What does it take to become a good people manager?
Posted on 20th March 2023 at 10:01
Contributed by Laura Hunt, MCIPD, HR Partner
One of the most common areas that HR Leaders are asked to help support is the development of people managers. We see the same pattern time and time again, someone becomes a specialist in their field, the expert and go-to person, they then get a promotion and suddenly they are responsible for managing and developing a team with no clue of how to do it.
What it takes to be a good people manager is to try to truly understand the needs of the people who look to you for the answers, you need to be the one to inspire people to find and use their own strengths, to build their confidence and to believe in themselves, to some this comes easy, to others this takes a bit more work.
Here are a few ways that you can achieve this:
Be an inspiration - while some managers may seem by nature to be more inspiring than others, it can be developed. “Be more inspiring” can seem like an unattainable goal—and one you don't have much influence over. But when you know what your employees find inspirational and work toward embodying those things, you can boost your inspiration factor big time.
Be positive - negativity breeds negativity. A workplace can be hugely influenced by one or many team members. Positivity in mindset, behaviours, language and actions can have a huge impact on our personal lives, business environments and the results we and our teams achieve.
Create trust - being honest and authentic is critical to developing genuine relationships and building real trust. The speed of change is normally directly proportional to the level of trust people have in their line managers.
Have integrity - own your mistakes or failures, and openly discuss how you’ve learned from those experiences. Not only does this show your commitment to authenticity, but it also displays that you hold yourself accountable and that you expect the same from your team.
Encouragement - encouragement is not praise. Done well, encouragement can lead to success for an employee; at which time praise is appropriate. You see, encouragement is the act of providing positive feedback that focuses specifically on effort and/or improvement, rather than specific outcomes. Praise is given when success has been achieved.
Coach your team to discover choices - when you observe an employee frustrated, first reinforce the confidence you have in them based on previous accomplishments, skills and behaviours. Start asking them questions that will help them see how to become “unstuck." Ask enough questions for them to develop their own options on how to become successful. A little coaching can go a long way.
Give timely feedback – employees should receive information about how they're doing as timely as possible. If improvement needs to be made in their performance, the sooner they find out about it the sooner they can correct the problem. If they have reached or exceeded a goal, the sooner they receive positive feedback, the more rewarding it is to them.
Be consistent – being consistent is important because when your team members know what to expect, they know how they need to work and behave to reach a positive outcome. If your team members need to play the guessing game about what you need from them, they will waste time trying to cover all of the potential options, or doing rework.
Tagged as: #hr #peoplemanager #hrconsultancy
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