A Good Manager

Definition a Good Manager

A good manager is someone who can plan, organize, instruct, and shake over their activities with a dose of leadership. A good manager can motivate people, learn from previous mistakes, and gain respect from a team. A good manager has to understand group dynamics and how best to facilitate employees working together. A good manager will be able to recognize office politics occurring in the workplace between employees. A good manager knows how to bring out the best in his team and that usually requires maintaining a delicate balance between team members personalities. A good manager doesn't require a strategic plan for the next millennium. A good manager pops up all the time, just to check in.

Becoming a Manager

A manger starts out with no knowledge of what to do and depends on other people for advice, help, and motivation, as he gathers experience; he begins to carry his share of the load. He manages his own stuff, so that a supervisor doesnt need to constantly look over his shoulder. Eventually, whether from other people leaving, or his own experience expanding, he knows more than the average person around. Other people now come to him for advice and direction. Naturally, he gains some leadership status as others value his opinions highly. At this point, he may become promoted to the position of a manager, where he starts managing other people. The Skills of a Manager

The most important skill of a manager is vastly different from that of a technical lead. The technical leads primary responsibility is to act as a source of information for other people in the organization. He knows tons of stuff, so other people come to him if they have any questions about what to do now or how to do it. He also helps by giving input into the overall plan or may even be responsible for the direction that the company takes. However, he does not have to worry about the most important skill that a manager needs: the ability to motivate people. Without this skill, all his other skills are completely useless. A plan is useless if there is no one to follow it.

How to be a Good Manager?

Being a good manager you are responsible for what happens at the workplace. Being a good listener, understanding and being firm in what you say whether it is negative or positive. Having respect for yourself and your workers.

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Complimenting your workers when they do a good job at work. Being of assistants when work gets busy and not feeling that you are above any job title to help out a fellow worker. Keep the work environment professional and have no high school type clicks. Let your workers know about promotions within the company and when you promote within the company, look for the best person for the job. Start printing out merit for your employees. Make them look professional. This will keep your employees, keep up moral and also help add to employees resume if they need to move on.

Characteristics of A Good Manager

A good manager deserves the following characteristics: i) Motivate people: Why are the employees there? What keeps them with your organization and stops them from going somewhere else? What makes the good days good? What makes them stick with the organization after a bad day or a bad week? Don't assume its money-most people aren't that one-dimensional. Ask the employees how they like their job on a regular basis. Encourage them to be honest with you. Be a good listener. Then take action based upon what they tell you. ii) Delegate: You're a manager because you're good at what you do, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to do it all. Your job as a manager is to teach other people how to do a good job. If you're uncomfortable with delegating, however, this can be a huge leap of faith for you. One way to overcome this is to start small. Give people tasks that, if performed incorrectly, can be fixed. Take the opportunity to teach and empower your employees. Then gradually give those tasks with greater responsibility as you come to understand their strengths and weaknesses and learn how to anticipate any problems they might have so you can coach them properly before they begin. iii) Keep the door open: Always remind people that if they have any questions or concerns, you're ready and willing to listen. Don't be one of those managers who unconsciously make an employee feel like they're "bothering" you when they bring up a question or concern. Never minimize or dismiss their concerns, and always make sure that you've answered their questions completely. iv) Let people make mistakes: As a manager, you take responsibility for other people's actions, so the last thing you want to do is be responsible for someone else's mistakes. In an attempt to be proactive and prevent mistakes, you might give careful instructions and create clear, strict standards. But are you making people afraid of mistakes? Do they always check with you about every little thing, reluctant to make their own decisions because they might not do it correctly? That ends up making the employees more dependent on you, which makes them less effective and unnecessarily drains a significant portion of your time. In order for people to think for themselves, they need to learn, and in order to learn, sometimes we need to make mistakes. Trust them, and give them a fair margin of error.

