When you became a manager, who forgot to tell you that your job changed? It happens a lot. You take on a new role, a new promotion, the new pay raise, and suddenly you find out that your new job as a manager is to stop what you did really well that got you the promotion, and now you must take care of people instead. What?! For many, if they had known that, they would have found some other way to get promoted.
In today’s world of expertise versus leadership, those who detest dealing with other people, not to mention leading them, know to choose working in an organization that is either flat or will allow them, instead, to grow in their field of knowledge. For those who aspire to lead, however, know that becoming a manager is a strong position. They don’t know, however, when to start taking care of their people.
When to start caring about people:
Now! Regardless of what you do, if you aspire to lead: start now. You don’t want people to be surprised (in a bad way) that you’ve been selected to be a new manager. You want those you know you to expect that you would not only be a good fit, but be highly successful within the position, even before the opportunity appears. To do that, you need to start evaluating how well you do the following:
Understand how to communicate what people do specifically in relation to the larger organization goals and purpose.
Understand how to find out what motivates each individual you currently work with.
Understand how to look at performance (instead of the inner office politics) of those around you to understand who should be moving up in their responsibilities and career.
Look at the talent that is getting maximized versus the talent that is being marginalized – and speak up about it.
Look ahead and try to foresee what challenges or hurdles may affect your department or team. Start to understand how to prepare for those potential events and dig deeper into how to help others do the same.
Why?
Your future employees will find you to be a successful manager. Your current co-workers will benefit from your leadership and understand why you are selected. Your supervisors will have an easier time selecting you as you are already exhibiting the 5 characteristics of the best managers (according to current Gallup research).
What do your employees want from you?
They want:
To be able to trust that you care and know that you have their back.
To know that you are compassionate and can understand when they need to be treated like a human being rather than a machine.
To experience a stable work environment where negative surprises are minimized, and positive surprises are welcome. As well as an environment where you communicate all the details possible to help them be successful.
To feel hope in the progress of their careers and their organization.
Be recognized now. The best managers – both now and in the future – tend to also be the best brand ambassadors for the organization and know their strengths.
As a brand ambassador, true leaders are the best advocates of what the company produces, the most engaged with coworkers, and have the deepest understanding of the outreach the organization supports.
Knowing their strengths allows these “best managers” to know where they thrive, where they do not, and how to pull in coworkers to round out their teams for the elevated success of all involved.
No leader is well-rounded; their teams are. Start understanding your strengths now. Discover Your Talents with Strength Strategy!
The best managers get to know themselves and their team. You lead a team to success by understanding your team’s capabilities, and by people in positions that play to their strengths while partnering them with people who will overcome their weaknesses. Discover your strengths, and the strengths or your team, with our Strength Strategy course!
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