If you've just been promoted to a managerial position but lack the necessary experience in managing teams and projects, you're in the right place. This article aims to help new managers adapt to their roles and manage their teams effectively. We'll also highlight the key traits of a successful manager that will help you advance in your company ahead of your competitors.
Do you want to be a successful and well-liked manager but lack the experience? I have prepared a list of essential leadership qualities that will make managing your team easier and more effective.
1. Leadership
A successful manager isn't the elegant figure portrayed in dramas, spending most of their time in a luxurious office with a secretary, merely signing routine papers. The reality is quite the opposite.
A manager is a leader who is involved in every detail of the production process and shoulders all the responsibilities.
For example, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, spends more than 14 hours a day in the company, personally inspecting its facilities, and sharing moments of success or failure with the workers whenever possible.
A leader-manager possesses charisma and a strong presence that inspires others. Their role extends beyond issuing orders; they stay close to the workers to ensure they remain motivated.
Additionally, a successful manager maintains discipline within the company by imposing their authority and being at the forefront of the team.
The closer you are to the employees, the better they will respond to instructions.
2. Clarity and Credibility
In the past, management was more authoritarian, sharing only minimal information with employees. Now, the rules have changed.
A manager is expected to share more details with their team. Clarity is the key to achieving positive results. The absence of realistic goals and a clear future direction for the company negatively impacts employees, as not being engaged in a clear project plan increases stress and reduces productivity.
A successful manager's project shouldn't be ambiguous or require tasks to be completed without clear goals and role distribution.
Otherwise, the company will experience chaos, with everyone trying to evade responsibilities and rely on others.
3. Effective Communication
Effective communication is your magic key to being a well-liked manager. It helps you assign tasks and provide feedback without personal bias. Even if you scold or criticize employees for their shortcomings in a smooth manner, most will accept your feedback naturally. A manager must be cautious in their communication with the team, paying attention to every phrase used, whether in direct communication or via email.
Remember, a manager's role is to provide instructions and feedback in a healthy environment, which improves working conditions. It's also advisable to adopt an open-door policy to hear complaints and suggestions, keeping you more connected to the company's atmosphere and improving productivity.
4. Active Listening
The significant role of active listening to the team's suggestions in managing the project effectively is often overlooked. Listening goes beyond just hearing; it involves fully understanding what the other party is expressing.
Avoid distractions during meetings, and don't hesitate to ask for clarifications or pose questions to gather more information.
This way, employees feel their feedback is taken seriously and valued by management, enhancing a collaborative work environment and team spirit.
If you manage a medium-sized company, investing in a communication unit is advisable to receive suggestions and communicate well with employees regularly.
5. Creative Thinking
A successful manager is open to all suggestions and provides space for the team to present creative ideas. They know their role is not just to ensure a healthy work environment but to motivate individuals to give their best to achieve the company's goals.
Freedom fuels creativity, so managers should avoid restricting possible solutions. Instead, they should bet on the creative thinking of their team.
Trusting employees' abilities will inevitably produce innovative solutions that benefit everyone.
A creative manager thinks outside the box when dealing with company challenges and works to instill the same culture in the team.
A creative environment is usually healthy and motivating for production.
6. Having a Vision
A successful manager must work on good planning, defining tasks, and setting a timeline with clear priorities. They should also develop an ambitious program based on realistic goals that match the company's size and distribute roles according to each person's abilities, enhancing productivity and skill development.
When employees clearly understand the manager's vision, they are more willing to engage effectively in the company's program and strive to achieve the set goals within the given timeframe.
7. Believing in the Team
Believing in your team is the most crucial step to boosting productivity. Your role is not just to direct and advise but to help them see the company's challenges as enjoyable.
Ensure to instill confidence in employees so they take responsibility more personally. The more they feel valued, the more they will sacrifice to achieve the goals.
Believing in individuals drives them to view their professional duties as personal challenges rather than routine work for a salary.
Also, people leave managers, not jobs, so it's essential to prevent frustration from spreading within the team by providing appropriate moral support and building trust.
