What makes an effective manager?
Effective management has always been a key part of working life for employees. If sufficient management is lacking, it is easy for teams to lose motivation, enthusiasm, and productivity, which can lead to professionals seeking new opportunities. The relationship between a manager and their reports has a direct impact on the morale and success of the team.
It is often said that people don’t leave businesses, they leave managers, which is why it is so important to get this relationship right. If an individual doesn’t feel supported, or can’t have open and constructive conversations with their manager, it is likely that they will get frustrated in their role. This will have a flow-on effect in regards to their performance at work.
A manager is not only responsible for a team’s output, but they are also responsible for supporting the individuals within their teams. This means understanding what drives and motivates them, what their strengths are, and how to guide them in areas they need to develop. Great leaders are good communicators and display a high level of emotional intelligence.
So, what are some of the behaviours that a good manager displays and what should managers be doing to encourage the best possible performance from their team?
How to be a good manager
Being a good manager is all about continuous learning. This means for yourself and the people that report into you. Everybody is different, so you should be aiming to constantly develop your communication skills, adapting the ways you are motivating people, and improving the working relationships within your team, and externally.
Successfully managing people and making your team members feel as though they are doing a good job is key, but it is also very important to invest your time in the personal progression and development of your team. Utilising performance reviews productively can ensure that the development of individuals in your team continues, in line with their career aspirations.
Here are our top tips for becoming a good manager, based on the positive qualities of effective leaders.
Communicate clearly
When leaders are good communicators, they are better able to manage their teams. The delegation of tasks, conflict management, motivation, and relationship building (all key responsibilities of any manager) are all much easier when you are a strong communicator. Strong communication is not just the ability to speak to people, but to empower them to speak to each other. Facilitating strong communication channels is key.
Listen
A central part of communication is being able to listen. As a manager, a key part of the role is to provide support to employees working within a team. The ability to listen and understand the wants, needs, and concerns of your team, and the individuals who report into you, forms an important part of your responsibilities. Everyone within a team should feel that they have a voice and that their opinion will be listened to.
Make decisions
Being decisive is fundamental to effective management. Employees will look to their manager to make decisions on how to progress projects, solve issues, and steer the team towards its goals. The ability to give clear direction to a team and make key decisions can set a good manager apart from a mediocre one. The inability to make decisions can be indicative of a poor manager and can lead to a lack of confidence within a team.
Show trust in your employees
Effective managers are always good delegators. They can distribute tasks to their team as well as ensuring that their own time is well used for management issues and important tasks. Employees that feel trusted are better placed to achieve their potential and are given an incentive to ensure that they perform well. In a team, it’s important to build mutual trust between line managers and team members, as this will enable delegation to happen more effectively.
Set a good example
Employees are looking for a leader that they can look up to and, down the line, emulate. However, for employees to buy into the direction of their manager, they need to respect them professionally. By setting a good example, proving skills and knowledge, and being a high achiever, a manager can gain the professional respect of their employees and ensure that they have the backing of the team.
Protect the team
As a leader, it falls on you to take responsibility for the success and failures of their team. However, a good leader shares the successes and absorbs the failures. Empowering the team to drive for success and sharing any wins is an important trait. More importantly, is taking responsibility when mistakes are made and team goals are not met. Leading from the front. Showing the team that you are willing to step in for them when things get tough is all part of effective management.
In a team environment, there are many different variables that can alter the way you work with people. Whether you are the head of a team, you are responsible for a small or a global team, you will need to be considerate of the different people that report into you. Unique personalities can change a team dynamic, and learning how to work with different people is what makes a good manager.
For more advice on developing your team, browse our development and retention articles. Alternatively, get in touch with your local Michael Page office today to discuss your career options.
What makes a good manager?
Finding, keeping, and developing great people isn’t easy, but finding, keeping, and developing great managers is even harder.
What both employees and employers expect of managers has changed dramatically in recent times, with the rise of remote work, and the need for stronger soft skills, and better staff support. As new styles of management emerge, we need to revisit what we expect of managers and how we develop them to be their best.
In this blog, we combine research from Google with our own research at Culture Amp to explore what effective management is and uncover the 11 essential traits of a good manager.
A new breed of managers: Project Oxygen
Tech giant Google is a leader in the space of redefining the role of managers. They deliberately decrease the level of power and authority managers have over employees. “Managers serve the team,” says Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Managers aren’t focused on punishment or rewards but on helping clear blocks and inspiring their teams.
Google’s Michelle Donovan, Director of People Operations, posed the question: What if everyone at Google had an amazing manager? So Google embarked on a new project to understand what that would look like.
