How to be a Good Manager

There is no definitive technique for being a great manager, you have to walk a fine line between constructive criticism and praise. While there are no one size fits all approaches to management, there are a few strategies to help you get the best from your employees.

• Listen more. Try to avoid talking at your employees at review time. You can often gain all the information you need by saying something open ended and listening to what your employee has to say.
• Learn your team’s strengths and weaknesses and work with them. This way you are getting the best of your employees and not wasting time having one employee fulfil a task that would take a different person half the time.
• Try to manage your team as a whole and not just as separate individuals. As a manager you are responsible for the output of the entire team as a whole. Try to team staff members with complementary skills to provide learning opportunities.
• Be Inspiring. Try and distinguish your employee’s exceptional talents and develop them further. Find work opportunities that will challenge them. Make sure that your employees talents are recognised and celebrated. This reinforces performance and makes your employees strive to perform well in the future.
• Give regular feedback. Tell your staff how they are doing at the time and not just at their scheduled 6 monthly performance review. Help your staff to realise that their efforts help the overall success of the company. This will help them to feel connected to the organisation and encourage engagement. 
• Don’t let work friendships alter your managing abilities. As a manager you are assuming responsibility for a group of people and naturally you want them to like you. It is all well and good to be friendly with your team ,  just make sure that you are still able deliver criticism or discipline when it is needed
• Be present. Being in management can keep you very busy. You are often rushing from one place to another. Be wary to not let being busy take over from the day to day management of your staff. As a manager you need to make yourself available to your staff to offer them guidance and give them the opportunity to ask questions when they need to.
• Make an effort to know the basic roles and responsibilities of all your team members. It is very hard to provide guidance and leadership if you are not exactly sure of what your staff are meant to be doing in the first place. If you have to ask your team about their basic functions it is very like that they will second guess the decisions you make.