The business climate is changing dramatically and only those who understand how to manage wisely in the new era we are entering will lead their organizations to profitability and success in their industries.
A recent series of interviews with some of the world’s most successful CEOs uncovered the following traits or strategies they shared when it came to management:
1. A Company is a Community
Employees and team members aren’t just troops or cogs in the machine. They are a collection of individuals with their own talents, dreams and personalities. A highly successful organization is a community or ecosystem which the individuals feed and must be enabled to thrive in order to drive success. Today we are seeing more social working arrangements and new corporate complexes which have a lifestyle of their own.
2. Great Management is about Empowering not Controlling Employees
Just handing out orders and demanding results without providing the right structure is rarely effective on large scale. Superior and effective delegation comes from truly empowering employees with the right tools, technology, information and support to accomplish the tasks and find better ways of doing things.
3. Managing Shouldn’t Mean Babysitting
Treating staff as immature, inferior children often results in making them act as just that. While teams need direction and businesses need leaders, employees are people too and often perform better when treated as peers. Great employees shouldn’t need ot be babysat 24/7 if you hire well.
4. Motivation & Individual Achievement Stems from Vision not Fear
Managers can patrol the halls like prison guards and scare staff into subordination and conforming. Unfortunately, this approach normally just breeds a worker mentality of only just doing enough or giving the appearance of doing enough not to get fired. The best leaders know that uniting the entire organization behind the grander vision and enrolling them in active participation to achieve it is the key to motivating them to take the right actions and strive to reach the right goals on their own.
5. Constantly Embracing Change
The most successful organizations of our time and the future are not those which try and resist change. Change is going to happen anyway. You can either lead change both in products and in service as well as management style or become irrelevant.
6. Technology Shouldn’t be a Burden on Employees
Implementing technology which employees don’t get and don’t want to use won’t last or be integrated profitably. The best tech tools will help bring teams together, strengthen organizations and make employee’s jobs easier.
7. Work Should be Enjoyable
There may often be unpleasant tasks and conversations to be had but overall work should be enjoyable, fun and inspiring. Challenges can much more happily embraced when people are in the right positions, doing what they want to do and sharing in creating something great instead of forcing themselves out of bed and into an office they can’t stand just because they need a paycheck. Again, success here is all about smart hiring.