“Having a good manager is essential, like breathing. And if we make managers better, it would be like a breath of fresh air,” Donovan says, as quoted in the book Work Rules.
Having a good manager is essential, like breathing. And if we make managers better, it would be like a breath of fresh air, — Michelle Donovan Director of People Operations, Google
To accomplish this, Google first identified the best and worst managers. They discovered that the teams who worked for the best managers reported:
Career decisions were made fairly and performance was fairly assessed
The manager was a helpful advocate and personal career objectives could be met
Work happened efficiently. Decisions were made quickly, resources were allocated well, and diverse perspectives were considered.
Team members treated each other with respect and worked transparently.
They were involved in decision-making and empowered to get things done.
They had the freedom to balance their work and personal lives.
They verified manager impact by tracking employee performance against people who switched between teams. They consistently found that employees in teams with better managers were more satisfied.
In order to learn what made good managers successful Google conducted double-blind interviews with managers. From the interviews, Google identified eight common traits of high-scoring managers.
Eight common traits of high-scoring managers
Be a good coach Empower the team and do not micromanage Express interest/concern for team members’ success and personal wellbeing Be very productive/results-orientated Be a good communicator – listen and share information Help the team with career development Have a clear vision/strategy for the team Have important technical skills that help advise the team
Project Oxygen’s results aren't particularly surprising, and Google was similarly underwhelmed by their findings.
The data and insights team at Culture Amp took these findings one step further. They conducted research with our customers and reviewed current academic and practitioner research. We found three more crucial behaviors:
Emotional resilience: a manager’s ability to lead through change Fair treatment: treating employees fairly and encourage diversity Overall effectiveness: focusing on progress, not just results
The 11 traits of a good manager
Our team combined Google’s thoughtful results with the data Culture Amp’s customers provided to create the definitive list of qualities that define great managers.
1. Caring
Caring managers take time to get to know the individuals in their team. They’re genuinely interested in a team member’s success and personal wellbeing, They regularly check in with people about their lives, both at work and outside it.
2. Coaching
Good coaches focus on developing the people they work with as well as getting the job done. They ensure they have regular 1-on-1 meetings with team members and encourage them to present solutions to problems, rather than solving problems for them.
3. Communicating
Managers become great communicators by being good listeners. They allow time for others to speak. They have a clear understanding of the organization’s vision and share it with the people in their team in a way that motivates them. They keep their team up-to-date on what’s happening in the organization.
4. Development
Managers who show a genuine interest in employees’ career development acknowledge improvement and not just deliverables. They take time to discuss their direct report’s long-term career aspirations and help them understand potential career paths within (and potentially outside) the organization.
5. Emotional resilience
How a manager responds to challenging circumstances can have a significant impact on their team. Managers who are emotionally resilient are aware of how their mood affects others. They remain calm and productive under pressure and cope well with change.
6. Fair treatment
Managers who value fair treatment will allocate tasks and set schedules keeping in mind people’s capacity and development goals. They acknowledge good work. They build a diverse and inclusive team and encourage diversity of thought.
7. Fosters innovation
Fostering innovation and empowering their teams to make decisions is how managers can inspire – and learn from failures and achievements. They don’t micromanage people. They encourage innovative ideas and approaches and help people to implement them.
8. Empowering and motivating
Effective managers help people stay motivated to do their best work. They make the people they manage feel valued, supported, and empowered. They feel they’re successful when the employees they manage are successful.
9. Results-oriented
Results-oriented managers ensure performance standards are maintained. They work with team members to help remove blockades and get the team workable outcomes from team meetings.
10. Technical capability
Technically proficient managers add value to their teams. They can roll up their sleeves and work alongside the team when necessary. They empathize with the challenges the team faces and have the necessary skills to help devise solutions.
11. Vision and goal setting
A manager ensures the organization’s vision and strategy are translated into an actionable vision and strategy for the team. They help their reports understand how their role contributes to the organization’s success.
How to hire great managers
It’s all very well to identify the traits we want to see in managers, but recruiting people with the traits we’re looking for can be another challenge entirely.
Google offers these tips for finding great managers:
Assess candidates objectively. Have standard interview questions and a way for interviewers to calibrate their assessments of candidates.
Set a high bar for quality and keep looking until you find someone who adds something new.
If possible, find your own candidates rather than rely on third-party recruiters.
Give candidates a reason to join.
You may already have standard interview questions. If not, it’s worth taking the time to draw up a standard interview question sheet with follow-up questions for interviewing managers.