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v) Learn from your own mistakes: When things don't turn out the way you expected, recognize what you could've done differently and verbalize this realization to your employees. This shows them that you make mistakes, too, and it also shows them how they should handle their own mistakes. Whenever you're doing something correctly after having done it incorrectly in the past, let whoever is watching know. vi) Treat everyone equally: Most of us aren't as democratic as we'd like to be. Many times, favoritism happens on a subconscious level. The tendency is to give more positive recognition to the people who remind us of ourselves somehow and who actually like us, rather than to the people who make the biggest contributions to the organization. In the long run, its people in the latter group who will make the most progress in achieving the organization's goals, so monitor your own behavior carefully and make sure you're not accidentally short-changing them. Some people shy away from positive feedback but appreciate it nevertheless. Behavioral traits that define a good manager Never expects others to follow rules which he himself does not follow, Makes time to listen to his subordinates and colleagues, Keeps his promises, Respects the ideas of others, Returns telephone calls and emails/sms immediately if possible within 24 hours, Answers important mail within four days and unimportant mail within two weeks, Does not pretend to be an expert on what he is not always returns borrowed property promptly and in good condition, Never repeats a rumor that would hurt someones reputation, Knows how to dress, on the job and off the job, Is deferential in office situations, where it is proper to do so; without being or appearing to be subservient knows how to introduce people properly Knows how to compliment someone and also how to accept compliments graciously.

Ten Ways to be A Good Manager i) Be objective and fair and gather facts Before you make any critical decisions such as whether to shutter a project or cut 10 percent of your IT staff evaluate all the options as if you were analyzing a software package, so that you can make a cogent case for your plan. Assess choices with a thorough fact-gathering, prioritization, and analysis process, not a gut reaction. ii) Allow your staff to help make the tough decisions Making painful cuts might be a little easier if employees have a hand in shaping them. Maybe some flextime or telecommuting would help employees cope with salary or benefits reductions. Its all about being creative and open to the possibilities without spending a lot of money. She recommends brainstorming sessions with employees and, or soliciting ideas through an internal web site.

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iii) Talk often and do it in person Yes, youve heard it before, but its true: Get out there and talk to your people often about whats going on with the company, impending consequences, and whats positive in the companys future. Experts concur that this is something leaders dont do enough of, or handle the wrong way. Be as transparent as possible. Dont tell white lies. Dont surprise everyone with bad news if youve known about it for weeks. All of these things erode trust and make managers seem like impersonal clods, which makes for an unhappy workforce. iv) Walk the walk Are you going to Coxs Bazar with your spouse a month after announcing layoffs? Maybe you shouldnt. Did you cut yourself out of the salary reduction plan? Maybe you should reconsider. You get the picture. v) Get creative about cuts If theres any possible way you can save money without affecting your staff, look at those options first. Evaluate vendors: Are you getting the best deal? Maybe its worth hiring an operational consultant to ensure you can get better contracts. Are you operating in a green fashion in terms of power management on your computer and networking equipment, minimizing use of lights and heat, reducing paper usage through double-sided printing, and so on? Again, ask your staff for ideas. These days, they might care less about free soda and coffee. vi) Be yourself When life gets choppy, some people have a tendency to take on a different persona to make things all better. Think happy! Be energetic! If the cheerleader style is your normal modus operand us, says Cooke, feel free to crank it up a notch for the benefit of your grousing employees. Take them out for a beer on Friday afternoon. Hire a comedian for an hours worth of fun. Give a pumped-up talk over a brown bag lunch. Because the power of positive thinking is huge. But if youre not the first to laugh at jokes, and youre cranky before having three cups of coffee, dont act out of character. Your people will see through it immediately. vii) Do layoffs right If you have to do layoffs, you owe it to your staff to spend the maximum effort possible in doing them accurately, sensitively, and with full disclosure about how and why the cuts were made. If executives arent good at communicating that down line, it can have a really negative impact and foster distrust, says Cooke. She also advises that companies not cut corners on severance packages, and if possible, offer some sort of benefits continuation or outplacement services. If people staying at the company have a sense that, wow this is unfair, they may not stay loyal to you. viii) Dont give up on professional development This falls under the category of Dont ignore the employees who have been saved. Those left behind after layoffs are mind-boggled about their own future, not to mention the extra workload they will undoubtedly have to handle. Give them the benefit of your time through 1-on-1 meetings to discuss their issues, concerns, and career goals. Provide talented employees the opportunity to job shadow, cross-train, or even simply sit in on meetings with other groups to expose them to different career paths. ix) Keep up the fight for business alignment In this economic climate, theres no better time to stay true to the core IT goals of delivering business value and maximizing efficiencies. The more you can show you

