People management skills are absolutely critical to anyone who presumes to lead a team to any kind of successful accomplishment, or who wants People to follow them through adversity and challenge. You have to value your People and put them into an environment where they can successfully do their best work every day and be inspired to be a part of a team where winners congregate and lift one another up on the field of battle day in and day out.
Knowing that your People are by far your most valuable asset as you go into battle against your competitors, you realize you need to give your team your best from the start and be a great leader from the first day through the last day. You don’t ever want to have to apologize for being less than a great leader and an investor in the talented people you have recruited for your organization.
Don’t leave it to chance, begin investing aggressively in the future of your team today. Continue to invest tomorrow and the day after and so on. The dividends you will receive for making these investments will be handsome and will make you feel great about choosing to invest in your team.
Give Them Some Room To Operate
Don’t smother your People by making all of the decisions and by solving all of your People’s problems on their behalf. Solving problems for your team is certainly a very strong best practice and a good thing to do, but don’t overdo it! By allowing your team to determine the best way to solve the problems that come up for themselves, and to follow their own best path to a successful outcome, you are building a higher capacity for self-direction in your team.
Provide your team with some space, and a bit of wiggle room, and let them figure out amongst themselves how to solve problems when you can. Give your associates the freedom and autonomy to flexibly produce results in a way that makes the most sense for them, and they’ll learn quickly to become independent thinkers. They gain confidence to solve their own issues proactively and quickly, without guidance or direction from above. I’m not saying that you cannot ever solve a problem for them, but give them plenty of opportunity to try to develop their own problem-solving muscles before you begin flexing your problem-solving muscles on their behalf.
Treat your People like adults, and let them learn to become highly effective by trusting them enough to find their own way to the right outcome, as often as possible. People need chances to learn, and encouragement to get the first few steps outside of their comfort zone. Trust them enough to solve their own problems when they’re ready…
Focus Them First On Winning Together As A Team
Think about the tight connection between polished People management skills and high morale, full commitment, strong motivation, and an unbreakable bond between expectations and accountability. There is a very tight connection between the choices you make, the priorities that you set, and what happens next with everyone on the team. Get on the right side of that, and sharpen your People management capacity and capabilities.
All the technical skills in the world won’t help you and your team to get the work done unless you can inspire the people around you to do their best work, day in and day out. All of the power and authority in the world won’t help you and your team to find your way to success unless every member of the team realizes that they need to help every member of the team win so that they can congregate in the winners’ circle, every day. It’s about helping people to win as individuals by winning first together as a team.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that winning as an individual is great and is to be encouraged. However, businesses are a collection of People who share a collective vision and an abundance of shared collective goals. We need to teach and coach our teams to act like teams and to support their teammates above all else.
Speak In Ways That Demonstrate Your Worthy Intent
Speak with great clarity and speak concisely. You don’t need to spend hours at the microphone to get your points across. Be brief and say what you need to say in a way that can be easily absorbed and easily understood. Employ tremendous candor as you speak with your associates, prospects, and customers, and make it clear that you have their best interests at the top of your priority list. Say what you mean, and always do exactly what you said you were going to do, and people will trust you and follow you. When People sense that you care about them and are willing to make investments in them, because you have worthy intentions, they will lower their guard and join your cause. They will exhaust themselves following you because they believe in you because you have already demonstrated your belief in them.
Be Mindful Of Your Tone And Your Body Language
Pay attention to your tone of voice and your body language when meeting with and speaking with associates. Recognize that communication is about more than the words that have just come out of your mouth. Research demonstrates that around 90% of the context of your conversation (the message received by your associate and by anyone who hears the conversation) rests on the tone of your voice and on your body language. Make sure that the tone of your voice and your body language is sending the same message as the words that are tumbling out of your mouth.
Work Doesn’t Need To Be Drudgery, It Can Be Fun
Keep in mind that the average person in the US often spends about one-third of their life at work. That equates to about 90,000 hours across the span of a work life. For heaven’s sake, should we not ensure that we strike a balance between seriousness about work, and having a little bit of fun at work? I should think so. Find ways to introduce fun and play and camaraderie into the work experience, and into the workplace.
It won’t create a problem, and in fact almost always contributes to higher morale, stronger results, greater accountability, and a significant improvement in the retention of your key talent over time. The best companies have great cultures where their teams learn to win together and have fun while they’re competing and working. There is a time for seriousness, for sure; but, just as importantly there are plenty of opportunities for great leaders to make work a heck of a lot of fun.
An essential element of being a great manager is surrounding yourself with a strong team of committed and highly engaged associates. You need to market your company constantly to the talented people who might want to join your team one day. You need to commit yourself to build the kind of culture that makes people want to stay on your team forever because they are having such a great experience working with their teammates and winning and having fun all of the time.
If you recruit continuously and select your associates with care, and then you invest in them so that they can become their best selves as they fit perfectly with your vision and your culture, you’re going to have a lot of success together and enjoy the experience. You must empower your team to execute on the field of battle and provide consistent results. It’s going to be your excellent management and leadership that makes the difference in the end. Help your hand-picked team to learn and to develop their skills so that one day they may step into your shoes as you move up to bigger and better things.
We hope you’ve found value in these 6 Blog Articles on People Management. We’ve enjoyed bringing them to you. We’ve always believed that NOTHING is more important than selecting and preparing your team for success. We’re as convinced of that today as we ever were. We think it is becoming more of an axiom with each passing moment. Seize this opportunity. Make People Management your top priority for the foreseeable future and see how much success you can lead your team too. Send us a message and let us know how it goes.
Michael is a Master Coach who has been developing Executives and Emerging Leaders for many years. Michael’s Coaching and Consulting firm has five coaches who work with clients all over the world, assisting them in developing their leadership acumen and their Executive Presence. Michael’s team of coaches is located in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota, and the firm works with Business Founders, C-Suite Executives, and Emerging Leaders. Michael and his coaches work with fast-growth companies, often in the technology industry, and his team helps them to narrow the gap between their current state, and where they would love to be in a tremendous future state.
If you’d like more information about Michael Beach Coaching & Consulting visit the website at www.michaelbeachcoach.com, or contact us at info@michaelbeachcoach.com. Michael hosts a podcast about Leadership and how to develop Emerging Leaders, called “What Are YOU Doing?” and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or on Michael’s website.
