The job of a manager is a crucial one. First, they are responsible for ensuring that their team reaches optimum levels of productivity day after day. Second, they must ensure that optimum conditions are present, allowing the team to achieve optimum productivity. Managing the environment has many dynamic facets, and a one size fits all formula would be rare to find. It includes both the physical as well as mental wellness of the employees.
If you are a manager or a leader, there is a chance that you, too, would have found yourself struggling to ensure that both are covered. Sacrificing on either front would stand for undervaluing your team members, which can be detrimental to team morale and enthusiasm.
Moreover, finding resources and guides for physical well-being would be relatively more straightforward. Several central and state legislations dealing with the issue are in place. It is the other part of employee well-being, psychological safety, which is prone to frequent overlooking.
Before beginning to dive deep into psychological safety, we need to develop an understanding of the term itself. In its simplest form, psychological safety comes from the feeling of acceptance without having to hide one’s good or wrong parts. Psychological safety in the workplace is closely associated with being comfortable with their place in the team. As a result, it can impact employee experience and engagement within the team. Therefore, we can agree on the importance of psychological safety in the workplace. And consequently, every manager needs to figure out ways to ensure the psychological safety of their employees.
Psychological safety is of immense importance for any manager for several reasons. It helps the team members by keeping them free from stress and tension. A healthy work-life balance is both a cause and effect of psychological safety in the workplace. Moreover, a free mind promotes curiosity and creativity. Additionally, it enables innovative problem-solving. People who feel safe in their environment are more likely to raise questions and bring new ideas to the table.
When team members are secure about their position in the team and the organization, they are more willing to take on responsibilities that involve risk. They might make mistakes, but they won’t be scared of doing so. Also, it has a positive impact on the team’s environment. Primarily, managers can create an atmosphere where collaboration and cohesion are the path guides, powered by effective communication. All in all, we cannot negate the benefits offered by psychological safety.
In order to do so, you can develop a stepwise framework.
You must first assess your team’s psychological safety level to get started. A keen eye and attentive ears can help you in this task. The absence of psychological safety is easily identifiable in a dead atmosphere. In a psychologically unsafe environment, you rarely find anyone raising counter questions or disagreements. You might also see that the communication is centered around a select cluster of people; the rest are not as active. Further, you can check if your workplace is psychologically safe or not by checking against this handy list of signs. A proper appraisal of the situation is essential before you set out to carry out the change.
In the second step to ensuring psychological safety, you will have to look for tangible actions that you can take. As we have noted earlier, the absence of psychological safety can bear a manifold detrimental impact on your team. Consequently, as a great manager, you must take steps to avoid that fate for your team.
Your initial interventions can be related to adding positivity to the general environment of the organization. After that, you can take concrete steps to address the problem. A series of interactions with your employees, either as one-on-one interviews or surveys, will help you envisage a suitable solution for your organization. Further, you can also take help from our blog on How Can Managers Ensure the Psychological Safety Of Their Team? These tips will surely help you become an effective and caring manager.
As you embark on the journey to create a better environment, you must take immense care in carrying out the task. Seniors and supervisors can easily jeopardize a team’s psychological safety due to their words’ impact. Therefore, you might want to take care while addressing your employees. Motivating comments that help in increasing their enthusiasm and commitment are always welcome.
However, in the flow of enabling unseconded productivity in your organization, you might lose the script and turn to behavior that can be dangerous for the mental well-being of your team. Many people will tell you what to say to your team. But it’s equally essential to know what you should not say to your team. To understand this idea further, you can read our blog on things no one told you to never say to your team. Because when you are making an effort, you should also take care to ensure their fruition.
All in all, the importance of psychological safety in the workplace cannot be highlighted enough. And the role of a manager or a leader in ensuring it is crucial as ever. Effectively, ensuring psychological safety in your team has to be on your to-do list if you want to become a great manager whose team touches new heights with every new day.
Emotional Competence: The second key pillar for Manager Effectiveness
Emotional Competence: The second key pillar for Manager Effectiveness
Emotional competence in the context of managers is the ability to be self-aware of their own emotions and have a social awareness of the emotions of their employees. They should also use that information to manage employee interactions and create a productive and positive work environment. It is an essential skill for managers because it allows them to effectively deal with their employees’ emotions. Emotional competence is also a critical factor in decision-making.
To be an effective manager, you must have a good understanding of how emotions work. You need to be able to read the emotions of your employees and respond accordingly to maintain a healthy workplace environment. Additionally, you must empathize with your employees and understand their feelings to establish trust. Finally, you need the ability to set limits without resorting to too much emotional blackmail or coercion.
Essentially, there are 9 reasons why emotional competence is critical for managers. Read more.
There are four significant constituents of emotional competence for managers.
Overall emotional management
Handling team tensions
Empathy
Managing conflicts
Some of them might look similar but have nuances that make them different. Let’s dissect each one of them.
To begin with, one must have a basic understanding of the basics of emotional management. Following that, one must understand the difference between feelings and emotions.
To become influential leaders, managers must be able to understand and regulate their own emotions, and they must also be able to help their team members do the same. It is imperative when making rational decisions can be difficult in times of stress.
Managing emotions in the workplace can be difficult. It can be tough to stay positive and motivated when things go wrong. However, managers must maintain a positive attitude even when the situation is challenging. Otherwise, negativity can quickly spread throughout the team, causing a hostile atmosphere that affects people’s productivity at work.
Emotional management from managers’ perspectives is a two-way process. The first is about managers managing their own emotions, and the second is about managing their employees’ feelings. Both of them are significantly important for any manager.
