Four Essential Management Talents To Develop

There are lots of different views about what makes a manager successful but using the following four Talents will get you a long way in terms of practical success and a strong reputation amongst your peers.

Thinking

  • Be curious, pursue knowledge and experience and encourage this amongst your staff
  • Know and understand the processes and systems that you are responsible for, making appropriate challenges where necessary
  • Use data to identify the root cause of defects, system errors and poorly performing operations
  • Build simple and measurable solutions that everyone can understand and work with
  • Own the team’s processes, proactively anticipate likely problems and have a contingency plan ready that everyone can work with

Connecting

  • Listen carefully making sure that you have two-way conversations with team members, colleagues and other more senior managers
  • Show appreciation that is meaningful and which is done on a regular basis
  • Invest in discussions that matter making sure that you always follow through on commitments to team members and other colleagues that you have connections with
  • Connect employees to the customer – make sure that everyone understands who the customer is, what they need and why they are important
  • Own the team’s problems – never push problems down onto people especially if they are not able to resolve them

Teaching

  • Encourage discussion and debate to sharpen thinking, always knowing that you do not have the answers
  • Ask insightful questions and expect good answers
  • Provide timely and specific feedback that helps staff improve what they are doing and which motivates them
  • Lead by example so that people can use what you do to help them to do what they do
  • Own the team’s development but always knowing that their success will determine your own success

Delivering

  • Create a culture of safety where there are no risks or potential hazard, allowing staff to do their tasks in a consistent and reliable manner
  • Be persistent in what you are driving forward and always be focused on details
  • Make the right decisions under pressure after thinking through possible courses of action carefully and systematically
  • Deliver on customer expectations as a bare minimum, ideally exceeding them
  • Own team’s performance but always knowing that their performance will determine your own performance

Developing the Talents above require little head-scratching and should come naturally as a framework for a committed and motivated manager.

Good Luck!

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