Five Step Guide To Improving Your People Management

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When it comes to being a manager at work, the work can often be the simpler side of things. You know what to do and the work will get done. But when it comes to managing people, it can be much trickier. People are harder to control, manage, and quantify than the tasks in hand. It can be tough being the leader at work or in business, as it can feel like you’re not always doing a great job if people don’t understand or like what they have to do. Thankfully, though, if you’re motivated to work hard, you can learn skills to improve being a manager of people. You can help to create a more productive workforce that is more motivated too. Here are some of the steps to take.

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Decide Your Goals

To make change, you need to know what you want to change. Do you want your team to be happier, more productive, or simpler things like being on time for work each day? Think about your goals and then write them down; they are much more likely to happen when you do.

Think About Where You Can Improve

It can be ignorant that your team are the only ones that need to make some changes. So think about what you can do to improve. What are your areas of weakness? What will you need to do to achieve the goals that you have set yourself?

Keep Communication Open

Talking to your team is the best way to get anything done. Locking yourself up in your office all day long is not the best way to be. You’ll soon figure out what works best for each of your team members. But some one-on-one time is usually a good way to start the open and honest communication. Look into getting some performance management software so you can set and track goals with each colleague individually, as well as as a team. When you talk to them and set goals, they will know what’s expected of them. Often, ambiguity is what leads to less productivity.

Read Up!

There are plenty of books and blogs about management, so take time to read up about the topic. Learn from other people and see what has worked for them. Although people are all different, we generally react to things in similar ways. So advice from others can be very helpful.

Learn To Listen

Being able to talk to your manager and have them really listen to you can help you to feel much more satisfied at work. But it really is a skill to develop. And really listen to what they are saying. Are they being direct or hinting at something because they don’t feel like they can say it directly? Sometimes thinking outside of the box is part of the listening process.

Have you worked in a management position before? It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the matter and what has worked well for you in the past.