To build a deeper understanding of this topic, read this detailed guide on emotional management. This guide provides answers to the fundamental questions behind this complex topic.
When emotions are not managed, team tensions flare-up. These tensions come up as widespread problems that managers face worldwide and can be the root cause of workplace conflicts. Therefore, managers should treat these as the early signs of conflict and should work to handle them effectively. Tensions can arise due to several factors. As a manager, it is crucial to understand these possible causes and prevent them from happening. If not handled, situations can spiral into more significant problems affecting the team’s productivity and stability. Read here to learn more about the possible causes and cures of team tensions.
There would be situations where you will find yourself in the middle of a conflict. Either as a direct party or an indirect party. Conflict is a disagreement or hostility among individuals or groups about something. It can be physical, verbal, emotional, social, and even workplace. Anything from a dispute about a project at work to a disagreement about resource allocation can spark a conflict. Conflict can be healthy or harmful, constructive or destructive, depending on how you handle it. In general, we see conflict as unfavorable because it can lead to division, anger, and even violence. A conflict can also become extremely dangerous if left unchecked. There can be various causes of conflict in the workplace, including different goals, personalities, opinions, beliefs, standards, work styles, etc. There are six basic strategies that can help you manage conflicts better.
Finally, it is Empathy. It is a different topic altogether but extremely important for managers to have a well-rounded capability when it comes to Emotional Competence. Empathy allows us better understand the other person’s situation and help them cope with problems that seem to be beyond their control. On the other hand, a lack of Empathy in an organization can negatively affect the effectiveness of its employees and will reduce the chances of a productive work environment. Managers who lack Empathy might also have difficulty maintaining personal relationships with co-workers, superiors, or subordinates as they don’t internalize appropriate emotions for the situations in which another person is involved. In the end, it is not only the manager who needs to build Empathy. They actually need to inculcate Empathy in the entire team. And there are five essential things managers can do to start building Empathy in their teams.
Emotional competence is essential for managers. It helps them in their professional life, and it also makes the working environment better. To be a manager, you must have a high level of emotional intelligence. You need to be able to handle your own emotions and know how to work with other people’s emotions. The four building blocks for emotional competence can get you started in your journey to handling this complex topic with ease.
One-on-One Meetings: The Most Essential Tool In Any Manager’s Arsenal
One-on-One Meetings: The Most Essential Tool In Any Manager’s Arsenal
One of the most critical aspects of effective people management is regular and frequent one-on-one meetings. These meetings are essential for thee reasons:
First, one-on-one meetings provide an opportunity for managers to get to know their team members on a personal level, which can build trust and encourage collaboration.
Second, one-on-one meetings allow managers to give feedback and clear instructions in a confidential environment. This enables team members to be more open and receptive to feedback, which helps them improve their performance.
Third, one-on-one meetings allow managers and their team members to discuss complex issues better avoided in more extensive group settings.
One of the managers’ most common mistakes is not scheduling enough one-on-one meetings. Managers who do not regularly schedule one-on-one meetings are likely to experience lower productivity and morale among their team members.
To have fruitful one-on-one meetings, managers should be well prepared. This preparation can include making notes and using a recording device if appropriate and with permission; taking inventory of the project and gathering information on similar projects is also helpful.
There are a variety of ways to structure one-on-one meetings. Some managers prefer to hold all their one-on-one meetings in person, while others may use video conferencing software or a virtual meeting tool in the hybrid era. Whichever approach you choose, it is vital to ensure that each meeting is focused and specific in its purpose.
We have six core tips for you to master this essential skill. Read on here.
Most managers I speak with often ask me, “Ashish, what should I ask in the one-on-one meetings.” It is common for managers who are not used to these meetings to be confused about how to conduct them. Remember, these meetings are mainly for the team member and lesser for you to give feedback to them. I usually follow the 80-20 principle. 80% of the time is focused on the team member, and 20% of the time is focused on me providing feedback to them. Depending on your working relationship, the frequency of the meetings, and how deep you are in the process, there are a bunch of topics on which you can fix the agenda. The questions you can prepare to ask will depend on the topic you want to address.
Here is a handy guide that lists 25 questions on different topics you can ask. Obviously, these are not exhaustive. You can always customize these and add more specific ones for your situation. But these will surely get you started and sustain you until a solid habit is formed.
As I said, most of the time is reserved for the team members to talk. So you must encourage them and ask as many open-ended questions as possible. For this to work effectively, you must have developed active listening skills. But don’t worry, you will get your chance as well. When you speak, you must focus on only a few things.
Giving constructive feedback
Aligning the team member with the team’s direction and objectives
Relaying critical information that concerns them
Addressing conflicts
As you do this, you will see that you are using some common words across all your one-on-one meetings. This is what we call the manager’s vocabulary. There are a few words that every manager must understand and use for effective people management. These words cover a whole range of areas across the people management spectrum. I will not build the suspense further but rather share these words directly with you. This article lists these words and also their importance and usage. So, here you go 🙂
In essence, managers can get so much done through these effective one-on-one meetings with their team members. Not only do these meetings help to keep track of the work done by each team member, but they also provide a platform for resolving conflicts and ensuring that everyone is on the same page. It is, in fact, the lifeline of a manager and team member relationship. However, with so many distractions in our lives, making time for these critical interactions can be challenging. So remember, they are essential, and you must make time for the important stuff in your work life.
The Top newsletter for aspiring professionals
You might be an experienced manager or a new manager, you will find yourself in situations where you are managing new teams. A fresh start is always exciting. At the same time, managing a new team can be a daunting task. It can be tough to know where to start as a new manager. What are the best practices? How do I deal with different personalities? You’re trying to put together a cohesive unit that can work together to achieve common goals, and you have to do it while balancing the needs of each individual.
