making time for your employees is vital. An effective manager gives the right amount of time to their time regardless of the situation.
If you’re offering your employees the opportunity to be more involved or take on new responsibilities, you should be prepared to give them feedback. Giving them reassurance that they’re doing a good job is a great motivator. However, letting your team members know what they could improve on is important too. If they’re eager to take on new responsibilities, it means they want to learn more and master their craft, so any feedback will be helpful. Make sure you keep on top of this, you don’t want them to make mistakes before it’s too late and leave them unmotivated to take on new challenges in the future.
You can use these six suggestions to examine your current management attitudes and actions. You never know, there might be areas you could work on or implement into your organisation, that will help to keep your employees motivated and performing to the best of their abilities.
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