Anyone can have the title of manager, but being a good manager requires skill. Let’s look at 5 ways to be a better manager.
#1 Make Time for the Team
As a manager, it is really easy to become so wrapped up in your workload that you forget to pay attention to your staff. Yet for staff, making time for them is very important. Your staff needs to come first before your projects if you want to keep your department or company running smoothly. When your team feels you care and that you find their involvement important, you are going to get so much more cooperation and work out of your staff.
#2 Be a Hands on Manager
One of your staff completes a key project, but the problem is that she did not understand the requirements properly and so it has been completed incorrectly. Now you need to tell a ‘less than happy’ client that the deadline is going to be missed. This entire situation could have been avoided if you had been a hands on manager. Do not confuse this with micromanaging, because that’s the extreme, but you need to be making sure things are going as they should.
#3 Define Goals
When your staff has clear and concise goals they are going to be far more productive. After all, it is impossible for staff to be productive if they don’t know what’s expected of them. When you define goals for your staff, it means work will get done in the order you expect it to.
#4 Take Your Time When Recruiting
You can save a lot of time and hassle by hiring right to begin with. It’s important that you have a team that works together to increase productivity, effectiveness, and cooperativeness. When you are hiring you should take more than just ‘skills’ into consideration to ensure you make the right choice for your team.
#5 Delegate
Many managers have problems delegating because they feel no one other than them can do the task at hand right. This can really cause problems as things are going to bottleneck and come to a grinding halt. You will also find yourself burning out. Instead, learn how to delegate to your staff. After all, if you felt they were qualified enough to hire, why aren’t they qualified enough to do the work.