8. Decisiveness in Decision-Making
The manager must be highly decisive. Regardless of their collaborative nature, they should retain the upper hand in making decisions and resolving conflicts in the best way possible.
In management science, conflicts within the company indicate that it is on the right path.
Competition, even if sometimes unfair, is expected, and the manager's role is to prevent conflicts from escalating and keep them within the company.
Final decisions should be firm and unequivocal, especially regarding administrative aspects and role distribution, though production-related decisions can be reviewed based on results.
9. Emotional Intelligence
A manager with emotional intelligence responds quickly and rationally. They have an uncanny ability to read others' emotions and control their own reactions. This intelligence helps maintain long-term professional relationships and prevents conflicts from escalating in the workplace.
The manager strives to please everyone and maintains a personal distance from all team members.
Emotional intelligence allows you to manage the entire team smoothly and coordinate among its members. No matter how much team members conflict, you remain the reference point, with everyone trusting and respecting your decisions.
10. Optimism
Working in a highly competitive environment means you might achieve negative results or delay some projects. This is part of the game, but your reaction to loss distinguishes a successful manager from a failure. The latter feels like they're on a sinking ship and quickly resigns in search of a lifeline. However, a successful manager doesn't give up on negative results but sees them as a personal challenge worth sacrificing for. You must be optimistic; you can't expect employees to put in their best effort if you don't believe in the company's project and its ability to achieve set goals.
11. Flexibility
Strategic planning always requires having alternative plans ready. This makes the project resilient and ensures continuity. Also, providing a flexible work environment ensures maximum productivity, especially when working with a young and ambitious team.
An ideal manager's role is to outline goals and timelines, leaving the team free to set their work schedule according to their preferences.
Companies that offer more flexible work schedules have become more attractive to creative and professional employees.
12. Ability to Influence
All great leaders share the ability to influence and guide others.
A manager should always advise and guide employees in all aspects of life. Never miss an opportunity to speak to them with a brotherly tone filled with emotions and motivation.
Employees naturally tend to obey an inspirational manager, seeing them as a role model rather than just a boss. Therefore, don't hesitate to share your personal story, especially if you built your success from scratch.
13. Compassion
A successful manager often appears to the public as the most decisive and authoritative, but reality shows that a well-liked manager is more inclined to listen to employees and empathize with their needs inside and outside the office.
For example, as the company grows and sets bigger goals, employees often experience burnout and mental exhaustion, leading some to consider leaving.
If the manager isn't close to the employees and aware of their feelings, they might lose the best talent, eventually leading to the company's downfall.
It's also good to reward diligent employees with gifts like paid trips, additional vacations, or financial bonuses.
When employees feel appreciated and the company cares about their contributions, they'll give more.
14. Continuous Learning
Most managers, once seated in their positions, become arrogant and stop personal development.
Management is a comfort zone for failures and a stage of great challenges for the ambitious, so the choice is yours.
Industries and management arts are constantly evolving. Regardless of experience, a manager should always be open to new ideas to stay current and enhance their career.
Fight to leave your comfort and safety zone, as stopping learning new skills could destroy your career.
15. Passion
Success in your career and passion are intertwined. You can't achieve any success or realize your vision for a project without a deep love for your work.
Passion is one of the most important traits of a successful manager, as it gives you the enthusiasm to continue and encourages you to make sacrifices for the project's success. Most managers lack passion and treat the position as a given, without a real drive for development. Worse, some see the managerial role as a chance to rest with a good salary and minimal effort, which is against all management and leadership theories.
A manager's lack of passion negatively impacts employees, encouraging laziness and resulting in the least possible return for the company.
You can't expect a simple worker under work pressure and low salary to make sacrifices while the manager is stuck in routine and lacks motivation.
Conclusion
There's no ready or magical recipe for becoming a successful manager. It involves practice and gaining experience. Learning management skills requires courses and spending long hours reading books, so developing as a manager is similar to learning any other life skills through experience.
