Must have for First Time Managers

Purpose:

Should have purpose as well as build purpose within the team.  Purpose fosters alignment across organizations in which thousands of employees are making countless decisions. Purpose aligns team members to the bigger goal of the organization. Without purpose teams go easily go haywire.

Strategy:

Once you have purpose. You need to have a game plan to meet the purpose. Strategy should not only be purposeful and definitive, but very flexible and adaptive at the same time so that it is responding to ever changing environment . It starts results with today and lays path for tomorrow.  Great Managers embrace the purpose and execute the strategy.

People :

Once you have purpose and strategy. You will need people who will embrace the purpose and execute the strategy . The team should willing to work together for the purpose. It is advisable to have a complementary team. So that they are complementing each other to achieve the turnaround.

Measure

What is measured can be managed. As a First time Manager, you should have handle on What is working and What is not? Measuring and monitoring tell you how much progress is made and how much is expected.  Direct feedback from customers and team members will tell where your organization is making progress and where it needs improvement.  Results matter so does measurements.

Empower

Don’t just focus on delegating tasks, rather focus on delegating responsibilities. Goal of a leadership is not to tell employee what to do, rather empower them take decisions and own those decisions.  The key lies in enabling and equipping them as then get out of their way. Our research has found, when people own their decisions they always deliver to your expectation.

Reward

It is more than the compensation ..It is a celebration. As a Manager you must recognize the incremental progress, not just the final result. Research says, when people are appreciated they tend to do more . At the heart of it people want to know they belong to something bigger than themselves . They want to be seen, valued and loved.

Listen

Listening is not just hearing the words. It is also paying attention to nonverbal cues to see how other person may be feeling or thinking. Listening is your monitoring system to discover what is really going on.  Managers can reap myriad real-world benefits from engaging in active listening. With good listening you not only can gain insights, You can build trust and wield greater influence besides improve overall employee job satisfaction.

Communicate

Don’t just transmit information. It is important for a manager to connect emotionally and provide bigger picture of the goal. Communication is critical for building alignment and executing strategy. It is leaders ‘ Information highway” and should flow both directions.  Communication is important in good times and imperative in challenging times.

Anticipate :

Create a vision of future that other cant see. This isn’t just imagination , anticipation is always grounded in the reality of today. Based on the data and trends , you should be able to predict and anticipate that is coming today and tomorrow. The real deal is ..” You don’t guess…..You actually expect and predict”.

Out-centric:

You got be  less egocentric. “I’m the leader and you will listen to me,” approaches aren’t going to work in a tight market made up primarily of millennials. Managers will need to be more “outcentric,” focusing on developing the people and teams around them to be active and valued contributors. The best managers will look at the overarching need, and then build and develop a team to meet that need—with input from the team—instead of dictating what the team needs