So just exactly what makes someone a good manager? I think that we could all create a list of the manager skills that we think that a good manager has to have. However, it turns out that a manager is only going to be as effective as their team is. What this means for us is that we have a responsibility to use our manager training find ways to enable our teams so that they will produce more. One way to make this happen is for a manager to build a creative workplace…
Managers Need To Establish An Environment That Builds Your Internal Community
As a manager, you need to realize that at the end of the day, you set the tone. If you want your team to become a high-functioning team, you have to teach others around you how you expect the environment to operate based on how you, yourself, lead by example. You can make this happen by showing your team members the way you welcome new information, encourage people to share ideas, and the way you actively listen and engage. Doing this nurtures high-achieving talent in healthy, positive ways. This helps to create a culture that allows others to follow their own innate curiosities and become leaders themselves as a result.
Find Ways To Champion Your Team’s Career Development
As a manager, you succeed when others succeed. The best thing you can do is to create road maps for your team both collectively, and individually. For each individual team member, you need to have answers to these questions:
- Who are they?
- Where do they want to go?
- What do they want to learn?
You are going to need to have open and honest conversations with them to get a clear sense of how they’re currently feeling and whether or not they are informed about what needs to happen for them to move forward. And the more clarity you can provide, the less likely you will run into career path issues down the road.
Managers Need To Be A Courageous Change Agent
Your mindset as a manager should be one of a “courageous enabler.” You need to be someone who takes charge and embraces the role of being a change agent in support of constructive disruption, ultimately making the environment and those around you operate better and more effectively. As a manager you need to challenge each team member to think critically and push them to constantly learn, improve and do the hard work. Your role is to encourage everyone to view their work through a lens of continuous improvement. Your goal should be to always accelerate, not inhibit, productive change.
Find Ways To Unite Your Team Behind Common Goals
As the manager, you give your team direction. In order to accomplish this, you need to connect the day-to-day work to a larger, shared purpose for everyone within your organization. Every team member needs to feel like a valuable, participating asset sharing in the success of some broader goal. This has to be done all the time, not just during team building exercises. And then, once you define what that North Star is, you need to be the one who ruthlessly prioritizes reinforcing that shared vision in everyday moments.
If you notice, much of your effective leadership comes down to communication. You must acknowledge that, like public speaking, your leadership is a skill. And the more deliberately and intentionally you can practice that skill on a daily basis, the more likely you are to be able to create an inclusive, creative, highly successful environment where each team member thrives.
What All Of This Means For You
It has been said before, but it cannot be said enough. A manager is only as good as their team is. What this means for us as managers is that we need to find ways to get the most out of our teams. A key factor in being able to do this is our ability to create a creative workplace. This is the kind of workplace that will allow our team members to maximize their productivity. All we have to do is to figure out how to create such a place.
Creating a creative workplace starts by having us design an environment that will allow us to build our internal community. Each member of our team is important and we have to find ways to champion their career development. The way that our team is today is not how it needs to be tomorrow and so as a manager you have to find ways to be a change agent. Every team can be successful if you can find a way to get your team to unite behind a common set of goals.
A manager needs to spend their time searching for ways to get their team to rally behind them. Creating an environment in which this can happen is a key way that we can be successful. Creative work environments allow our team to be at their best and this can only help to boost the team’s productivity. Take the time to create the environment that will allow you to get the most out of your team.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™
Question For You: How can you tell if you have been able to create a creative environment for your team?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
As a manager, you can only be as good as your team is. What this means is that it’s your job to search for ways to use your manager skills to get the most out of your team. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. You need to find ways to connect with your team and to convince them that the entire team is better off working towards achieving the same goal. In order to rally the troops you are going to have to use all of your manager training and find ways to get them motivated.