There are 10 things that a great manager will do differently
1. All great managers have a controlling insight; this will help identify the actions that have the most far reaching impact in almost every situation, and it will also enable managers to guide acts which create better results consistently.
2. A great manager identifies, develops and celebrates what is unique about each individual and what will work for them. In order to do this they will firstly discover what is different about an individual and capitalize on those aspects, and learn how to best integrate those abilities into coordinated action. This will enable individuals to be more accountable, build a strong sense of team spirit; since it gives room for interdependency which makes everyone appreciate each other’s skills, and it also saves time; as they will be making use of natural abilities rather than trying to overcome the weaknesses.
3. A great manager will challenge each individual to excel in different ways, hence assign people into job roles that will give them the opportunity to shine, while avoiding assigning any clashing personalities together.
4. A great manager will take some time out to appreciate each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. To identify these, a great manager will spend a sufficient amount of time outside his/her office doing rounds, observing each staff member’s reaction to situations, listening to what they say and making mental notes about what each of them are excelling at and what they are struggling with.
5. In order to effectively Recognise these strengths and weaknesses, a great manager may ask the individual when their favorite day and worst day of work was during the past few months and get them to start thinking. Thereafter, ask them what exactly they were doing on that particular day and what they liked about those tasks and what they disliked.
6. To be a great manager it is important to emphasize more on the strengths to build self-efficacy; which is the strongest predictor of the ability to set high goals, to persist in the face of difficulties, to bounce back when setbacks occur and achieve assigned goals. However, sometimes focusing on strengths may form a sense of overconfidence within the individual; therefore a great manager will focus on the difficulty and magnitude of the goals that are set.
7. A great manager will also deal with failures in an appropriate manner. They will provide them with relevant training if the issue is due to deficiency of skills or knowledge. Work will be rearranged in a more effective manner so that the inappropriate weaknesses will be rendered. Another tactic a great manager uses on a weak individual is; provide them with a “complimentary partner” who has talents that are strong in the exact departments that they are weak in.
8. It is essential to trigger the individuals to activate their strengths. A great manager will cautiously chose an appropriate trigger, as the right trigger encourages them to preserver in the face of difficulties, while a wrong trigger could shut them down. The most powerful trigger that great managers use is recognition. They also understand that every individual plays to a different audience, thus match the individual to the audience they desire most. It is also important to tailors these triggers according to the each individual’s differences.
9. There are three main types of learning styles, they are categorized as; analysers, doers and watchers. Nevertheless, an individual may have more than one learning style. Hence, a great manager will identify an individual’s learning style/styles adequately in order to help them learn effectively and further improve their strengths.
10. A great manager will always be a leader, and will take the necessary initiatives required to develop their staff within the domains their strengths lie. They do not change a person’s ways and abilities; instead they simply make the best of what they already possess by converting an individual’s talent into performance.
