This blog was one of most popular blogs for Steam Engine Financial Coaching. Enjoy!
Be aware.
Being in a position of authority over people and having regular and frequent contact with them makes a boss very influential in the lives of the people who work under them. Please don’t take a management position just to make more money. Be a manager or a boss because you want to help people be their very best. You’ll have a great opportunity to be significant in the lives of other people.
By the way, the boss in the movie Office Space is an exceptional example of what NOT to do as a boss.
1. Utilize your peoples strengths.
Common management models have bosses work to identify shore up peoples’ weaknesses, which is often frustrating for the employee and not very productive.
Check out StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. It’s a great resource for assessing strengths. People are energized and more effective when they use their strengths.
2. Encourage learning.
- Work with your employee to identify their learning goals.
- Have a specific plan for each person’s professional development.
3. Catch your people doing good and praise them in the moment.
- Let your people know what you appreciate when you see them doing it, e.g. helping another person, being frank or doing their personal best.
- Praise important things like character traits rather than insignificant things.
4. Speak well of your employees in front of other people.
- The positivity that comes from talking good about people behind their backs helps to boost morale for all the employees.
- It feels great to hear from other people that your boss has good things to say about you. It gives those comments even more credibility.
5. Give them your full attention when conversing.
- Turn off the screen on the computer, tablet or smart phone and close the book or file and grant your workers all of your attention when you are talking together.
- Paying full attention will not only clue you in to subtle nuances of what the person is saying, it also conveys the message that you are interested in what they have to say.
6. Respect their time.
- Starting and ending meetings on time and keeping the meeting topic from drifting is generally appreciated by everyone.
- Protect your workers’ time by not requiring them to do or attend unnecessary company stuff (except, of course, the fun ore useful thing that they really do want to attend).
7. Keep your cool even when you’re angry or disappointed.
- Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry is a great resource with exercises to help build the skill of keeping one’s cool.
- Yelling and other such outbursts stresses people out, destroys trust and kills morale.
8. Expect your employees to do their best work.
- Having high expectations helps boost a person’s confidence (as long as they really have the knowledge, skills and resources to get the job done).
- Not accepting work you know they are capable of doing better also shows you have respect for them and their abilities.
9. Allow your people to take risks and learn from their mistakes.
- People have to take some risks to come up with exciting new things. But no one will want to do take risks if people are blamed and their failure is ridiculed.
- Like I said in 10 Ways to Be a Significant Parent, it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all because there are so many lessons to be learned in the trying.
10. Show genuine care and concern for your people.
- People respond well to being cared about and it makes them feel valued—because they are valued.
- Read Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders and be what he calls a “lovecat.”