Fresh starts, new challenges.
You must first understand that you are forming new relationships with your team members in this new role. They were habitual working with someone else. You are taking over, and they will be apprehensive of you first. As a manager, it is your job to make them feel comfortable. No doubt that you are trying to find space for yourself.
Avoid typical managerial myths.
In such situations, managers often take the route of “establishing their authority.” While this may work in some cases, in most situations, this may backfire. Why? Without understanding your team’s psychological needs, you are bound to push where you shouldn’t push. Hence, as a new manager, it’s essential to be aware of the pitfalls during your first few months. By being aware of these common pitfalls, you can avoid them and foster a positive environment for your team. Just like this, there are other myths that you must avoid as a new manager.
Build a rapport with your new team.
Right at the start, if there is only one thing you must focus on is building a rapport with your new team. It is a relationship of mutual trust and understanding built for the long term. It’s how you create a connection with another person, and it’s the first step in developing a relationship. Taking the time to build a rapport with your subordinate team improves their productivity in the long run. When employees feel like they can trust their manager and open up about their concerns, they are more likely to be productive and cooperative. Building a rapport with your new team might be a bit time taking but is highly important for having a healthy relationship with your team in the long run. You can read more about building a lasting rapport with your team.
Actively listen to build lasting trust.
Finally, it would be best to focus on actively listening to your team members in the initial days. As opposed to passive listening, active listening is an intentional act meant to demonstrate that we have heard what the other person has said. It is done by focusing on their words and asking questions to get deeper into the essence of their message. It is an essential skill for any manager to have. But in your initial days with a new team, it will help you build lasting trust and loyalty. Building active listening is a step-by-step process, which you can read here.
With the right approach and planning, it can be a successful experience. So whether you are just starting or in the middle of a transition, we hope that these articles will help you get started on the right foot.
Does your team feel they are overworked?
Pandemic has changed the way we work. Most importantly, the lines between personal and professional hours have blurred. Although there are many benefits of remote working, one unintended consequence has been burnout. Teams often feel overworked and, as a result, burnout. Did this feeling in the workforce not exist before the pandemic? It did.
In some environments, employee burnout has been a challenge, even pre-pandemic. In most fast-growing environments, companies are often understaffed. This leads to extra pressure on the workforce. Typically, in these environments, the employee churn is high. High employee turnover further adds to the pressure on the employees that stay with the company.
There are various reasons why employees might feel burnt out, and they almost always stem from work overload. When there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it, people feel overwhelmed and stressed. This, in turn, can lead to several symptoms, including low energy levels, anxiety, and depression.
As a manager, you will not be able to deliver on your objectives effectively if your teams constantly feel overworked and burnt out. Here are some symptoms to watch out for: exhaustion, poor concentration, irritability, anxiety, and low morale. If you notice any of these symptoms brewing in your team, it might be time to take a step back and assess the situation. Overworked teams are prone to making mistakes, leading to frustration and chaos. In the end, if your teams are unable to deliver on their objectives, you will not grow.
So, what can you do as a manager?
The first thing as a manager you must do is take some time to assess the workload your employees are currently facing. Once you understand the challenges they are facing, you can start to create a better work environment that helps employees stay focused and motivated. By properly allocating resources, you can free up time for your team members to do their best work while still meeting deadlines. When you have too many tasks competing for the same resources, it becomes difficult to get anything done. By grouping tasks together based on their importance and urgency, you can better allocate your team’s resources to ensure that all tasks are completed on schedule. This will help you get your team back on track and meet your deadlines!
Effective resource allocation is a critical aspect that managers must develop. One must keep in mind several factors while attempting to become good at this. We have listed five simple steps that you can follow to improve resource allocation.
In environments where employees feel burnt out or overworked, negative emotions run high. In such an environment, conflicts are commonplace. Few people know how to manage and express their negative emotions constructively. Irate employees often go on a rebellious path. As a result, most of the team’s energy goes into unconstructive areas. Keeping the team motivated and focused on their goals can be challenging.
As a manager, you can help the team constructively manage their emotions. But this all starts with you managing your own emotions effectively first. This will help you keep your team calm and productive, despite their pressure. By understanding the emotional triggers of your team members, you can better deal with challenging situations and keep everyone on track. This can be an opportunity to use the negative emotions and bring people together around it. People connect and empathize with each other when they find themselves in the same adverse situation.
If you become a master at emotional management, you can turn this adversity into an opportunity to bring the whole team together and ride the wave.
You can not remain in this situation. While you help the team manage emotions and allocate resources more effectively, you must also work with the team to ensure their wellness. Overworked employees will often be not well-rested and nutritionally balanced. To avoid this problem, it is essential to promote employee wellness and provide them with the resources they need to stay healthy and productive.
The organization has a role to play in this, no doubt. But as a manager, you can also do a lot to ensure employee wellness. When you take extra steps for employee wellness, the employees will see that you care. This builds lasting loyalty towards you and helps the team deal with adversity better.
What can you do as a manager to promote employee wellness?
Managing an overworked team can feel like a never-ending battle. In order to reverse the situation and maintain better productivity, managers must realize that they have much control over the situation. It just needs a little bit of reflection and a few simple steps listed above.
Do you find yourself constantly following up with your teams?
Following up with the team is hard. I get it. It is even harder to do it constantly and get a little response from the team. Teamwork is essential for any business, but it’s even more critical for your success as a manager. As a manager, you are responsible for many tasks, and you are expected to deliver that with the help of your team. If you and your team don’t deliver on time, it impacts the team’s performance and overall career progress for everyone involved.
