What makes a good manager? 5 leadership skills leaders need to develop
Photo The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash
A client of mine recently transitioned into a management role. They felt a bit lost to know what they needed to do differently to be the “manager” compared to when they didn’t have a team reporting to them. So they asked for a coaching session to talk it through.
In true coaching style, I asked them
“You’ve had managers, what have you seen the good ones do differently?”
What emerged was not what my client expected. These are the five traits of a good manager they came up with:
1. They had direct conversations, quickly
Improvement conversations happened at the time or in the next 121. This meant there were no surprises or missed milestones at appraisal time. Something we can all agree is a relief!
2. They said difficult things with kindness
How the message is delivered is as important as the content. Challenging feedback can be given in a supportive and gentle way. In fact, it has more impact. In the words of Brené Brown “clear is kind, unclear is unkind.”
3. They shared praise that meant something
Specific praise and acknowledgement matters. No “good job” or a broad “thanks” but “thank you for paying so much attention to the data in the slide deck, I could see what an impact it had.”
4. They asked more questions and actually listened to the answers.
We all know when someone is asking us a question they aren’t genuinely interested in knowing the answer to. It’s very frustrating to be asked for your opinion when you know that the decision has already been made, making your input useless lipservice. The managers who stood out, actually wanted to hear other people’s views before taking action.
5. They didn’t just assume they knew all about an issue
They checked their knowledge and proposed course of action with others. This helped them stay open to different options and alternative ways of approaching situations.
From our conversation, we were able to identify five key areas of competence managers need to get to develop to thrive in their role and help their team deliver:
Feedback
Appreciation
Courageous conversations
Coaching skills
Along with the back-up of good HR processes and a supportive HR team
What do you see as the best traits of great managers and how do you think they learned those skills?
If you are transitioning into a leadership role and you want help to navigate your new position, and develop your leadership skills, then get in touch with me about 1:1 coaching.