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#Leadership : 5 UnSpoken Rules of Being a #Manager that No One Tells You About…You’ll be on the Receiving End of More Information Than you Want. Use that Privilege Wisely.

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After many hours of hard work, your employer made you a manager. For the first time in your life, you have several employees reporting to you. You’re excited to make your mark and take your career to the next level. And you should be–your company has recognized that you have leadership potential, and they’re giving you an opportunity to shine.

1) YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT, SO USE IT WISELY

As a manager, you are either loved or hated, but never ignored. It can be an uncomfortable situation to be in, even if one of your goals is to be more visible to the company leaders and your team. When you are in the spotlight, people are watching you and forming opinions about you. That means they’re reading your words, actions, and gestures more closely than they were before.

To be clear, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You do not need to change your personality or be a work martyr (in fact, doing so can hurt your performance.) You should, however, acknowledge the impact of your new powers, and see it as an opportunity to define your work culture.

For example, one of the authors of this article, Terra, is a single career mom. On Fridays, she’ll often have to leave for midday elementary school events. When she says to her team, “I’m leaving for Jake’s Halloween party at school, and I’ll be back in two hours,” she is telling them that she values work-life balance and family, and giving them implicit permission to do the same. If she is not upfront about where she needs to be, her team might not realize that it’s acceptable for them to leave work from time to time for family obligations.

Related: How I built a more intelligent work culture than me 

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2) YOU’LL HAVE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR COWORKERS THAN YOU WANT

You’ll also find that as you become the go-to source for complaints, you’ll hear things you never thought you would. You’ll listen to accounts of workplace dramas, or even allegations against one of your coworkers. You might also find that you’ll receive complaints about subject matters outside of the office. Employees will come to you about their personal troubles–from health issues to breakups.

As a manager, it’s not your job to solve all of your employees’ problems. There may be occasions when it’s appropriate for you to take charge of the situation, but other times you need to direct them elsewhere. The key is understanding which situation warrants what treatment. You might have to use trial and error to gain this insight, but just be aware that whatever actions you take can have a broad impact on the company.

Related: Stop trying to be friends with all your coworkers, and do this instead 

3) YOU’LL SPEND MORE TIME THAN YOU WANT ON LOW PERFORMERS

When you start managing people, you’ll distinguish your high performers from your low performers. If you’re not careful, you can spend far too much of your time on the latter. That’s why it’s important to identify whether their issues are a matter of capability, skills, or knowledge–and whether it’s something they can overcome. If you don’t think they can change (and you’ve given them plenty of opportunities to prove themselves), then you should think long and hard about whether you should keep them in your team. After all, the time that you’re spending on fixing that person’s mistake is the time you’re not spending developing (and empowering) your high performers.

However, if you believe that they can improve, think about incorporating “coachable moments” in your day-to-day interactions with them. These are on-the-job situations when you can offer feedback in real time. Mollie, for example, ensures that when she is explaining something to a new employee or a low performer, she can point to what a high performer in her team has done. This way, not only is she giving her star employees the recognition they deserve–she is steering her low performing employees towards becoming a high performer (rather than berating them for their mistakes.)

Related: This is the emotionally intelligent way to fire someone

4) YOU’LL BECOME THE DESIGNATED EXPLAINER

The job of the manager is to translate strategy into the day-to-day actions of their team. You’ll find yourself consistently reiterating the company’s strategy and goals, and explaining the connection between the two. At first, you think you’re fine with this arrangement; after all, you know the answers! Then one day it happens: no matter how often you’ve repeated the company’s new priorities–someone in your company still doesn’t get it and asks you to explain it for the millionth time.

Unfortunately, this is one job requirement you’ll just have to weather. And just as people will come to you bearing their personal problems, they’ll also ask questions that you might not know the answer to (for example, issues around HR and benefits.) As a manager, you should have enough knowledge of company policy to answer these questions at a high level, but if it’s something beyond your area of expertise–make sure that you direct their queries to someone who knows the answer.

5) YOU MIGHT FEEL ALONE FROM TIME TO TIME

Sometimes, being a manager means holding on to information that no one else can know, which can be isolating. Sometimes it means being at odds with other managers when it comes to resource allocation. And sometimes, you’ll face circumstances you never imagined you’d be in.

You might be tempted to share these information with your employees. That’s what you used to do, after all. But as managers, we know that at times, it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep specific information confidential. If you must talk about it to someone–try to find an external mentor that you trust. That way, you can maintain your composure at work without violating your obligations as a manager.

Being a manager involves a lot more than just taking on more responsibilities–in fact, it’s a whole new job in and of itself. By being aware of these five points, you can have a plan for tackling potential challenges before you face them. Just understand that there might be instances where you don’t get it right the first time, and that’s okay.

Terra Vicario is the chief marketing officer at Viventium–a cloud-based software and HR software solution. Mollie Lombardi is the co-founder of Aptitude Research Partners–an independent research-based analyst and advisory firm.  

