Many people work incredibly hard in order to become a manager, slaving away in the lower levels of a company for many years in order to receive that promotion – and the extra responsibility and wage boost – they’ve been striving for. What they may not realize, on achieving this goal, is that the hard work is only just beginning. As a manager, you have many new responsibilities, and your performance has huge repercussions for your company. With this in mind, this article offers tips to help you improve your managerial performance over time.
Weekly Debrief
When you’re a manager, you have to be your own worst critic. You need to reflect on all the decisions you make and decide whether you could have been fairer, or firmer, or clearer in your instructions. Therefore, a great habit to get into is a weekly debrief, during which you stay in the office for that extra hour after work on a Friday and evaluate your performance over the week. It can be helpful, when doing this, to mark yourself on different areas of responsibility so that you know what to focus on in the coming week.
Personal Skills
While managers do have to make difficult decisions and high-level calls, they also have to encourage staff to take a little responsibility into their own hands, and doing this with a light touch and with sensitivity to individual differences is all part of what makes a really inspiring manager. If you’re unable to inspire the respect of your team, you’ll find it hard to work with them for the duration of your tenure as manager. As such, focus on your soft skills and your interpersonal skills in order to really leave your mark as a manager.
Feedback
There are two key ways that you can get feedback as a manager. One is to schedule one-to-one meetings with the staff that works under you and to ask them a few questions about how they feel in the office. This is great for understanding the subtleties of what your colleagues are telling you, but poor for honesty: after all, who wants to criticize their boos to their face? As such, an online survey system, like that devised by inpulse.com, can help you gain access to the anonymous feedback of your team so that you’re able to really learn from what they perceive. Meanwhile, the same technology can help you show your team you care about them, too.
Mentors
As a young or new manager, you need all the help that you can get. The best way to get this help is through finding a senior colleague who may be able to mentor you: to help you to climb the rungs in business where you might otherwise struggle. Advice from old hands in management is a truly excellent way to boost your understanding of what makes a good manager – and the friendship that develops between mentor and mentee can last a lifetime.
These tips will help managers continue to improve as they work, bringing the best of their abilities to the world of work each day.