Example interview questions that can help you find a good manager:
Tell me about a time your behavior had a positive impact on your team. Follow up with: What was your primary goal and why? How did your teammates respond? Tell me about a time when you effectively managed your team to achieve a goal. What did your approach look like? Follow up with: What were your targets and how did you meet them as an individual and as a team? How did you adapt your leadership approach for different individuals? What was your key takeaway from this situation?
Effective development for managers
Many thousands of dollars and hours are spent on employee training each year, but it’s not always easy to quantify its value. Before you start planning training for managers, it’s important to understand how your managers are doing already and where they need support. You may already have some results from an engagement survey that flag leadership as a key driver, which is one data point.
To understand where managers excel and where they could improve, consider conducting a manager effectiveness survey. This survey will give you a clear baseline to work from. Team members can provide anonymous feedback to help managers understand how they’re doing. Managers can see where they’re excelling and what areas to focus on for improvement. It may also uncover - at an organizational level - which kinds of training may have the most impact. You’ll also be able to see which managers are strongest in specific areas, so you can get their support to help with training other managers.
In addition to informing training programs, manager effectiveness surveys are also valuable during times of rapid growth, when employee feedback indicates that managers lack core capabilities, or when there is high turnover.
The survey results will also inspire thinking about ways to develop managers outside of formal training. Once you’ve decided on areas to focus on, and taken some action to help develop managers, you can do another management survey to measure the impact.
Myra Cannon, People Scientist at Culture Amp, wraps it up well with the following sentiment:
“Going from being an individual contributor to a manager can be a big (and scary) leap, and managers need support – not just in the beginning, but as they grow into their own styles and refine their approach over time. Without feedback and guidance on what they can do to improve, managers are left to their own devices to figure things out, often at the expense of the people they manage. It’s getting easier to arm managers with feedback and coaching to boost their ongoing learning and development – and we see the rewards in more engaged managers, and teams, every day.”
22 People Management Skills The Best Leaders Have
22 People Management Skills The Best Leaders Have
Whether you’re leading a large corporation or a small team, you need to have certain people management skills to keep performance and morale high. Below, we’ll go over 22 people management skills that top leaders have and why they’re important to your team.
Think about a leader you look up to. What is it about them that makes them great? Is it the way they’re able to make everyone on their team feel empowered and valued? Is it their incredible knack for devising a compromise that makes all parties happy?
Empathy
Empathy means feeling what someone else feels, or at least, being able to “put yourself in another’s shoes” so you can understand their point of view. Ninety-three percent of employees say they’re more likely to stay with an empathetic employer.
And while 91% of CEOs believe their company is empathetic, somewhere, there’s a disconnect—because only 72% of employees say they work for an empathetic company.
As a manager, you need to show empathy because your direct reports will be coming to you with their problems and concerns. If you respond with empathy, they will feel safe enough to speak up about difficult things. If you don’t, however, that can shut down the communication and ruin any trust you might’ve had with them.
Emotional intelligence
Having emotional intelligence means you can identify what you and others are feeling and manage those emotions appropriately. Don’t think this makes you soft or a pushover. You can be a strong, assertive leader and emotionally intelligent. Further, it can boost your employee retention. According to a 2018 Korn Ferry report, up to 70% of employees plan to stay for five years or longer when their leaders display high EI.
Emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness, acknowledging that the emotions are there and allowing yourself to feel them. Emotions tell you when something’s wrong and you need to change it, or when something’s going well and you need to celebrate it.
When it comes to your team, be conscious of their body language, tone of voice and facial expressions. And of course, it never hurts to ask people how they feel so you can know how to support their needs.
Effective communication
A 2018 report from The Economist Intelligence Unit found that the main culprit for miscommunication is different communication styles. As a manager, you’ll need to know when to shift the way you communicate to better meet the needs of the person you’re talking to.
This might be the most important skill for effective people management. As an example, our people analytics research found that when it comes to preferred channels of communication, people fall within four categories: seeing, hearing, reading and doing. So if you’re trying to get someone with a “reading” motivation on board with a decision, you need to show them something written, like a report, document or review, before they’ll be convinced.
Obviously, figuring out every team member’s communication style can take loads of time and effort. Thankfully, you can fast track that process: Just have your team take our free F4S assessment!
Conflict resolution
When you’re juggling the needs and desires of multiple people within a team, conflicts are bound to pop up. As a manager, you need to be able to handle these with poise and grace, but that doesn’t mean you need to be the one to “fix” everything.