So, where is it going wrong? Is your team not capable enough? Maybe! Or are they not taking enough ownership of their work? Possible. You can’t give up on them just like that. So what can you do?
What if your team felt comfortable coming to you and giving you updates? So the first question to ask yourself is, do they feel comfortable coming to you and discussing their challenges, roadblocks, and failures with you? As a manager, it helps to be approachable and personable. If you become more approachable, you won’t have to follow up that often.
Being approachable is key to building good relationships. It can be challenging to be approachable at first, but it becomes easier with a little bit of practice. Here are three ways to be more approachable:
Be aware of your facial expressions and use them to control how people perceive you. For example, a smile can be a powerful tool for building trust and rapport.
Be honest and upfront about your needs – don’t make assumptions. This way, the team can be sure that they’re addressing your concerns and that you’re not just asking for favors.
Speak in a positive tone – it will show that you’re interested in working with the team. By being positive, you’ll put the team at ease and increase the chances of a successful outcome.
If you want to go deeper, we have listed a few steps that you can implement in behavior and process to become more approachable to your team.Another common reason managers find themselves in a constant follow-up situation is not setting clear expectations and deliverables. Setting SMART goals helps encourage team members to reach their potential and achieve the goals you’ve set for them. By defining and focusing on the goals, you create a sense of ownership and encourage them to work hard towards them.
Once they know what they are after, they will chase it. As a manager, you won’t have to check with them daily. Isn’t that liberating for everyone involved?
The trick is to do SMART goals properly. Here is a detailed guide on how to do it.Finally, patience is a virtue when you find yourself in this situation. Practice patience, and you will soon find that the rewards are immense. Remember that everything happens at its own pace and that you shouldn’t try to rush things. When following up with the team, be patient and know that they will eventually get back to you. If you want to take things further, make sure that your follow-up is personal. Sending an email rather than just texting or calling will show that you’ve taken the time to get to know them better and can help create a stronger relationship.
But don’t be this guy 👇
Chances are that your team is under stress, and it would be a great help if you figured out how you could handle those times when everything seems like an uphill climb. In addition, treat each member of the team individually. By communicating with them directly and personally, you will get a lot closer to knowing what they require from you to do their best work.
There are more benefits to practicing patience while leading teams. Here are 6 tips that can help you develop it.
Being approachable and having the ability to practice patience are both essential for any team member. By following up less often, you’ll not only be more likely to connect with your team members, but you’ll also avoid any misunderstandings. I would love to hear from you when you implement these tips. If you face challenges, talk to me.
Guidance Ability is one of the key pillars of Manager Effectiveness
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
The team to be performing at its level best
Addressing any problems or roadblocks that come effectively
Trust on the team that they will deliver on what is expected from them
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.
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.
Do you often find yourself doing your team’s work?
Do you often find yourself doing your team’s work?
Last week, I spoke with a manager, and she said, “Ashish, I often find myself doing my team’s job.” This is how the rest of the conversation went.
Ashish: “How does that happen? Tell me more.”
Manager: “When they are working on tasks, they are often unable to finish them. They are not confident if they will be able to finish it in time or not. When the deadlines are approaching, I have to jump in to ensure that we meet the deadlines.”
Ashish: “Is there a skill gap in your team?”
Manager: “No, no, they are skilled. In our team, we have all the skills that we need.”
Ashish: “Then what happens?”
Manager: “It impacts the tasks I am supposed to do. I am not able to effectively keep my stakeholders informed. In certain cases, clients don’t get the attention they need from me.”
It is not the first time I have had this conversation with any manager. It can be tough to balance your team’s work with your own as a manager. Juggling the two can often lead to inconsistent or poor outcomes, leaving your team behind.
There are a few reasons why managers do their team’s work. The first and most important reason is that they care about their team and want them to succeed. This is demonstrated through their willingness to delegate tasks and set goals for the team. They also make sure everyone knows what those goals are and help them reach them. In the end, managers can focus on their job objectives and the team’s success.
For the team to be successful, the team must function well. Effective Delegation prevents mistakes and ensures the completion of tasks on time. Moreover, the manager leads and manages the team effectively. However, when the team’s work isn’t productive or doesn’t meet expectations, it can harm the manager. In such a scenario, the manager may feel responsible and be distracted from their primary goals.
More often than not, the limitations are in the manager’s delegation skill set. How effectively the manager delegates work to their subordinates drives the overall productivity and efficiency of the team. When done correctly, Delegation can unlock so much hidden productivity and engagement within the team. Moreover, you free up your time to focus on higher-priority tasks.
Some of the elements that are critical to effective Delegation are
Overall project timelines
Team member’s individual skillset – strengths and improvement areas
Effective communication of expectations
Support from the manager or other team members
Manager’s ability to provide constructive feedback
For a detailed guide on How to master Delegation, read here.
Another major factor that causes managers to do their team’s work is not able to provide Autonomy within the team. Teams that have high levels of autonomy function smoothly. In such teams, members know their respective roles very well. Moreover, they take a lot off the manager’s plate and work with the freedom to deliver what is expected from them. It brings responsibility and accountability to the team members. It needs a very high level of managerial expertise for the managers to pull this off. But once achieved, it can be enriching for the managers and the team alike.
While attempting to give Autonomy to the team, you must tread carefully. Not all team members may be ready to take high levels of Autonomy. That’s why you must go through a structured process to understand when and where you can give Autonomy. obviously, you go through a progression curve to keep increasing the levels of Autonomy higher and higher.
