Guidance Ability is one of the key pillars of Manager Effectiveness

Guidance is something that all humans need. We need guidance when we are lost. We need it when we are trying to figure out what our life goals are. Guidance is an important part of life and it helps us get on track and stay on track with our personal and professional lives. Similarly, getting the right guidance is very important for any individual to grow and succeed. In the workplace, this responsibility of guiding an individual falls into the hands of the managers. 

In fact, managers must be selfish about guiding their team members better. Why? To answer this let’s step back and look at what a manager is supposed to do. In essence, they manage a piece of work or responsibility that they try to deliver or conduct with the help of their team. To be successful in their objectives, managers need the complete support and capability of their teams. Hence, what they really need is

1. The team to be performing at its level best
2. Addressing any problems or roadblocks that come effectively
3. Trust on the team that they will deliver on what is expected from them
4. Constantly improving the skill set of the team

Proper guidance from a manager helps in building these points. So, if you want yourself and your team to be successful, you need to guide your team effectively. That is what we call a manager’s Guidance Ability one of the core managerial skills.

So how can you go about building your Guidance Ability as a manager?

There are 4 core ingredients to building that capability.

First and foremost is your capability to be a Role Model. To effectively guide the team into certain behaviors and practices, managers will have to be role models themselves while showcasing the same behaviors and practices. This means showing and demonstrating what your desired employee conducts are at the workplace. A manager who is a role model effectively directs employees on what is expected of them at the workplace. Moreover, they set the right examples of company values. Read this guide on how to become a Role Model for your teams.

The second most important ingredient is your ability to Facilitate Collaboration in the team. It enables the team members to share their ideas, experiences, and knowledge effectively. It simply makes the team more self-reliant. It prevents the manager from becoming the decision-making and execution bottleneck. Building Guidance Ability doesn’t mean that you are the single source of guidance. In fact, as a manager, you must leverage every available resource to you to guide your team members. And who is better than their peers and colleagues? When you unlock this, you don’t remain the bottleneck to guide someone. There are other hands and legs that are also working for you.

 Read this guide to Facilitating Collaboration in your teams.

The third ingredient for Guidance Ability is your ability to Nurture individuals. Nurturance helps managers to guide employees by forming relationships with them along with providing support in their development. Nurturing is a process of developing the potential of a person or group by providing support, guidance, and encouragement. It involves providing care, concern, and empathy to help them grow into their best selves. Furthermore, it also helps them in keeping employees motivated in times of challenges at the workplace. As a result, the team knows that there is someone supporting them at each step and that builds trust. Read this guide to develop Nurturance in your repertoire.

Finally, the most important ingredient of Guidance is giving Constructive Feedback. Constructive feedback is the key to guiding their employees and helping them grow. Moreover, it helps managers in encouraging improvement and development among their employees as well as identifying areas for growth more effectively. Giving feedback is the opportunity to recognize the good things that the team member is doing. It is also an opportunity to work with them to identify improvement areas. The core principles behind constructive feedback include focusing on genuine care, giving corrective feed-forward, focusing on actions and behavior instead of personality, and being credible. 

Read this guide to become a pro at giving Constructive Feedback.

Managing people is one of the most important responsibilities any manager has. So, to be successful, you must have a clear understanding of your employees and be able to provide them with guidance and direction to reach the goals you have set for them and help them reach their full potential.