Archive for Management Career
Taking Over a Position
Posted by: | CommentsUnless you’re starting a new department with a new team, chances are you will be taking over manager position.
Taking over an existing team after their previous manager leaves has different challenges than getting a team that has never worked together as a team before.
In fact, there are pros and cons to taking over either a team that had a good manager or a team that had a bad manager.
Taking Over for a Good Manager
If you are taking over a team that had an effective supervisor, you could be in luck, and you could be facing some tough challenges.
An effective supervisor knows how to motivate employees. Therefore, you might be inheriting a highly motivated team, already working well together, already producing as expected or better than expected.
The downside of taking over a previously well-managed team is that you naturally want to keep that momentum going, but you, especially if you are a brand new supervisor, have big shoes to fill. The team might hold you to the level of the previous manager. They’re used to things being done a certain way, so when you come in and change things, you might meet with some resistance.
Why change things that are working for your sake? One thing a manager must be able to do, adopt new ways of doing things. It’s more difficult for a group to make a change than for you to make a change. If they don’t like what you do they will most likely make things difficult so if it’s not broke don’t fix it!
It’s really important how you tread. You can set yourself up for a lot of problems right away, especially if you aren’t really a people person in the first place.
Take notes of things the manager did that was effective. Were they promoted? Then it’s a good time to look yourself in the mirror and make some changes to your style if need be.
And there’s more…
Remember, every time you go to a new department, company, etc., it’s a time to re-invent yourself. Just make sure you can pull it off and stay consistent.
Don’t rock the boat too early… (Usually)
Fit in, learn the social hierarchy. In every group there are some dominant personalities and it’s not necessarily the oldest or the supervisor.
You need those people in your corner whether you like it or not. They are a treasure trove of information and suggestions, ask them for theirs. They will typically spout off some things they didn’t like about the previous manager, don’t take the bait. Just let the comments fall and DO NOT repeat them. They are testing you.
Everyone probably has suggestions. Whip up a questionnaire on your computer if your company will allow and give them out. Make sure you ask your new people what their career goals are. Do they know how to get promoted? When did they have their last performance review? What do they feel they need to work on? What do they love about their job? Do they know all the benefits the company offers?
All those questions? You will learn a lot as you gather the information for them, information you need to know anyway! And don’t tell them where to get it. It’s your great opportunity to earn valuable good will with them. They need to talk to the HR manager for some of the answers? Great! Make an appointment with the HR person for them and walk them back there when they are scheduled and say to the HR person the question, etc.
Taking Over for a Poor Manager
Let’s say the team you’re taking over had a poor manager before you were hired. As you might expect, or have already found out, they may be unmotivated, sub-par performers. And they may be looking at you with a suspicious eye, wondering if you’re going to be more of the same poor leadership they’re used to.
On the other hand, a team that had a poor manager might also be very ripe for good leadership skills. Even if you don’t have leadership or management experience, you can still come across as a confident, experienced manager and your team doesn’t have to know any different.
This is a great opportunity for you to shine in your company. People will typically not be willing to welcome you with open arms. You will need to get out there, smile, talk to people, chat, be the nice human you are. Let it show. Carry a small note pad down so you can write things down about people, hobbies, kids, interests, etc. Also write down questions the employee has that may need follow up. Don’t trust your memory, you’re overwhelmed, you will forget things.
Ask your boss for suggestions, they are sure to have many. Ask them what they think some of your first priorities need to be, second, etc.
It will come up…
The elephant in the room… The things the bad manager did that made everyone indignant. Don’t gloat. Try to have private conversations with the vocal people. Don’t commiserate with them. Just tell them you are sorry and hope to move forward and would like them to be on board with you. Then move the conversation forward. Ask them for suggestions about something, anything at that point to turn the conversation forward.
If you are a manager you are not perfect, no one is. For all your strengths that others may appreciate this other manager was most likely good at some things you aren’t. You never know who you may work with again, don’t say anything. Many people have made the mistake and regret it for years.
Some First Steps…
No matter how you’re coming into your new manager position, one of your first priorities should be to hold a “one-on-one” meeting with each team member. Use this one-on-one time to get to know your team members individually. Ask them questions about their take on the team as a whole, how they fit in, the effectiveness of the team, what they like and dislike about their job, what they’d like from you, etc. Use the questionnaire idea mentioned above if need be.
But, be careful not to come across like you’re looking for “dirt” on other team members or their previous manager.
A one-on-one session might also be a good time to establish your expectations for them and the team. Of course, you should follow up your expectations with the team as a whole, in a team meeting. But a one-on-one meeting lets you get to know each other and can give you valuable information as to what the team expects. This information can go a long way to making your transition as their new supervisor a seamless transition.