Here is a more detailed piece to understand the nuances of giving Autonomy to the team.
Finally, you need to watch out for the signs of disengagement in the team. Not being able to deliver the work on time and as per expected quality despite having all resources is one of the signals of disengagement. If you start to see this as a pattern in one or more team members, you must begin scanning for other signals of disengagement. As a manager, this should be a DEFCON 1 state.
Early warning signals can help prevent loss of productivity, business, and team members. If you see this happening, you must seek help to address the disengagement situation in the team.
What signals should you watch out for? Read here.
In essence, you shouldn’t take the situation lightly. IF you find yourself doing your team’s work regularly, something much change. Neither you nor your team will achieve their full potential in this situation. All of you will remain in limbo for your professional growth.
How to become an indispensable manager for your company?
How to become an indispensable manager for your company?
The feeling of being indispensable to your organization is an exceptional one. It has the power to satisfy every aspect of professional, social, and emotional needs you have as a working professional. It gives you a sense of being valued and respected. It doesn’t come easy. There is a lot of hard work behind it. Not just to get there. But to stay at that level also. But the rewards compensate very well for all the hard work you put in.
As a manager, being indispensable means that you and your team are critical to the organization’s success. You have a crucial role to play and contribute value to the team that others could not carry out.
For a manager, there are some tangible and intangible benefits of achieving such a status in their organizations.
More autonomy and responsibility
Witness faster career growth
Work on the most critical problems faced by the company
Get to be a role model for high-performance standards
So, the question is, How do you get to that state? It doesn’t happen magically. You need a structured thought process to get there. People are not born with such a capability. You can actually build it by working on some critical aspects. In total, there are 11 qualities that you will have to achieve. You might already have a bunch of them. You can start working towards the rest of them. You can read about all these qualities here.
In addition to these qualities, you must be a result-oriented manager. A result-oriented manager has a natural bias for results. Result-oriented managers are committed to working with their teams to achieve collective outcomes. They are always looking for short and long-term solutions to problems and put in the extra effort to succeed. These managers understand that they cannot make that progress without a shared understanding of goals and an alignment of interests. They are also decisive, take charge when necessary, and can motivate their team to achieve the desired results.
But often, there is a risk that managers may fall into a result-only trap. This is when they focus so much on results that they try to achieve them at any cost. This often leads to a negative impact on the team. The cost of falling into this trap can be enormous in the short and long term.
So what is the right way to be a result-oriented manager? Read here.
Keeping your team’s psychological safety in mind is one of the most essential points to remember to avoid falling into the result-only trap. Researchers have found that Psychological safety is one of the critical factors of successful team performance. It is the feeling among team members that they can take risks without fear of retribution. You can not become indispensable if you do not have a high-performing team backing you up.
Psychological safety is the belief that you are safe to be yourself around other people. It breeds in an environment that is free of psychological threats. In such an environment, team members feel confident that their co-workers will not embarrass, humiliate, or punish them for speaking up or making mistakes. Such an environment fosters creativity, risk-taking, emotional intelligence, empathy, growth mindset, and sound mental health of the team members.
What can you do as a manager to create a psychologically safe environment for your team? Read here for answers.
Being indispensable to your organization is challenging yet achievable. The riches that wait for you beyond the hill are worth the effort to go through the grueling journey. Moreover, once you learn how to do it, you can easily replicate it in any new environment.
The secret to consistency: Building and sustaining a team
The secret to consistency: Building and sustaining a team
A manager’s role in a company can vary depending on the type of company they work for and the position they hold. However, in general, managers are responsible for the overall success and growth of the company. They own different chunks of the company’s objectives and are supposed to achieve them. Obviously, they can’t do it themselves. They need people working with them to achieve those objectives. AKA a team. Hence, managers are also responsible for ensuring that employees fulfill their roles and meet company goals.
A team is vital for a manager because it provides a support system for them. A manager can’t do everything alone, which is why having a team of dedicated people helping them achieve their goals is so valuable. Having a team also allows the manager to delegate tasks and responsibilities to the team members, making the job easier and more efficient.
In essence, a manager is as good as their team. To be a good manager, who delivers the company’s objectives consistently, they must have a good team that delivers on their objectives consistently. Finding the right people to join their teams becomes increasingly tricky as businesses grow. It is especially true in today’s competitive market, where skilled professionals are in high demand and are often hard to come by. To bring consistency in their efforts, managers not only have to attract the best talent but also have to retain the talent they have hired and groomed over the years. Constant chopping and changing in the team brings the overall team performance down. Note again, the quality and stability of your team will directly impact your’s and your team’s performance.
So how can managers attract and retain the top talent in their teams? Read more.
One of the key factors to attracting and retaining talent is effectively selling your team to a prospective candidate. It could be an external or internal candidate. To hire for your team, you must consider yourself a salesperson. In essence, if you get someone excited about working in your team, the chances of that person accepting your offer and joining your team would be higher when you make an offer to an exciting candidate. Most good talent would have multiple opportunities in the market. You need to tell them how working for you is better than working for anyone else.
This process should become an integral part of your interview stage. You can allow the candidates to interact with your team and encourage them to find out answers to the following questions.
What work will they be working on after they join your team?
What is working for your team better than working for any other team?
What can they look forward to learning?
What growth prospects can they expect?
Who would then be working with? Will others in the team add value to them and vice-versa?
In a nutshell, help them subtly discover “What is in it for them?” You can read more about how to effectively sell your team to a prospective candidate here.
Eventually, people will leave your team for several reasons. You can’t control it. A healthy turnover is healthy for the team for several reasons. One, it doesn’t stagnate people in their careers. Two, it allows for fresh ideas and perspectives to come into the team. Three, as a manager, you will gain from bringing new energy.
