Being a Great Manager or Leader Is a Gift, Not a Given

By Karen Hope Hutchinson

Be a competent Leader and Manager in a world of work that is ever changing, where you must adapt, and look at different ways to approach how you operate and experience working with others. If you are looking to improve, or seeking new ideas and options, this book makes it possible for new, inexperienced or experienced managers to have a complete reference manual at their figure tips.

Assumptions are sometimes made about leaders and managers, that they already have a depth of competence, knowledge, and skill to do their job. This can be an unrealistic expectation, because, they need access to development tools that promote good management practice, advice and guidance. This book is a tool to facilitate and resolve this issue for leaders, managers and organizations.

Contains 50 practical aids, templates, and suggestions to support upskilling managers. Full of hints and tips for anyone working in management or with aspirations to work in Management, this book provides ways to incorporate good management practice into your working day, week, month and year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805149262

Karen Hope Hutchinson

Karen Hutchinson has 30 years’ HR professional experience, empowering hundreds of managers and leaders to develop their people management skills, and work through operational management solutions and outcomes. She is passionate about them appreciating the value and influence they have when creating great places to work, and positively impacting life itself.

Book preview

Preface

Good, better, best is a phrase I recall my mother and my grandmother using to describe something that keeps getting better and better. You do the best you can do until you can do better than you did before. They, among other people, are the inspiration for this book, and I dedicate it to them.

We are naturally given values growing up, and we don’t always understand how this affects our actions in the world and at work.

Work is one of the places we can spend a significant amount of time. I want to see, a world with individuals who are contented with their jobs, careers, and professions, or use this to achieve something more fulfilling, if they can, and if they want to. I purposefully haven’t used the word love because that is not the reality for most of the working population.

It’s heart-warming when I meet people who enjoy or love their job. Sadly, I’ve met, and continue to meet, people who don’t love their job and would like to feel more content at work. The subject of people and work is interesting to me, and so I started to write about it from a manager’s perspective and their key position in the workplace.

I have worked in diverse organisations for over thirty years, in specialist and generalist Human Resources roles. Strong working relationships, being patient, building trust, and being committed to doing my best for all managers has been very important, satisfying, and enjoyable.

This book is based on my work experiences, and what I can contribute to the workplace. I hope it helps people who work together to appreciate leadership, management, collaboration, and teamwork.

My aim is for the book to act as a positive guide with supportive tools to mentor, coach, guide, and inspire. I want to speak to the reader on subjects providing a walk through, advice, information, support, encouragement, raise awareness, understanding, to increase performance and skills. I want to bring confidence, when situations occur in the workplace, and the book can be a useful reference guide on how to approach an event and other people.

There will be subject matter relating to a manager’s role not covered in this book. However, I believe, leaders and managers will benefit greatly from the content.

At first, I thought I was writing just for managers in a workplace setting, but then realised so many different groups or individuals could find this book helpful there are some useful messages for:

•Supervisors and team leaders.

•Aspiring managers.

•Youth or group leaders.

•Volunteer leaders.

•Those recognised for their leadership qualities.

•Workers or group members wanting to influence their manager or leader.

•Young people in schools who accept roles which carry responsibilities could also find the book useful.

I also want anyone who reads this book to recognise they don’t have to be perfect but can work towards being good, better and the best they can be, not just at work but in life itself.

No matter what the starting point is now, tomorrow is a new day and provides a space to try something new, to say something in a different way to get results. I have concluded that this book is for anyone and everyone.

Section 1

Management Attributes and Characteristics

Chapter 1

The Importance of Confidence and Self-Esteem

Before stepping into the workplace, we are people first. We bring ourselves into the workplace.

Imagine yourself on your way to work. Think about how you feel and the importance of work in your life. Sometimes there is not enough thought given to how contented we are with our chosen profession, career, or work.

When people feel good about themselves, their confidence and self-esteem is high. Setbacks will happen, and being self-assured and feeling good can support us with being positive and able to work through problems and build strength.

The main purpose of this chapter is to encourage you to take some time and think about your feelings towards your work situation and what you want for yourself. My wish is that people feel good about themselves before they enter the workspace.

It would be fair to say that people who are fortunate enough to do a job they love feel good about how they spend their working hours.

I want to encourage you to stop and observe people who are energised by their work, filled with passion, excitement, and fun. This is the gift of job satisfaction. Confidence is something you gain from being clear in your own mind that you are knowledgeable, skilful, and gaining experience in your role all the time. You have been well trained; you know your job and why you do it. People you encounter will see you are confident.

If you have become a manager, you should recognise that someone had confidence in you to offer you the job.

Confidence can come from knowing what to do when no one else does. As a manager all eyes can be on you to lead and manage at a moment’s notice, especially during a crisis. This takes confidence, and managers are expected to be ready for the unexpected and plan as much as possible. Prioritising and project management are skills explored in chapters 15 and 19.

Protecting your confidence when asked to explain situations that haven’t gone well. My advice would be to concentrate on correcting errors in a timely manner. I purposefully haven’t used the word quickly because a knee-jerk reaction is not always the correct approach. Taking twenty-four hours to investigate before giving a final response will be reasonable in many instances.

If you need time to find out the reasons why an error occurred, it is impossible to give a response immediately. This is where managers need to be aware of not being pressured into reacting inappropriately and therefore not achieving the best outcome, as this can result in loss of confidence in oneself and others. Good, clear communication wins every time.