A Career in Business Management
Posted by: | CommentsThinking of making your career business management? Or maybe you’re taking over a manager position?
I would have to say business management is the most rewarding, fun, dynamic and exhilarating job imaginable. I often find myself missing the “team” aspect of having a staff, deadlines and of course the thrill of developing others to be great leaders! Which is why I do what I do now. But I miss the pressure and fun you have when you are managing a large team.
We offer career and business management online classes to teach you about management styles and give you the supervisor skills you will need to become an effective supervisor.
Management Styles
There are several career business management styles you can adopt. You might have the choice to choose what works best for you and your company, or you might have to follow the management style set forth by the company you work for.
- Participatory – giving each team member a specific task to complete
- Directing – telling employees what must be done, when and how
- Teamwork Style – knowledge is pooled and tasks completed as one group
- Authoritative – decisions are made by the manager alone, or within the senior management group
- Democratic – decision making is influenced by the input of the employees, too.
Supervisor duties are many and varied, but good supervisors should always be willing to do the very thing they’re asking their employee to do. Leading by example goes a long way towards becoming an effective supervisor.
Development Ideas
On the job training is only as effective as those training you. You might learn good skills, but if you have a bad supervisor yourself, you’re apt to learn bad skills.
However you can learn a lot of great things from a bad supervisor. I always said I learned the most from the managers that I had the greatest challenges with and it’s true. It depends on what you do to gain the upper hand.
There are several things you can do to improve:
- Journals are a great tool to grow as a manager, they help you understand when and how you have been mismanaged and work through more constructive ways to handle it.
- There are many great books as well, too many for me to list here. It also depends on what your growth opportunities are.
- A support group or a career coach can be a great tool to help you grow.
You need someone that will help you find your internal compass to navigate trying situations and help you develop clear action steps for the journey ahead.
Business management classes are important but they aren’t a cure all. Some people have certain drives and knack’s for doing things that transcend schooling. A lot depends on your learning style and your personality type. There are many great personality assessments that can help you determine whether school is a good fit or maybe you are a “fly by the seat of your pants” type person and can’t stand school.
Find Your Strengths
Know what kind of person you are and what motivates you. I would recommend school to anyone that is at a point they can do it. It gives you so much discipline and ability to follow up with projects and deadlines that may catapult your career. Even if you don’t know your specialty it’s best to go ahead and get a basic degree, it’s a lot harder to go back than to finish in the first place.
Great Books Can Help
You can read books and grow if you are self motivated and have a learning style that enables you to read and take action. A powerful combination is a combination of books and coaching. It is so much easier to create actions and you retain so much more from what you read when you have the opportunity to discuss it with someone else.
Some great books that are easy reads are:
Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. This book, if you buy it new, also comes with an assessment you take online. It’s a great tool.
Some of his research done with the Gallup organization is staggering. Here are some numbers:
- They found that out of a 1000 people who feel strongly that they don’t get to do “what I do best”, EVERY person was disengaged from their job.
- Those that have the opportunity to focus on their strengths are 6 times as likely to be engaged in their job and more than 3 times as likely to report having “an excellent quality of life in general”.
- If your manager primarily ignores you the chances of you being actively disengaged are 40%.
- If your manager focuses primarily on your weaknesses the chances of you being actively disengaged are 22%.
- If your manager primarily focuses on your strengths the chances of you being actively disengaged fall to 1%.
The power of a supervisor’s role on their staff can not be underestimeated. And also of parents and teachers, the book goes on to talk about how their research shows that 77% of parents believe the lowest grade deserves the most attention and time instead of investing more time in the areas where the child has the greatest potential.
Emotional Intelligence
The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves is excellent. This book also comes with a free assessment as long as the book is new and someone hasn’t used it. Emotional Intelligence, also referred to as EQ, has been a fairly new component of understanding work place environments and productivity.
The book describes the difference of IQ from EQ.
Your IQ never changes and stays the same. They have done studies and found that two people with the same IQ can have completely different levels of success. Also your IQ is your ability to learn and it does not change over time.
On the other hand EQ can be developed even if you are not born with it. Your senses enter your brain through your spinal cord and must travel through the limbic system before you can think rationally about your experience. Emotional intelligence requires smooth communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain. When you practice emotional intelligence, the traffic flows smoothly in both directions.
By the way, with EQ, women and men are basically even, so the idea that women have more EQ is wrong.
- Women scores higher in Social Awareness and Relationship Management
- Men scored higher in Self-Management
- The sexes were almost tied for Self-Awareness but men had a slight edge.
The four emotional skills they identify is: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Understanding how they work and how they interact is important at gaining EQ.
Leadership in a Nutshell
Leadership and the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigmarmi and Drea Zigmarmi. All the One Minute Manager series are excellent but this one help new managers understand how they need to manage people differently. This book would work for experienced managers as well. “Different strokes for different folks” as the authors described it.
