If you want to be successful as a manager you have WAY more to think about than just the work that needs doing. It's a manager's responsibility to deliver work through other people. To do this well, you need to work with and respect each person as the unique individual they are.
People are going to react and respond to you in ways you don't expect, or intend, and that's going to impact their performance. Combine individuals together into a team, and now you're now dealing with a complex system that continually changes, especially when someone joins or leaves. It's your job as the manager to create harmony and deliver progress. Not an easy prospect. Not easy at all.
There's a lot of ground to cover here, but for the sake of brevity and progress let's start at the beginning with a bold statement:
People are human beings, not "resources"
Back in the day, people were considered resources. They were told what to do, how to do it, when to do it, who to do it with and how to think about it while they were at it. Managers knew best, they had all the answers and people were expected to finish their tasks on time and to the standard prescribed. It was the top-down world of the carrot and the stick. I think we were seeing the very tail end of that 'command and control' approach being the predominant mindset back when I started managing in the early 2000's. Your mileage may vary.
The sad fact is though, you can still see remnants of this old-fashioned thinking all around us, in every sector, even today. Sometimes it's just the terminology that lingers. But sometimes it's more than that. Many organisations still have managers who haven't done the work to change their mindset and move with the times at all! Old habits die hard...
You don't need to look far online to read about the epidemic of toxic work environments around the world. Many are saying this is what's driving the great resignation going on right now. We've all heard the saying that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. I believe it's those managers who fail to develop the self-awareness needed to see and treat those they manage as people first and foremost that underpin this trend.
In today's organisations, people want to be treated as thinking, feeling, creative human beings. They want to be respected, supported and appreciated as individuals with unique contributions to make. So what is a manager to do?
I'll dive in more detail into each of these topics in separate posts. In the meantime, to get us started, here are 7 aspects of working with human beings that modern managers can take into consideration if they want people to feel respected, supported, engaged and happy to do their best work.
1. Feelings
We all have feelings. We're all motivated, and go to great lengths sometimes, to feel something, or to avoid feeling something. For example:
- We may strive to recreate the wonderful feeling of success - this is a great gift a manager can help a team member to experience again and again
- We may choose to do things to avoid feelings of pain or disappointment - a manager can create a safe, supportive environment for people to take risks and fail in the service of learning and growth
- We may also choose to limit ourselves to retain a feeling of security or being in control - a manager can help a person to see this may work in the here and now, but what is the cost over the passage of time?
Knowing how team members are feeling can be very useful to a manager. When you know how people really feel, you can begin to provide the right support to help guide them towards great performance.
Knowing how you feel and how to manage your own feelings is obviously important too.
2. Beliefs
Everything we hold as true is a belief. Beliefs are formed by past experiences and may not always be accurate in the present context. The good news is that beliefs can be changed. As a manager, you can help people to challenge and change their beliefs in the service of helping them achieve their goals.
3. Actions
There is much a manager can do to support people in deciding the best way to achieve something. For example, it may be common for those you manage to ask for your advice, or how you would go about whatever they needed to do. Early in my management career I was only too happy to oblige! In fact, this was a big part of the reason I enjoyed the role. I had lots of advice to give and I loved giving it! Happy days. Looking back, perhaps I was showing my inexperience, indulging myself because it made me feel good and I assumed I was being helpful...
Then, one day, years later, I had a horrible comeuppance. Someone I managed was very unhappy indeed. Eventually, I learned from her that (among other things) me offering her advice made her feel I thought she wasn't good at her job. I was stunned, and hurt. Her perception was not the reality. We resolved our differences but I continued to reflect on this for a long while. I began to realise that, by defaulting to giving advice, I wasn't being as helpful as I hoped to be. I knew I had to change my behaviour. A few years later (when I could afford it) I trained as an executive coach. Nowadays I try instead to ask thought provoking questions which help people figure things out for themselves.
This is just one example of how a manager can support (or negatively impact) the actions people take to deliver great work.
4. Wants
The Cambridge Dictionary definition of 'want' is "to wish for a particular thing or plan of action." We may all want different things at different times. In some contexts, managers can do the work to bring people into alignment so that everyone wants the same thing, but even then sometimes that's not possible.
To realise the powerful mistake of ignoring what people want, think about a time you were made to do or accept something you didn't want. Remember how you felt. These are the sort of negative feelings you can provoke in other people when you ignorantly foist things upon them that they don't want. Food for thought.
5. Needs
Do you know what you need? Do you know what others need from you? When was the last time you gave it some intentional thought? When was the last time you explicitly asked people what they need from you? Do you know if they can meet your needs? Do others know if you can meet theirs?
It's easy to think we know what people need, and to assume that others know what we need. But we're probably wrong. And this can lead to problems.
6. Expectations
I refer you to my recent post on this topic!
7. Behaviour
All of the above combine to drive our behaviour in life and at work. As you can see, there are many indirect ways a manager can help to influence positive changes in a person's behaviour. Unfortunately, it's easy for managers to trigger negative changes in a person's behaviour too. Ignorance devoid of effort is no excuse.
If you need to raise a person's awareness about some aspect of their behaviour, before you dive in feet first with well intentioned constructive criticism, perhaps pause for a moment to reflect on possible underlying causes.
More times than I'd like to admit, it has turned out to be my own good intentions/ ignorance/ lack of awareness as the manager that have caused the behaviour I now critique. This has been a sobering realisation! I still get it wrong, even today. I'm now in the habit of pausing when I notice surprising or questionable behaviour to ask what I might have done to contribute towards the situation. I also approach giving feedback very differently as a result.
I'll continue to build this post into a series that more fully explores each topic. In the meantime, I hope it's helped to expand your thinking on what it takes to really support people to do their best in the workplace today.
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