 

FastCompany.com | August 8, 2018 | BY MOLLIE LOMBARDI AND TERRA VICARIO 5 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : 3 Ways to Guide Your Employees Toward Empowered Decisions…Traditional Top-Down Management can Create a Single Point of Failure within Each Department: a Middle Manager Held Accountable for his Team’s Projects and Products.

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According to a Harvard Business Review analysis released in September, U.S. companies are wasting more than $3 trillion every year on excess bureaucracy and management — which is equivalent to 17 percent of our country’s GDP.

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That’s an astonishing amount of money, and I believe one of the keys to reversing this trend is addressing a structure that has been an American business mainstay for decades: the corporate ladder.

Today, traditional top-down management can hold companies back. It slows down decision-making, holds back brilliant talent from making an impact and can create an unnecessary single point of failure within each department: a middle manager who is held accountable for delivering all directives and approving all of his or her team’s projects and finished products.

Related: “What Happens When You Empower Employees Instead of Micromanage Them?”

Now that many mass communication and collaboration tools exist to facilitate real-time company-wide work, it’s time to remove the excess layers of approval from your business and thoughtfully empower each individual contributor to take action based on his or her skills and capabilities. Here’s how:

1. Modernize your company through empowerment.

In today’s fast-paced world, a company’s decision-making process needs to be streamlined, swift and agile. The traditional corporate hierarchy hampers all of these things. Its numerous layers cause traditional companies to move at a snail’s pace when making decisions and reacting to market conditions.

Embracing employee empowerment won’t just accelerate your company’s rate of innovation; it will lead to happier teams and attract free-thinking and creative job-seekers to your brand.

That’s important because many of those job-seekers will be millennials. In one study,  76 percent of millennials surveyed reported being more satisfied within a creative, inclusive work culture, while only 28 percent felt that the companies they worked for were making full use of their skills.

The message? You currently have a huge opportunity to attract these future all-stars.

Related: “3 Steps That Will Empower Your Employees to Act Like CEOs”

Not that that opportunity will be easy: It takes hard work and dedication to create a culture of autonomous, empowered employees — and that certainly won’t happen overnight. My organization, Lifion, is devoted to achieving this type of atmosphere in our own workplace, and we are excited to help others do the same as we learn what works and what doesn’t.

These three strategies are our focus areas as we progress on this journey:

1. Showcase your mission, vision and values early and often.

An alarming 61 percent of employees say they don’t know their company’s mission. How can these individuals ever feel empowered to make smart decisions without first seeking approval from a manager?

Go out of your way to make your mission, vision and values apparent to your entire team. These three foundational elements describe what you do, where you want to go and how you want to get there — and if employees don’t intimately understand them, empowered autonomy is nearly impossible to achieve.

Put up posters in your office that highlight your values. Frequently refer to your vision when interacting with your team. And post your mission statement on your website for the entire world to see. Then, take it a step further by building tools that help your employees assess whether they’re successfully embodying these principles.

For example, we’ve created surveys of self-reflection for our team that break down our organization’s values into simple bullet points and ask how frequently employees believe they practice each concept.

 

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2. Develop a decision framework. 

A decision framework teaches employees how to make decisions that benefit the company without first seeking approval from their  managers. In its most basic form, the framework can be set up like this: If you have high confidence that your initiative will be successful — and the actions you want to take are low-risk — go ahead and make the decision. However, if you’re looking to make a high-risk decision that you have low confidence in, make sure you talk it over with other people and seek approval.

Of course, not all situations are cut and dried, so there should be a gradient of low-, medium- and high-impact/confidence built in.

The key to instilling this framework is to lead by example. Articulate your thought process to your team when you make a decision. This will build their confidence and show (not tell) them how to act autonomously. As a bonus, in doing this, you’ll be coaching your younger employees to become better leaders themselves. Ninety-one percent of millennials aspire to be company leaders, so they’ll appreciate this training.

3. Shrink the approval process.

If employees are accustomed to seeking managerial approval before taking action, it’s going to take a little time to break them of this habit. Consider this a weaning process in which they learn what types of initiatives are guaranteed to be approved and which ones tend to require discussion.

When employees come to you seeking approval during this transition period, ask them why they’re feeling unsure about their project, and then provide your input on whether you agree with their concerns. Eventually, this will help them understand your thought processes and priorities, making them more capable of anticipating what does and doesn’t require approval.

When approvals occur only on an as-needed basis, key decisions and pivots won’t be delayed — and this will lead to growth. A recent study shows that when employees are given the autonomy to make decisions, the companies they work for grow four times faster than companies with traditional management structures. These companies also experience a third of the turnover.

Related: “What Bad Managers, Good Managers and Great Managers Do”

In modern times, the traditional corporate hierarchy can be highly inefficient and wasteful. The business world moves a lot faster than it used to, so it’s essential for today’s companies to streamline their decision-making processes as much as possible — and thoughtfully empowering each individual contributor is a giant step in the right direction.

Instill your values and goals in your employees, and empower them to make decisions that propel your company into the future.

Entrepreneur.com | December 23, 2016 | Amit Maimon

 

#Leadership : Leading Horizontally Could Take You to The Top…To Advance to a More Senior Management Position, the Ability to “Play Well” With your Peers is Vitally Important –Meeting your Targets is Not Enough.

