A manager has to be a good leader
A manager in the company is supposed to lead his team from the front, the way a political leader leads a rally or a procession from the front. Though the fact of life remains it is very difficult to find the presence of both the qualities in one human being.
The world has witnessed some unparalleled quality of management in some eminent leaders, who did not have any formal management degree.
However the cost conscious companies and business houses have now started looking for this seldom combination.
A manager, carried away by emotions and biased views can hardly command respect from his team. Brushing asides the best of efforts, the team members get themselves engaged in unnecessary and unproductive criticism. They loose respect about their boss as well as the company and if the company fails to earn respect from the employee, then it can hardly expect their dedication, which can really cling the company through the rope of competition.
The companies can even loose good employees whose efficiency could be turned to effective productivity.
An employee in the company watches the manager very closely; even each of its acts and reacts can hardly escape the eyes of the subordinate. A manager should always remember that he can extract the production from an employee for some time, by force or by creating a fearsome environment, but it can hardly cast a long term spell. A manager generally enjoys authority and power, but the tendency to exercise authority should be well controlled and never be used for personal provocation.
At the end of the day, it is the manager, who remains accountable to the top management, not only for himself, but for his entire team!
October 4th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Managing a team, large with many levels or small, is much easier than your post would indicate and the skills involved are really quite simple.
The goal of leading or managing people is to unleash each employee’s full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment on their work and organizational goals. A manager cannot order employees to do this since that would demotivate and demoralize them. The way to do it is to meet their basic human needs to be heard and to be respected. Ordering employees around like robots will just demotivate and demoralize them thus denying you the benefit of their full capabilities.
A manager can only meet these two needs by listening intently to employee complaints, suggestions and questions and responding appropriately and in a timely manner to them. Employees will tell their manager what they need to do a better job if they trust their manager and the manager gains that trust by listening and responding respectfully. The more the manager listens and responds, the more trust the manager will gain. As this continues, employees will become more committed to their work and will unleash more of their capabilities.
If continued and if employees are given more than enough opportunities to be heard as well as given very respectful responses, they will develop a strong sense of ownership of their work, strong trust of their manager, very high morale, and will literally blow away any competitors.
I developed and proved the above technique in a 30+ year career of managing people. I made every mistake possible, but learned how to fix them and eventually succeeded in turning around four different management disasters.
To learn more about how to manage people, please read these Leadership Articles starting with the article “Leadership, Good or Bad”.
Best regards, Ben
October 7th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Sorry that I did not get the link to the articles to show.
That link is http://www.bensimonton.com/articles.html
Best regards, Ben