Changes in Management Styles
Management styles have evolved to meet the challenges of a tumultuous business climate. The global environment has been in flux for well over five years. The financial meltdown of the last three years exacerbated this. The managers who have been effective during this period are those who were either adaptable already, or who learned to adapt as things changed more rapidly. In turn, they helped their teams become flexible as well.
The Role of A Manager
Managers must realize that they play multiple roles. Managers are part of the team and as such, they have to know when to play a collaborative role. They also serve as coaches when needed. On the other hand, they must communicate the overall strategic direction, as well as defining boundaries and required outcomes. Teams are rendered ineffective when a manager is not proficient in juggling these roles or does not recognize what is needed in a given situation.
How to Identify the Impact of Your Management Style
You need to find out how you are affecting your team members, and the only way to do that is to ask. 360-degree feedback is indispensable. The approach can vary. I recommend that managers do things to cultivate relationships with direct reports so that healthy communication becomes the norm. This will help ensure that feedback comes naturally rather than just being part of a formal discussion.
Ways to Change Your Management Style
Build a level of trust with a few key direct reports who can serve as sounding boards. These people will benefit the most from any improvements in your behavior. Conversely, they will suffer the most if you do not change. Why not get their input on how to change? A simple approach would be to ask a team member to observe various behaviors and report the observations, with some thoughts on how to be more effective. This will provide some critical and, perhaps, surprising insights.
Tags: business, diversity, Leadership, management, organizations, teams, women
August 1st, 2010at 5:24 pm
Regarding your third point on management style and asking direct reports about it, managers need to be really careful when making their assessments here. I know too many managers who acquiesce to the minions of the weakest link because everyone else stays relatively quiet. What I did years ago was ask one of my supervisors to give a survey to 10 people anonymously about me, then collect them and give them back to me. I ranked high with 9 out of 10, and recognized my management style worked best for the majority, and since it worked for me as well I stuck with it. I think if I’d asked people to take the survey and they knew it was coming back to me that I wouldn’t have gotten the proper feedback from most of the people, though me being me I hope I’d have been able to discern one person who might wish me to manage in a different way from a bunch of truly non-committal comments.
August 1st, 2010at 9:35 pm
Thanks for commenting on this post (and on the social media post too) – appreciate it. Really good feedback about how to use the data you collect.
August 2nd, 2010at 10:10 am
Being open and responsive to feedback — positive, constructive and especially, negative — is the tricky part. Those who are develop trust best. Those who are, I believe, are the best managers.
August 2nd, 2010at 10:33 am
Couldn’t agree more, Anne.