Sometimes, successful conflict management means playing mediator—creating a safe space for the disagreement to happen respectfully, facilitating by asking questions and then stepping back and letting the disputing parties handle the rest. In the end, a successful resolution will probably involve a compromise, which is where our next people management skill comes into play.
Negotiation
When you’re managing a team, you’ll lean heavily on negotiation skills. That’s because you’re not going to be able to give everyone exactly what they want all of the time. Being able to come to a compromise that all parties are content with is essential to people management.
Delegation
If you fail to delegate, you’ll feel overwhelmed. You have a team for a reason—put them to work! Each team member has something valuable to offer, and it’s up to you as their leader to identify their strengths and assign them the right tasks.
If you find that you’re hesitant to delegate, opting for the “I’ll just do it myself” route instead, try to identify why that is. Sometimes, this can be a sign that you lack trust in your team, or perhaps, you’re just not yet aware of each individual’s strengths.
Listening
Just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean you should do all the talking. One of the most important things a manager can do is to listen to their team. Practice “active listening.” This means staying in the moment when someone is talking to you, focusing on what they’re saying—without jumping forward in your head to the moment you get to respond.
Gratitude
Research shows that gratitude is beneficial in many ways, including boosting your mood and helping you do the right thing. Beyond just feeling gratitude, though, you must practice showing it. Why? Well, many workers feel unappreciated.
In a study by O.C. Tanner, only about half of employees said their leaders acknowledge great work. And when leaders don’t recognize their accomplishments, employees are 74% less likely to stick around.
Transparency
Transparency can make some leaders feel uncomfortable because it means being open and upfront about what’s going on. Take, for example, the social media marketing company Buffer, which espouses a company value of “default to transparency.” Every month, they publish revenue and user numbers on their blog; every time an email is sent between two people on a team, everyone else on their team has access to it too; they even publicly share the salaries of each team member.
Now, Buffer doesn’t have to do these things. So why do it at all? As their CEO Jeff Gascoigne writes for the Buffer blog, "Transparency breeds trust, and trust is the foundation of great teamwork." By sharing salaries, for example, employees can trust that their employer isn’t hiding anything from them, and they can hold the company accountable for paying fair wages.
Integrity
People in authority must set a good example. It's no surprise, then, that integrity is often ranked as the number one leadership trait. In a 2016 Robert Half Management Resources survey of 1,000 professionals, integrity was voted as the most important leadership attribute. And when organizational scientist Sunnie Giles asked 195 leaders around the world to choose the 15 most important leadership qualities from a list of 74, guess which one came out on top? “Has high ethical and moral standards.”
Calm
Bad things happen to even the most conscientious companies (as COVID-19 showed us all). That’s why being a manager who maintains calm even in the most chaotic of times is so essential. When your team is afraid and panicked, they’ll look to you to model to them how they should be reacting. Calm team management is an essential skill even when things are going well; think of it practicing for the real thing.
Encouragement
Want to know one of the top reasons people quit their jobs? Lack of career growth. More than 22 percent of employees quit their job because it lacked career development opportunities, according to the Work Institute’s 2019 Retention Report.
A good manager will know how to help their team members grow both personally and professionally. You can do this by showing an active interest in their development. Ask them about what they enjoy doing and what new skills they’d like to learn. That way, you’ll be able to assign them to exciting projects and connect them with other relevant opportunities.
Inclusivity
No one likes to feel left out. While diversity and inclusion are often talked about together, let’s single out the one managers have control over every day: inclusion. What is it? According to research by Deloitte, inclusion has four elements:
Fairness and respect: People are treated “equitably and with respect.”
People are treated “equitably and with respect.” Valued and belonging: People feel valued by and connected to the group.
People feel valued by and connected to the group. Safe and open: People can speak up without being punished or humiliated.
People can speak up without being punished or humiliated. Empowered and growing: People can grow and do their best work.
So why does inclusion matter? Not only is it that right thing to do, it’s also good for your team. Deloitte Australia found that when teams were led by inclusive leaders, performance went up by 17% and decision-making quality went up by 20%.
Trust
All healthy relationships are built upon a strong foundation of trust. Without it, your team won't feel psychologically safe, and therefore, won't take the necessary risks to grow and improve. Further, without trust, you're likely to micromanage, which kills creativity. If trust is something you struggle with, try team building activities to boost bonding and morale.
Decisiveness
Being able to make decisions quickly is a key element of being a successful leader. But don't equate this with making the "perfect" decisions. Ten years of research from the CEO Genome Project uncovered four behaviors of successful leaders, and one of them is being able to make decisions "with speed and conviction."