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In this article, we will suggest three keys ways to work more effectively with your colleagues and perhaps, change the types of relationships you are having in the workplace.

business people shaking hands make deal and sign contract

Effectively leading horizontally is likely to increase your sphere of influence within your organization, enhance your productivity, better the organization, and it may just result in you experiencing more job satisfaction.

Over the years, scholars and business journalists have written several articles and books on how to “manage up” in the context of organizations – specifically how to manage relationships with supervisors. For example, see Karl’s recent blog post . Our bosses naturally want to work with us since we help them, solve their problems, and in our more lucid moments, accomplish seemingly unattainable feats.   It goes without saying that our first responsibility as a manager is to the people that work for us. There are also countless books and articles about how leaders within organizations can mobilize employees to fulfill a vision. Each of these situations requires individuals to manage a vertical relationship.

 

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The thing is that you don’t have legitimate power or a superior title over your peers, and they may not even work in your division; nonetheless, you depend on them to successfully complete your job and demonstrate you’re ready for middle and senior management. One could frame the question in the following manner: “How should one lead horizontally?” By leading horizontally, we refer to the ability of individuals to exercise their power of personal influence with people of equal or similar status within their organization.

There are three things to keep in mind when attempting to lead horizontally:

1) Identify precisely what the other person needs from you;

2) Identify ways that the other person can benefit from helping you;

3) Identify ways that you can create a client-server relationship with that person, rather than just a peer, or colleague-relationship of equal status. Underlying these ideas is the notion of trust. To have a healthy and influential working relationship, you will have to cultivate trust by being open and honest with your colleagues.

What does he or she need from you?

Power in any relationship is based on the relative needs interdependent people have for one another. In the workplace, your colleagues need you to fulfill particular tasks at particular times, in particular ways. You probably know the parameters of those tasks, but are you fully aware of how much the other person depends on you? Are you perfectly clear about what it feels like to them when you do your job at the highest level of proficiency rather than the lowest prong of mediocrity? Some people don’t take the time to consider this, but it’s one of the keys to increasing your influence in this relationship.

Generally, people tend to want to return a favor to someone who does something helpful for them. You may not like your colleague, or you may think they are not worthy of your extra effort. Nevertheless, everyone benefits when everyone is working for the betterment of the company. You are also more likely to be viewed as a team player by many of your co-workers, particularly your superiors. This is particularly true if your manager knows that you and the other person don’t necessarily get along very well.

Further to this point, the question you want to answer in relation to your counterpart is the following: “What might I do to make your job easier?” We are suggesting you ask this very question. They will often be surprised, perhaps even pleasantly surprised because they have never heard it before. This approach will provide you a much better understanding (not just base knowledge) of your colleague’s task, and his or her perspective on your role in the larger scheme of the work that needs to be done. In many instances you’ll find that people will reciprocate, the consequence of which is that your job becomes easier by making someone else’s job easier. The concept is basic, but without knowing the strengths, weaknesses, systems, and needs of certain colleagues and your organization, you might as well be playing proverbial “battleship”.

How might he or she benefit from helping you?

It goes without saying that people are motivated mostly by self-interest. The crucial question on this point is: “how might this person benefit from helping me?” Now, this may require some creative thinking on your part, but it could be very much worth the effort. In some ways this is the opposite side of the same coin discussed above. In this instance, it’s not you helping them directly – it’s you convincing that person that cooperating with you will inure to the benefit of their job, or overall responsibility. An example might be as simple as telling your supervisor that an individual was instrumental to your completion of a project and you would like to make sure he or she is commended appropriately. Not only might this help that person receive a better job evaluation, but in taking such steps, you could generate good will between the two of you, your supervisors, and your departments.

 

How can I create a server-client relationship?

Finally, begin to view your colleagues as “internal customers or clients.” This requires a major shift for most people. Have you heard the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt”? The more familiar and comfortable we are with people, the more we tend to take them for granted. This may manifest itself through having a more careless attitude, procrastinating on routine projects, paying less attention to detail, etc. The behaviors one typically exhibits to an authority or “bill payer” in the corporate context is often, and naturally, very different than the behavior exhibited to the person in the office next door. The natural impulse to treat internal people with less care should be resisted, and instead, treat them more like you would a client.

When you actively choose to view your colleagues as clients with their own needs, goals, and idiosyncrasies, you are likely to become more tolerant of their behaviors. This doesn’t mean that you have to simply accept their behaviors, but it is more productive if you accept that you must find a way to work peacefully with this person. It is unproductive to allow communication channels to become blocked and otherwise ineffective. This will do nothing more than increase strife in your organization while simultaneously decreasing collegiality, effectiveness, and work efficiency.

Effectively leading horizontally is likely to increase your sphere of influence within your organization, enhance your productivity, better the organization, and it may just result in you experiencing more job satisfaction.

Karl Moore, Ph.D. is associate professor at Desautels Faculty of Management and associate fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

 

Forbes.com |  May 10, 2016 |  Karl Moore CONTRIBUTOR