How to Manage Successfully

If you are a BOSS, then you are just telling people what to do, when to do it and you aren’t well liked by your staff.  Oh, they tolerate you, but don’t like or respect you.  If you Manage, then you inform your staff, you listen to your staff and you become someone they know they can count on to have their backs.  And more importantly, they will have yours…

Here’s a list of the top 10 things I think are important to Manage people.

1. Communicate – You have to build a trust within your staff and the only way to do that is to communicate with them.  They have to know that you not only want to know what is going right, but what is going wrong and if you and your staff have good communication going, then no problem will seem too big.
2. Understand – Make sure your staff knows what the procedures and policies are in your company.  Don’t wait until a situation comes and goes and it is handled wrong to point out what should have been done.  Make sure your policies are clear and to the point.  Long, drawn out procedures will only bore your staff and they won’t take the time to learn them.
3. Be Positive – Have you ever heard players or coaches say before a game that they are planning on losing this one?  No, because if you say, then you live it.  Be upbeat at all times.  Don’t let your staff see you down on the company.  This will only bring them to the same thought process and that will cause you problems.
4. Fair to All – I know that it isn’t the most favorite part of your job, but you have to enforce the rules and you have to do so across the board.  We all have had that one employee that just rubbed us wrong and were a little tougher on them than others who we liked.  You have to be a boss to everyone and a buddy to none of them.
5. Empathize – Understand your staff’s situation.  If you have two employees who have applied for the same promotion, understand that one of those people will get it and the other won’t.  Hearing they are not getting the promotion from you, will be better than finding out from the person who did get it.
6. Trust Them – You have to trust your employees.  If you don’t trust an employee, you won’t be a good boss to them and they won’t be a good employee to you.  If you don’t trust that they can do the job or trust what they say, then you should not have hired them in the first place.
7. Education – This is not only for your staff, but for you also.  Things aren’t the same as they were 5-, 10-, 15-, or 20-years ago.  Technology has grown and the way you do things has changed, so you have to change with it.  Manage and learn today.  Be prepared to learn to manage for tomorrow.
8. Make Adjustments – Know your staff’s weaknesses and strengths and adjust your management style for each.  This doesn’t mean show favoritism it means bring out the best in your employees by adjusting how you train them and what types of things you delegate to them.
9. Remember When – Do you remember that one boss you had that was always looking over your shoulder and telling you what you were doing wrong, but never showed you how to do it right?  Don’t be that boss to your staff.   If you have given them the tools they need to succeed and the encouragement to do so, then they will work together and help each other, you and your company succeed.
10. See Your Success – You have to know what you want for you and your staff to be successful and what it takes to get you there.  Once you know that, then your success will come.

The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ -a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’.    E.M. Kelly