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are being responsible and strategic to your staff and higher-ups, the better for everyone. x) Look to the future Everyone is stuck in the present right now: survival. For a change, spend a few hours each week thinking about, and talking about, your company and departments future. What can you do that will deliver unique value to customers (internal and external) when the economy begins to recover? What can you do now that will help the business survive until then? This can be a positive and healthy way to deal with the stress of the moment. Advantages & Disadvantages of a Good Manager Advantages: More pay. More prestige. To apply power over others and control their actions. To get more freedom to decide what to do for themselves. To escape from being told what to do by a junior manager. To get credit for other people's ideas and hard work.

Disadvantages: Having to work longer hours, at least at first. Being the first person who is blamed when things go wrong. Being blamed for mistakes done by subordinates. Having to deal with a constant stream of people complaining about things.

Some Important tips for a Good Manager by Bill Gates (A famous

billionaire) a. Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It's hard to be productive without enthusiasm. This is true whether you're a manager or employee. b. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is. One mistake is holding on to somebody who doesn't measure up. It's easy to keep this person on the job because he's not terrible at what he does. But a good manager will replace him or move him to where he can succeed unambiguously. c. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge because it requires different approaches depending on the context. Sometimes you maximize productivity by giving everybody his or her own office. Sometimes you achieve it by moving everybody into open space. Sometimes you use financial incentives to stimulate productivity. A combination of approaches is usually required. One element that almost always increases productivity is providing an information system that empowers employees.

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When I was building Microsoft, I set out to create an environment where software developers could thrive. I wanted a company where engineers liked to work. I wanted to create a culture that encouraged them to work together, share ideas and remain motivated. If I hadn't been a software engineer myself, there's no way I could have achieved my goal. d. Define success. Make it clear to your employees what constitutes success and how they should measure their achievements. Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set by the people who do the work. People will accept a "bottoms-up" deadline they helped set, but they'll be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top that doesn't map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an organization. At my company, in addition to regular team meetings and one-on-one sessions between managers and employees, we use mass gatherings periodically and E-mail routinely to communicate what we expect from employees. If a reviewer or customer chooses another company's product, we analyze the situation. We say to our people, "The next time around we've got to win. What's needed?" The answers to these questions help us define success. e. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at communicating. This is hard to fake. If you don't enjoy interacting with people, it'll be hard to manage them well. You must have a wide range of personal contacts within your organization. You need relationships - not necessarily personal friendships - with a fair number of people, including your own employees. You must encourage these people to tell you what's going on and give you feedback about what people are thinking about the company and your role in it. f. Develop your people to do their jobs better than you can. Transfer your skills to them. This is an exciting goal, but it can be threatening to a manager who worries that he's training his replacement. If you're concerned, asks your boss: "If I develop somebody who can do my job super well, does the company have some other challenge for me or not?" Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it frees the managers to tackle new or undone tasks. There's no shortage of jobs for good managers. The world has an infinite amount of work to be done.

g. Build morale. Make it clear there's plenty of goodwill to go around and that it's not just you or some hotshot manager who's going to look good if things go well. Give people a sense of the importance of what they're working on its importance to the company, its importance to customers. h. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate. The last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time, prove you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet challenges. i. Don't make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don't revisit the issue unnecessarily. If you're too willing to reopen issues, it interferes not only with your execution but also with your motivation to make a decision in the first place. People

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hate indecisive leadership. However, that doesn't mean you have to decide everything the moment it comes to your attention. Nor that you can't ever reconsider a decision. j. Let people know whom to please. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your boss, and maybe it's somebody who works for you. You're in trouble and risking paralysis in your organization when employees start saying to themselves: "Am I supposed to be making this person happy or this other person happy? They seem to have different priorities." I don't pretend that these are the only 10 approaches a manager should keep in mind. There are lots of others. Just a month ago I encouraged leaders to demand bad news before good news from their employees. But these 10 ideas may help you manage well, and I hope they do. Source: The Business Times (Internet Edition). Written By: William Henry Bill Gates Chairman of Microsoft Corporation If you have any questions you would like Bill Gates to answer you can send them to askbill@microsoft.com --- The End ---

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