The book is simplistic but very easy to understand and gives great examples of how leadership styles effect your ability to get things done and how your staff reacts to you.
Another book that is a compelling true story, an easy read and is aligned with many larger corporations way of thinking is, It’s Your Ship by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff. This book has some great stories and real life examples of how, even in the military, accepting how something is done just because “that’s the way it’s done” is a narrow way of looking at things. There are ways to do things better.
Business Management Classes
Post-secondary education in business management is widely available. And management training companies are abundant, as are online business management classes through colleges such as the University of Phoenix.
Careers in business management can be gained with a bachelor’s degree, or even an associate’s degree, but an MBA (Masters Business Association) will open up even more doors since the focus of an MBA degree is the science of management. I have never seen a MBA graduate manage better than any other manager so this depends on what you want to do with it.
Business management classes will cover such topics as time management in the workplace, managing difficult employees, managing change in the workplace, managing conflict at work, managing ethics in the workplace, and managing workplace stress.
Management is not the only career business management colleges will prepare you for. After taking business management classes, you might feel less suited towards managing people directly, and more suited towards human resources, retail services, benefits administration or communication, to name a few.
Types of Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsDifferent types of leadership styles exist for different personalities and businesses.
One leadership style might naturally suit you best, or you might have to adapt to one due to the company you work for.
All of these styles are important in the right environment. Don’t think one is the perfect method. In certain situations each of them has positives and negatives.
It’s best to understand how each of them work and watch them in your boss or other supervisors. Know how you are being managed. How does it make you feel? Which style do you prefer to be managed with?
Types of Leadership:
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire leaders are very “hands off” in their management style. Face time with their team members is minimal.
Some managers seem to employ this type of leadership – if you can even call them leaders – because they don’t want to get involved. It’s more of a “lazy” type leadership for them. This is not laissez faire leadership.
The laissez faire style works well if you have a team of highly trained individuals who are also highly motivated. They know what needs to be done, they do it, and they do it well. One problem that can come up with this style is the employees don’t feel valued or appreciated.
Types of Leadership: Autocratic
An autocratic leader has the total authority to make decisions. They make the rules, period. The autocratic leadership style can work well on teams needing close supervision and are new or still learning. But it’s not so effective when you’re working in an environment where team collaboration is necessary.
Many people find this style to be stifling and they don’t feel valued if their boss uses this style exclusively. This is a good method when there is an emergency and someone has to take charge. This is also a good method when handling a dispute between a couple employees.
Types of Leadership: Democratic
The democratic leader, on the other hand, has the authority over the final decision, but they go to the employees to get their input and suggestions.
Because the team has a part in the process, they feel ownership of the decision and are more likely to embrace it. Even if they don’t agree with the ultimate decision, they know they were heard and considered. They also have the benefit of knowing the “whys” of the decision and understand the big picture better than someone under an autocratic leader.
This method is great for building teams and the why behind that will fill up another entire page!
A dry erase board or giant paper with an easel comes in handy when using this type of management style during a meeting. Ask a question or describe the problem then have everyone contribute ideas to answer a question and write them down. Then systematically go through the answers and ask the group the pros and cons of each.
I often knew the outcome of the question I asked but instead of just telling everyone what to do I knew they would do it better if I involved them in the decision.
This method is great if you are trying to develop junior managers. You can go through all the steps of your thought processes by asking questions and letting the group begin the journey of understanding the why behind solutions.
If you use this method exclusively you can run into problems just like the other methods, although this leadership style has the least amount if used correctly.
The people that don’t appreciate it are the people who want things “perfect” or who believe completely in the chain of command. I have had employees that would rather not be involved in a decision, they want to be “told” what to do, it reassures them and makes them more comfortable.
The other people this method doesn’t work well with is the disengaged employees, they might think you are “weak” just because they aren’t in touch with the rest of the group.
Types of Leadership: Bureaucratic
If you’ve ever been managed strictly “by the book,” you’ve experienced a bureaucratic leader.
While it might sound outdated and unpopular, “by the book” bureaucratic leadership types work well and are necessary in some fields. Universities, hospitals and banks benefit from bureaucratic leadership. The strictness of following particular rules helps increase security within the company, and reduces corruption. A downside is that it’s slow-moving in order to ensure adherence to policies and procedures.
This leader has a tendency to be very un-motivating and is prone to not having synergy in their teams. They don’t like “flow” because you have to “fly by the seat of your pants”, they just want things exactly as they have dictated. They are necessary and excellent in certain fields or positions.
If this type of manager works for you it’s important to follow up with their people and ensure they feel appreciated and valued. It’s easy to forget to tell this manager the same thing, so make sure they get told, usually they won’t tell you they enjoyed hearing it, but they do.