There is no fixed quantitative benchmark for what a healthy turnover looks like. It will depend largely on the context of the team. What you can assess is for what reason people are leaving your team. These reasons are healthy if you as a manager can’t control them, e.g., someone wanting to relocate closer to their family, go for higher studies, or change career directions. If people leave for reasons you can control, i.e., the environment in the team, wellbeing, culture, work quality, quality of peers, etc., then you must be worried.
There are situations where you may be able to retain someone after they have expressed their intention to leave the team. If you can understand their concerns and address them effectively, they might be willing to give you a second chance. But whatever the case may be, you need to have a proper checklist to effectively offboard members from your team. So, what should you do when a team member decides to leave your team? Read more here.
To conclude, the managers are responsible for their teams being highly efficient and competitive in the market. To achieve that, you must have highly talented professionals on your team. You can either attract great talent in the market or retain the incredible talent you already have in your teams.
What is the one skill that will always come in handy for managers?
Managers and leaders are responsible for the results their teams bring. Their wins or losses are often turned into an assessment of the manager’s competencies. In order to guide their teams through victories repeatedly, managers need to become masters of multiple arts. Apart from effectively handling managerial processes like change management and delegation, managers need some skills that assist them in carrying out each and every job. Their efficacy is often a result of these skills only. When we talk about the skills of a manager, we can begin by listing the technical skills. These are particular to their niche and vital for optimum performance. Beyond these, managers need skills that help problem-solving, such as critical thinking. But the list does not end here! The day-to-day operations of a manager also require them to possess several essential skills. Managers typically handle teams that are made of varied people. Ensuring that work is done efficiently and that the team runs smoothly needs managers to master human skills. Human skills play a critical role in our personal and professional lives. Primarily, they are essential for building a cohesive team through mutual trust, respect, and negotiation.
You can read more about the top 10 human skills for managers here.
One such skill which is vital for maneuvering the workplace’s daily business is listening. We typically do not worry a lot about listening. After all, as long as we are in the earshot, we are listening, right? But that is not the case. Generally, we are passive listeners, meaning that we do not put much effort into deriving meaning out of whatever we hear. This behavior can be pretty dangerous for managers.
A lot is going on in teams – from professional bickering to personal gossip – and a manager needs to be aware of all of it. Navigating the office environment can become a massive challenge if the manager is unaware of the environment. Therefore, neglecting to listen is among the biggest mistakes a manager can make. This has become even more important in the remote working situations.
Managers who ignore what is being said lose touch with their teams. Those who do not listen are easily termed arrogant by team members who feel discouraged. In totality, not listening actively can cause several troubles for you. The lost ideas, engagement opportunities, and goodwill might not call back!
Not listening for understanding is among the significant listening sins of a manager. Check out here what the others are.
Now that we understand how not listening hurts teams, we must look for a solution. The panacea lies in adopting a different approach – active listening. Active listening happens when people intentionally listen and attempt to understand others. You can use body language to demonstrate your attentiveness and raise questions to get more insights.
This approach is constructive for managers as it brings multiple benefits – great interpersonal relationships, a lot of energetic ideas, and the reputation of a caring manager. Teams led by managers who practice active listening are undoubtedly happier and more productive. Hence, you should definitely try to become a better listener in the workplace.
You can read more about active listening for managers here.
While you are at it, you can also take the free active listening self-assessment. As the name suggests, the assessment will help you understand the nuances of your communication habits. It will also help you learn the crucial difference between active and passive listening. Importantly, you will be able to identify your weak areas as a communicator. The active listening self-assessment empowers you to develop as a communicator. Resultantly, you can grow into an influential manager.
Once you know your listening skills, you can check out the free active listening toolkit. The toolkit contains helpful content to master active listening and practice it with your team. With clear roadmaps and guidance, you can become a pro at active listening in no time!
☝️Ok, this Dilbert had nothing to do with active listening. But it was damn funny to not be included. 😂
After all, managers can do their jobs the best only when they know what their team members feel. Sometimes, we might develop an unintentional habit of passive listening, which could harm us unnoticed. Therefore, it is crucial that you identify how well you are doing right now.
Active listening is among the most critical skills of a manager, but undoubtedly not the only one. Revisit our last newsletter to check your progress on managing delegation at work.
Management styles vary a lot, and for obvious reasons. Managers and their teams are very different, and what may be useless for one might be the best trick ever for the next. One management style that is often the topic of hot debates is micromanagement. People may hate or love it while pretending not to – but everyone has heard of it.
The term micromanagement is among the most reviled in a manager’s vocabulary. And rightly so! When we typically talk of a micromanager, we envisage a tough manager with thick glasses who keeps an eye on everything under the roof of the workplace, an office’s big brother. Additionally, we assume some more things about this hypothetical manager, most of which are harmful. It happened because micromanagement has earned a negative reputation over time. But is that the correct conclusion? Let’s find out.
The usual definition of micromanagement covers a few things – hyper fixation on details, an abundance of updates, and an extreme level of engagement with employees. Beyond the basics, we also understand that a micromanager’s approach is designed to achieve the highest level of productivity and efficiency possible. A tinge of perfectionism is clearly visible. Overall, the road to micromanagement is paved solely with good intentions.
But, issues arise when we begin to analyze the impact of micromanagement on employees. It has been noted that the critical features of a micromanager’s style can pose significant challenges to achieving goals. Excessive attention to detail that may not be crucial in the long run is an easy way to derail projects and run them behind schedule. Moreover, the time and efforts spent on irrelevant documentation are wasted. It also demotivates employees who do not feel confident and trusted. In the end, the manager might lose touch with their team members, who feel stressed and disengaged at work.
