How do you become a great manager? How do you become a great leader? Are they even the same? To start of, let me clarify the differences that separate a manager from a leader. A leader provides vision and the motivational force to drive a project while a manager skilfully manages resources and juggles tasks essential for the success of the project. Leaders are proactive while managers are reactive. Leaders promote new directions while managers enable existing directions.
Having said that, both managers and leaders are actually quite similar, both in terms of qualities exhibited as well as capabilities. They are not mutually exclusive to each other. A good manager can become a good leader, while a good leader must often perform managerial roles. Sometimes, a good manager must even be both.
So, what does it require, in order to become a good manager?
You have to be comfortable dealing with people
As a manager, people form your greatest resource and your main task is to utilize your resources to skilfully accomplish the shared task. As such, you have to be comfortable when dealing with people.
Part of a manager's role is the delegation of tasks. A good manager has to be skilled as well as comfortable in the delegation of tasks. He has to empathically feel out the situation and carefully analyse potential outcomes before making the correct task allocations.
Some tips on how to delegate more comfortably without arousing any resentment will be to perhaps ask questions before giving direct orders. This will make the task appear to be the employee's idea, and will result in the employee being more accommodating and perhaps even enthusiastic to perform to the task assigned.
A good manager motivates their employees to strive and achieve
A good manager keeps his or her employees motivated and this can be accomplished through the magic of encouragement. A person rewarded for their work and contributions, similar to a trained animal, will be motivated and encouraged to repeat this same behaviour and internalize it into their systems. Everybody likes the positive reinforcement that encouragement brings to us.
Managers need to rally their employees around the shared goal of the company
When people work toward the shared goal of the company, they work towards a vision greater than themselves and everybody benefits. Managers able to impart this shared vision with their employees increase the chances for success for the team. They may accomplish this by relating personal benefits to the employee with the shared goals of the company.
A great manager empowers their employees
Great managers need to challenge their employees to take up responsibility. Great managers cannot accomplish everything by themselves. As leadership expert John Maxwell once said, “If someone else can do something 80% as well as you can, let them do it.” A manager has to be able to share the responsibility of the task with their employees and this can be accomplished by the principle of empowerment.
A great manager has a positive attitude
In business as well as in life, attitude is everything. A great manager carries a positive attitude in the things that he does and this rubs off on the employees over a period of time. A great manager serves as a role model for his or her employees and this starts from having a great attitude.
Ultimately, a great manager is somebody who can make the sum of a team greater than a collection of individuals. Great managers handle people with grace and ease, caring for them and encouraging them to achieve their goals. Finally, a great manager allows the team to flourish and creates value to each individual as well as to the company.