We are human, and we aim for perfection, but there are times when mistakes and errors will happen. We need time to find out what happened and put things right whenever possible.

Another common-sense piece of advice is to simply be honest and move on. This can also show you have the confidence to be accountable. In my experience, people are very receptive to this, and it shows the character of a person who cares and is being genuine, with no secret agenda and nothing to hide. It works. I’ll leave you to think about whether a not-so-honest approach will have any positive effect on confidence and self-esteem.

We should be confident about the work we do; however, things can happen from time to time to affect our confidence for a while. For example:

•We have a difficult day.

•We feel unwell.

•There is upset about something.

•We have a new challenge we haven’t experienced before.

•There is already a heavy workload.

•A breakdown in communication, a misunderstanding or clash of personality with others.

•Feelings are hurt by criticisms.

•Reflect on this when doubting your ability to deal with issues sufficiently. My advice is:

•To protect your confidence and self-esteem, put things into perspective. Be realistic. Things have often moved on within twenty-four hours.

•If your success rate is high, be confident in that.

•Try not to internalise things that don’t go to plan. Learn from it, file it away and move on as quickly as possible.

•If there are areas of work you feel need some attention, spend time with yourself thinking about how you can improve them. Try out your improvements and discuss it with your boss and your team if appropriate.

These things can help to keep your confidence and self-esteem intact. We’re human, not robots.

Being a manager carries many responsibilities. One such responsibility is to others. That could be:

•Your organisation.

•Senior management.

•Your line manager.

•Your peers.

•Your team.

•Your customers.

The satisfaction gained from being paid to do a job well and to the best of our ability is worth having. It is a lot more complicated than I will explain in this book, but I have put it out there for you to be aware of. Preserving self-esteem and confidence in yourself and others is so worth it.

Too many people have bad experiences at work that affect them for lengthy periods, some of whom are unable to work due to their self-esteem and confidence being eroded and the difficulty they have in claiming it back. I know of a talented young man who worked in IT. His confidence and self-esteem were so severely damaged, due to poor treatment by management, that he now prefers to do volunteer unpaid work, purely to protect himself from the damaging effects of bad experiences at work. He is part of the reason I decided to write this book.

Through self-awareness and care, managers can build elevated levels of confidence in themselves and others.

Imagine the positive effects, of adopting a zero-tolerance attitude, to not eroding self-esteem and confidence in people, as a contribution to improving the experiences we have at work.

Chapter 2

Having Management Insight

A sense of the overall vision or depth of understanding in a situation can prove to be invaluable in the workplace. This can be achieved by investing time to review options available, then choosing the best course of action and sense checking that plans will work.

Allowing time to take one course of action verses another is a management decision. What would be helpful in these circumstances would be to set out each option separately with advantages and disadvantages. This provides clear information for decision-making. It’s also important to be able to anticipate how plans might change and how to remedy a situation. Spending time thinking things through and considering different aspects will result in you having a better insight. However, you will have great difficulty thinking clearly if there are distractions.

It is important to talk about this to raise awareness of what is humanly possible. It is likely to be harder for you if you put yourself under such pressure that you cannot think clearly.

I am not saying that your work can be placed into boxes and compartmentalised. However, you will need to make a judgement call and prioritise your work so that you can reflect on what is really going on in a situation or with a person.

Remember that, as a manager, you represent the management of your organisation in many instances, and this is the perspective you are safeguarding and protecting. You also need to understand the impact management perspective has on an organisation, for example, decisions about staffing levels, spending, other resources, and the impact these decisions have on customer satisfaction.

Managers need to understand that there are different perspectives to consider, and this insight can make all the difference to success. Sometimes it’s worth doing further research to check facts and figures or seek other opinions that may differ hugely.

If you don’t make time to think, you may not see all there is to see.

Chapter 3

The Motivation to Work

This chapter explores what makes people want to come to work and stay with an organisation and what influences their decision to do what they are paid to do.

There are aspects of people’s lives that drive and motivate them to go to work. These include:

•Working to pay the bills and keep a roof over their head.

•Working to maintain a lifestyle that is important to them.

•Working for an organisation that has adopted the same principles and values as their own.

•Feeling valued, listened to, and appreciated for their achievements and work.

•Valuing effective communication flow at all levels of an organisation where employees contribute to and influence the operations and direction in a meaningful way.

•Working for an organisation they are proud to be associated with, or the brand carries a level of prestige and respect.

•Working and staying with an employer for the non-monetary range of benefits they receive as employees. This can sometimes be of more value to them than receiving more pay i.e. generous time off and holidays, flexible working patterns, company discounts and a good retirement package and pension.

•Being able to achieve personal career aspirations.

•Working for an organisation that values and invests in qualifications, training, and development.

These reasons range from meeting their basic human needs, to aspirations, personal choice, and values.

The People and Working Atmosphere Matter

How an organisation operates in practice influences an individual’s drive and motivation to work. When the leadership and management engage with the workforce and explain clearly what the organisation is about, and where it is going, it becomes easier to see who is motivated and who isn’t.

A positive atmosphere and culture which matches the way things are done and how people behave is also a factor in motivating staff to work and achieve.

The table below demonstrates some of the benefits and consequences of a motivated and demotivated workforce. It also shows the impact a manager has on motivating others to get the best from them.