So, what should managers do? First, you should read more about micromanagement and why managers should avoid it at all costs.
As all coins have two sides, so does micromanagement! Although we have noted the several harmful effects of micromanagement, that may not always be the case. When you are in a managerial role, there are times when you will need to hold the hands of your team members closely and walk them through each and every loop on the way. Say, for instance, when you have a new team member and are running short on time. Micromanaging things – with significant involvement and constant checks – is the way to go.
Similarly, there can be other situations where you must don the thick-rimmed glasses and become your most pedantic self to row the boat across. The key is to note that management style is contingent on the circumstance. Moreover, it would be best if you tried not to hold a rigid view on adopting a particular management style. You can also read when micromanagement can be a good option and see how it works!
Now that we have understood that there is no straightforward answer to the conundrum of micromanagement, you might be wondering what you should do. Managers need to adapt approaches to situations; therefore, you will have to increase or decrease the intensity of your micromanaging tendencies. Before doing so, it would be best if you were aware of your micromanagement habit.
Initially, you might try to notice your behavior with your team consciously. But, that assessment has its own troubles, as it is mired with biases and subjectivity. A holistic approach is needed to overcome these limitations, which is available here. You can use this free micromanagement assessment to check how strong your micromanagement habits are.
The free micromanagement assessment helps you in many ways. Firstly, you will know where you stand on the micromanagement spectrum. Secondly, you can use this information to identify areas that might be affected. Once you know weak spots, you can concentrate your efforts on them better. Lastly, taking this assessment will aid in creating a healthy environment by eliminating harmful practices. All in all, you can unlock hidden productivity in your team with the micromanagement assessment.
You can empower your teams to achieve more when you better understand micromanagement and your management style. Further, guiding as needed and autonomy when required is an excellent way to become a great manager. Adapting your approach will also benefit you because you can connect with your team better when you know them better. In totality, it is crucial for you to learn about micromanagement and yourself for the success of your and your team’s efforts.
The quest is to be a great manager, isn’t it? Leading your team and effectively managing everything is your job as a manager. A good manager carries out these tasks efficiently. But, a great manager adds more to the mix! Beyond merely discharging duties, great manager takes their team to the next level. They do this by motivating their teams so that they are inspired to achieve more.
Great managers know their teams inside out; therefore, they can use them to generate optimum output gracefully. Also, they know how to facilitate productivity in their teams by creating the right environment that offers support. Teams led by such managers are seen to be more successful in achieving higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction.
If you haven’t already, read what’s the difference between good and great managers.
There are a few skills that make a great manager. These, of course, include their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Besides having a sharp intellect that enables and lets them maneuver around hurdles, great managers prioritize balance too. Their approach to management is often based around empowering their team members. Employees in their teams enjoy autonomy. They can explore and learn by doing. However, the same thing, i.e., delegating tasks, is often a challenge for many good managers.
Managers hesitate before delegating tasks when they do not understand the strengths and weaknesses of their team members acutely. When you know your team well, you will know their capabilities. Gathering this knowledge and trusting your team is the beginning of delegation. After all, a great manager helps their team realize their potential.
Even so, effective delegation is key to two crucial things – building a high-performing team and becoming a great manager who leads that team. Hence, mastering delegation is necessary. Delegation is not about pushing your workload unto others. Instead, it is an excellent way to build capabilities and unlock hidden productivity in teams. As it is a critical management skill, managers must know how to do it.
Read more about practicing the art of delegation here and understand how it works: the why, how, and what to avoid.
You would notice that you are probably delegating some tasks within your team already. However, the results are not very great, and hits are mixed with plenty of misses. It is not surprising because deciding what to delegate and who can be tricky. Moreover, you might be unaware of the nuances of your delegation style.
To find what’s amiss in your approach, hop onto the effective delegation assessment. Take the effective delegation assessment for managers today to understand how good your delegation skills are. Don’t do what Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss is trying to do 😂
The assessment will provide you with an objective analysis of your delegation skills, which you or your peers might be unable to do. You will also identify blindspots that are nibbling your productivity unnoticed. Essentially, it will guide you through creating a roadmap to achieving productivity in your team through delegation.
At some moments, you might feel that you are doing the right things, yet there is no visible progress. Conundrums like these leave us puzzled too! In such situations, we remember that implementation must be followed by testing to measure performance. You can retake the assessment after working on actionable insights on effective delegation from our Knowledge Base.
Once you know where work is needed, you must figure out how to do it. Carrying out effective delegation has never been easier than right now, thanks to the effective delegation toolkit, designed especially for managers who grow their teams with themselves.
Download the free effective delegation toolkit today to access frameworks and templates that make delegation a smooth ride. BTW, you can’t delegate that to anyone 😄
You will grow into a great manager with effective delegation among the sharpest arrows in your quiver of managerial skills. As delegation shifts tasks from your end to your team, you can find more time to focus on high-value activities such as strategic planning and decision-making.
On your journey to becoming a great manager from merely good, effective delegation is an important stepping stone. Make sure to get the most out of it by focusing on your weak areas and learning the nuances. It will help you make the most of the resources available. Your ability to manage people and tasks will turn you into an inspirational leader for all.
Are certain behaviors secret to building Accountability in the team?
The environment in which your team functions is an essential element in success. When leading a team, consistent support from your team members becomes vital. Primarily, they affect your performance majorly. Moreover, your team members are crucial in developing a harmonious culture where everyone can thrive.
