Have you ever wondered what made a good manager or a lousy one. I’m sure you are like me and have had both. Now you are getting promoted, starting your own company, or already have a company and are THAT manager. What successful management skills do you need to lead, motivate, and inspire?

Peter Drucker maintains that to be an effective leader you must focus on one thing at a time. Granted, with today’s technology it appears that we can do many things at a time, but it is a delusion. Studies show that only 2% of all people can actually effectively multitask that leaves the 98% of us in the dust. In fact, your productivity is reduced by 40%. Can we actually afford such a drop?

Encourage innovation. Yes systems and procedures are important, but it is equally or even more important to look for creative and innovative solutions. Tom Peters provides a foundation for creating the exceptional organization by being open and in tune to innovation and grass roots solutions. It empowers everyone.

How do we promote innovation? Encourage a relaxed and flexible work environment, let ideas and solutions flow. Hire for the culture, not only for the specs of the position. Look for people who think out of the box, are a little quirky, have different perspectives, and are diversified in all senses of the word. Look for passion. Why would you want people who really don’t care about what they are doing or for who. Passion produces productivity and energy. Finally, do fun things with your people – it’s not all about work but team.

Build trust in your organization. How can your team work with you if they have no trust or faith in you? Changing the way a person thinks is scary, not many people like change. John C. Maxwell penned it best when he gave us the following solutions.

1. Start with compassion – understand the other person first and try to see where they are coming from.
2. Connect first – Approach your people and get to know them, understand them , look at them holistically, then as team members.
3. Influence the influencers – get to understand the dynamics of your team ,who do people look to or who has taken the mantle of spokesperson. Enlist their help.
4. Address resistance – you can’t change what you can’t see. Draw out in to the open any concerns or disagreements – meet them head on. Answer them in a consistent, positive manner.
5. Equip your people – you are better off with a lot of leaders than followers. Let them have responsibility and power to make decisions and suggestions.

Seth Godin has a great definition for being a good leader and manager; “  A good leader begins by being a good person. But, everyone should be a good person, so let’s add the leader part on top. The leader seeks to go to new places and seeks involvement for people who want to go with them. That combination is key. To see that it is a voluntary action and to be able to describe the possibility of a better future. If you do that and you do it as a good human, for the community, then I think you are a good leader.” He goes on to say something profound, “It’s not about you, there’s somebody else in the room.”

Jack Welsh has some time-tested and wise ideas on managing for greatness.

1. "Everybody's got to feel like a participant. And you find ways to include everybody in the party in some way.
2. "Everybody who works for you must know where they stand, what their boss thinks about them, what the company thinks about them. This idea of false kindness is pure nonsense, pure nonsense.
3. "Treating everybody the same is ludicrous, and I don't buy it. It's not cruel and Darwinian and things that people like to call it. A baseball team publishes every day the batting averages. And you don't see the 180 hitter getting all the money, or all the raises. Athletics is the purest form of differentiation, because it's public. Everybody understands it - the fans understand it, the people understand it.
4. "Businesses don't celebrate enough. I fought that battle for 40 years, celebrate more! At G.E., when we won a big contract, we'd open the bar at five o'clock in the building."

 

I like to end with what Dr. Ken Blanchard writes on Servant Leadership, “I am a big fan of servant leadership. I think vision and direction is the leadership part of servant leadership and operational leadership is the servant part of servant leadership. Vision and direction has to come from the top of the hierarchy. That doesn’t mean you don’t allow people to participate in formulating the vision, but the responsibility for establishing the vision lies with the hierarchy. Once people know where they’re going, then you have to turn the hierarchical pyramid upside down. Now you as the leader serve your people by helping them implement the vision.”