As study authors Elena Lytkina Botelho and Kim Rosenkoetter Powell and their colleagues write for Harvard Business Review:
"High-performing CEOs do not necessarily stand out for making great decisions all the time; rather, they stand out for being more decisive. They make decisions earlier, faster, and with greater conviction. They do so consistently—even amid ambiguity, with incomplete information, and in unfamiliar domains."
If you have a hard time making fast decisions, define your goals and values; these can serve as your compass, guiding you to the best choice. Also, create a framework for making decisions, a sort of template you can use again and again to save time and stress.
Motivational
One of the most important people management skills you can learn is how to motivate your team, and you'll likely need to adapt your methods to each individual. That's because everyone is unique in what drives them.
In fact, F4S research has uncovered 48 motivations that affect how people operate—from communication to decision-making to how we feel about rules.
To give an example, we identified three motivations when it comes to where people like to get started in a project: use, concept and structure.
Someone with a high motivation for ‘use’ has a bias toward action — they’re often eager to jump into a project without a plan. If you tell someone with a ‘use’ motivation to "come up with a plan" or "organize a focus group first," you're likely going to demotivate them. Instead, you'll want to use words like "take action" and "implement" to really get them moving.
Want help understanding the complexities of workplace motivation? Use our people analytics tool to discover the hidden motivations that drive your team—and the exact words and behaviors that unlock them.
Balance
Work-life balance is essential if you want to keep yourself and your team happy and healthy. Not only do you need to set your own boundaries between work and personal life, but you should also help your team set them too.
For example, if you want your team to feel refreshed and recharged at work, you could set the boundary of not responding to work emails off-the-clock. You can model this behavior to your team, too, by following this rule yourself.
Research overwhelmingly supports the importance of a healthy work-life balance. Here are just a few findings:
Work-life balance initiatives resulted in increased shareholder returns for Fortune 500 firms (some as high as $60 million per initiative).
Flexible work hours leads to a 10% increase in productivity.
Work-life balance policies result in higher organizational attachment for employees.
Family-oriented policies lower stress and increase job satisfaction.
A study of 527 U.S. companies found that organizations with more work-life balance have higher performance, along with more profit and growth.
Democratic leadership
Leadership skills may seem like an obvious people management skill, but there are so many ways to approach leadership that it can be confusing. While there's no one-size-fits-all approach, when it comes to research, one study, in particular, sheds some light on perhaps the most effective style.
In a 1939 study led by Kurt Lewin, researchers placed children in groups based on leadership style (authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire) and asked them to complete a craft project to see how the leadership styles affected their work. As it turns out, democratic leadership was the most effective; plus, the children preferred the democratic leader over the authoritarian one.
How can you be a democratic leader?
Involve team members in the problem-solving and decision-making process. Allow them to collaborate freely with each other on projects. Participate equally in the work, rather than just telling them what to do.
Humility
Humility is there to keep your pride in check. As a leader, it’s easy to think that your way is the best way, but being humble means being open to being wrong. Listen to your team’s feedback, even when it’s critical, if you want to improve your people management skills and build trust within your team.
Tolerance
Our research has found that a medium-to-high level of tolerance (the ability to be respectful and accepting of differences) is associated with entrepreneurial venture success. There's a lot of benefit to creating a high-tolerance team, including that they can be more innovative because they feel safe to explore. There's a limit to this, though: Don't be so tolerant that you allow bad behavior that ultimately harms your team.
Assertiveness
To balance out tolerance, you need assertiveness. Those motivated by assertiveness are more comfortable telling others what's expected of them, a crucial characteristic of a leader. Though our research has found that successful entrepreneurs have a low to medium level of this particular motivation, assertiveness is positively correlated with profitability. So if increasing profits is your goal, you might value assertiveness more.
Further, if your company has a values-driven culture, assertiveness is essential to reinforcing the expected behaviors of your organization.
Good judgment
As a manager, you’ll be using your evaluation skills in everything from decision-making to performance reviews. To hone your good judgment, get familiar with your organization's goals and team criteria, as well as measures and metrics for success. You’ll also need to address any unconscious biases you might have that could hinder your ability to objectively evaluate the soundness of a decision or the performance of a team member.
Which people management skills do you want to hone?
We’d be shocked if anyone reading this article is nailing all 22 people management skills right now (but if you are, go you!). The truth is, every leader can work on improving their abilities on a daily basis. So pick one skill from this list and get to it!
Need help assessing your strengths and blind spots as a leader? Take our free F4S assessment today.