Similarly, the personal relationships of employees matter too. You will love to see some key behaviors in your team members as a manager. You can take a look around your organization to understand what sort of actions are required. In corollary, you can take note of habits that will be helpful for the team. The responsibility to promote these behaviors falls upon you as well.
Although, sometimes, your team members may not be at their best behaviors. Therefore, it becomes your duty to inculcate those behaviors in your colleagues, which lead to productivity and harmony. In order to get this done, you should first understand what it means and then plan your steps accordingly.
As a team leader or a manager, you are bound to have expectations from your team members. However, whether those expectations are justified or not can be a matter of confusion initially. At times, the behavior of your team members might be entirely different from your expectations. In such a situation, you might be confused about exactly how a team should behave. Depending upon the situation, you might even be disappointed at how your team behaves. But as a manager, it becomes your responsibility to bring them on the right track. Nonetheless, you have to clarify your expectations in behavior. These things should be clear to you personally before you make them known to your team members.
To learn more about what behaviors managers usually expect from their team members, continue reading here.
When a manager builds a team, they usually look for people who do not need constant hand-holding. Instead, you will appreciate team members who take up challenges and hold themselves responsible for their results. Accountability is an excellent quality to have in a team member. However, you might often face the challenge of a lack of accountability in your team. Or otherwise, you may need to increase the degree of accountable behavior in your team. For doing this, you can take up multiple ways.
Firstly, you can serve as a model for behavior for your team members. A manager or leader always acts as the prototype of ideal behavior for employees. You can lead them to develop personal accountability through your own example. It will go a long way in creating a healthy culture and increasing your organization’s productivity. Secondly, you can take steps to build personal accountability. This can come from everyday activities like making space for clear communication and feedback.
A more detailed guide to developing personal accountability in your team is available here.
Apart from working individually, you can encourage your employees to have accountability partners that keep them in check. After all, two are better than one, for if either falls, one can help the other. These partners can come from the workplace itself too. But that need not always be the case. They can simply pick someone they are comfortable with tracking their progress. If two people work together on a similar project, they can keep checking each other’s progress over time.
Moreover, your accountability partner does not have to be a single person. You can create groups that keep each other in for shared goals and commitments. Additionally, your organization can arrange to provide employee accountability partners as well. These people can engage with employees and help them remain consistent with their objectives.
More than mere accountability, these initiatives also provide a space to network and discuss feelings about their work. Hence, accountability partners can be a great addition to your array of productivity-enhancing managerial tools! Read this to learn more about accountability partners, where to find one, and how to coordinate with them.
All in all, you can change your team dynamics for the better by carefully placed interventions. Therefore, as a manager, you must always look for opportunities to enhance the value derived from processes. As the behavior of team members is a vital part of the development of company culture, which directly affects productivity, it becomes an important area that needs focus. Hence, you can take steps to create a culture of accountability in your team that will make it easier for everyone to collaborate and achieve more. These bitter pills of behavior improvements will indeed show you results in the long term.
Good Manager vs. Great Manager. What does it take to cross the chasm?
A manager’s role is to help their team achieve their objectives and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal. A good manager typically:
Sets clear goals and strategies for the team and ensures that everyone knows what they need to do to help reach these goals
Gets involved in daily operations, if necessary, to make sure everything runs smoothly
Provides support and guidance when needed but also allows staff to take responsibility for their own actions
Encourages creativity and innovation while also enforcing standards and discipline when needed
Is understanding and supportive of individuals, but also takes proactive steps to address any problems
But most of us want to go from Good to Great, and, as an individual, you will not settle for having a good manager. You would want to work for a great manager. If you have worked with different people in your career, you can start to differentiate between the Good and Great Managers you would have worked with.
Let’s do a little exercise, close your eyes (it goes without saying that you are not driving or doing something where closing your eyes would be dangerous :)). Think about all the managers you have worked with and pick the one you had the best experience with. In your mind, start listing down the things that made you have the “best experience.”
Typically, working with a great manager feels something like this:
They make you feel good about yourself as an individual and a professional
You don’t have to think before you speak about what’s on your mind with them
You know someone is looking out for you when it comes to your concerns, growth, and needs
So, there is clearly something that a great manager is doing, but a good manager is not doing. So what is it? What makes a manager good to great? There are ten traits that separate great managers from good managers. Read here for more.
One of the significant differences usually not discussed is the degree of authenticity that a manager demonstrates while working with their teams.
Authentic leadership has been defined in many ways, but at its core, it is leading with integrity and being true to yourself and your values. Managers who follow this leadership style are not afraid to be themselves, even if it means being different from the rest of the pack. Authentic leaders are often seen as more trustworthy and effective than traditional leaders, and they are also more likely to inspire others to be their best selves. Authentic leaders are also committed to making a positive difference in the world. They want to make a difference not just for themselves but for others as well.
Moreover, the greats can easily differentiate between aggressive demeanor and assertive demeanor. They can emphatically put across their point without being aggressive or making someone feel threatened in any way.
Assertive managers can express their opinions and feelings without putting down or insulting the other person. They can also listen to and respect the point of view of others, even if there is a disagreement. Assertiveness can help you build better relationships, resolve conflicts, and get what you want at work. Being assertive can help you in
Building better relationships
Resolving conflicts
Building and maintaining boundaries
Getting what you want
If you wish to know more about the benefits of being assertive and how to master assertiveness, read more here.
In essence, going from good to great is a journey for any manager. You will fall, trip, get up, and go again in this process. One thing you must do is just keep going. Seek help where ever you require it in this journey. When you reach the magic land of being a great manager, your professional life will become even more fulfilling.