Types of Leadership: Charismatic
Charismatic leaders are all about energy and motivation. Teams led by a charismatic leader can have a very difficult time when that leader leaves. If you are taking over a management position that was previously led by a charismatic leader, be prepared for some challenges.
In certain positions at certain times I have been very charismatic, and indeed the manager behind me had a difficult time.
This method is perfect if you are trying to feed energy into a group. Feed energy you may ask, yes, FEED energy. When I was doing this it was to bring the intensity level up in the group, the energy level, the drive.
It is extremely exhausting to do it, you have to be consistent, do it every single day. But it works! It’s a great method to increase sales or get some big projects done. You also need to make really big deals out of every positive, thank EVERY person exuberantly. Say “hi” to everyone. You have to stay highly visible for it to work.
Plan this well because it can take a few days or even a few weeks for it to even begin to work, but once the energy in the group is going it usually starts to snowball and feed itself. Also be aware, this method doesn’t work if you don’t have employees that care and respect you. You have to have trust and respect first.
Types of Leadership: Relational
A relational (or transformational) leader is opposite the laissez faire leader. They are highly communication based and highly visible. This is not to be confused with a micromanager. Relational leaders are focused on the big picture and they are surrounded with people who accomplish the details of the big picture.
They don’t usually care about the details of something, they care about the who. Who is doing what? How is so and so doing? How was your weekend? Who is doing that? If you start to go over a bunch of details you will find their eyes start of glaze over and their mind wanders. They care about the who.
What’s Your Style?
You might have natural tendencies towards particular types of leadership. Your company may require you to lead in one of these particular methods, which can be difficult if you’re used to an opposite style.
Learning to manage in a different style will only benefit you in the long run. If fact, using only a couple will slow your career down. You need to understand when to use the different styles to fit your employees.
It’s even possible… NO… I would say you will need to alter your leadership type multiple times working for the same company if you take on different teams or projects over your years of employment.
Most likely you will need to change your style multiple times a year at a minimum.
Define Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsTo define leadership is akin to holding onto a big blob of Jell-O. It’s not the easiest thing 
to do, but in its most basic definition, a leader does just that — leads.
Do you want to be a leader? Do you have natural leadership skills? Have you taken a leadership test and been pegged as a good leader — or perhaps a bad leader?
Even if you’re not a manager or supervisor at your job, you can still learn effective leadership skills and apply them throughout your life. Your job, your family, your marriage, even your social activities call for the skills of a leader.
There are several types of leadership and many leadership theories.
Some experts say leadership attributes are innate, that we’re born with them. Others say they must be learned. Innate or not, leadership skills can be learned and improved all throughout life.
Trying to list all the qualities of good, motivational leadership will end up in a very long list, very quickly, but some of the top traits or skills that really define leadership are: integrity, dedication, giving credit where credit is due (magnanimity), humility, fairness, assertiveness, and being open to new ideas.
Young Leaders
Age knows no bounds for those who are led and for those who are leaders. You’ve seen leaders all your life. Back when you were growing up, playing in the neighborhood, a leader emerged from among your group of friends. Leaders emerge in school groups, in athletics, in peer groups. Leaders even rise up among siblings. Leaders are the ones other people follow.
An informal leader in the workplace might well be one of the lowest-level employees. It’s not an official leadership role, but he or she may be a leader among their coworkers.
And certainly not all managers or supervisors are leaders, despite their defined leadership title of Team Leader, Shift Leader or whatever.
Define leadership
Leadership is one of those skills that gives back to you what you put into it. It is a growing and continually evolving skill, like a mountain you are climbing who’s peak is always just out of reach, you never really arrive. There is always something you could do better, someone you could have done more for.
Leadership skills are something often looked for in every level of staff. While contemplating the next promotion most managers don’t just look at tenure or skill, they look at the person who also is the problem solver, who makes a decision, who is confident in what they are doing, able to network and get others involved.
Leaders are also those who do things without asking, who make sacrifices without fanfare, who simply do what needs to be done.
Not all leaders are necessarily good people leaders. Many times we promote someone because they show all the qualities we want a leader to have but maybe they haven’t been taught good leadership theories–the philosophy of managing, communicating, delegating, etc. It’s not enough to be told you need to do something, it’s important to understand the mechanics of why. If you don’t know that you can’t teach others and develop leaders under you.
Leadership is one of those areas of life in which continued learning is never a waste. Leadership training seminars are great for learning new techniques or as a refresher for that which you already know. Most individuals can write off a few hundred dollars a year towards their own work related self improvement. Check with your tax adviser.
Leadership training seminars are available for new and current managers, most training is done online and on the phone depending on the subject being covered.
