THREE Traits of a Successful Manager

Author: Amita Karve
Date: 29 Sep 2021
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Let me travel back in time when I started my professional career. Over these years, I worked for various organizations across various countries in different industries and with different nationalities.
From all those times, I can easily pick the traits that are good and critical in managing people and influencing others. While, I certainly remember those managers and their leadership traits, who were exceptionally good in their role and inspired me to be a better version of myself.
Since, I am strong advocate of positive mindset, I have picked the ones that will build a strong team with positive mindset, which will always pave the way towards business success.
While most of the women employees were excited about Working-From Home as they thought it will bring in the work life balance and it will be a boon!! Little that they realized that in the lockdown period, suddenly they will have no house help and no support, which they usually used to get during normal Work-From Home situation. Each working women employee had to become, "Atmanirbhar = Independent", doing things by herself for herself as well as for all the family members!!

Successful Manager must have 3 critical traits (ADD):

Align Organizational Purpose with Team Goals: In today's VUCA world businesses are undergoing massive transformations, continuous business changes to keep up with the competition and technological innovations and that itself, has become part of our everyday' s corporate life. Therefore, organizations today need to be dynamic, agile to adjust, adapt to the latest developments. This has put immense responsibility on successful managers shoulders. They have to be mindful that, they cannot anymore just tell their employees to do tasks; they also need to explain and provide them some logic/rationale behind why they need to do what they are assigned to do.
This alignment creates a connect amongst the team members, their work, and their organizational mission. They suddenly start feeling that their jobs are not just mere jobs but the work that they do is more important, and their work contribution holds much significance, even though they may be at the lowest Cader of the management.
Thus, it is of utmost importance for a successful manager to unsure that he clearly draws sight, for his team members, by letting them know how their work contributes to the "big picture". Successful managers help the team members understand the value of their work and how it's vital to achieve organizational goals. This supports in creating SMART goals for smooth execution and there is no expectation mismatch.
Demonstrate Empathy with you team members: Empathy is one of the main drivers of overall performance. While demonstrating yourself as an empathetic leader may be viewed as great performer by your leaders, it is utmost important to understand the emotions of your team members. So successful managers don't fake empathy, they really spend enough time to understand each one of their team members in a wholistic manner.
If you really want to be a successful manager, you must understand how the team members are feeling as this quality enables the team members to connect, communicate effectively and collaborate with you to solve difficult business problems right in the bud.
As a result, the team members trust you more and you can build a rapport, which fuels team success. Being empathic towards employees equips successful managers to form personal bonds with employees and foster long-term relationships with them and this means even if working extra hours doesn't seem to be burden anymore for the team members.
Delegate Tasks Effectively: Good managers delegate tasks effectively. They demonstrate faith in their employees' ability to perform delegated tasks and allow them to learn new skills and develop strengths that they might not otherwise know they have. This way successful managers don't delegate tasks randomly; they identify potential within their teams and assign work to the right people using the right methods and tools.
Successful managers delegate tasks and split responsibilities according to the skills, abilities, and potential talent within teams. This helps to significantly improve overall organizational efficiency as well as time management. Assigning important tasks also helps team members develop confidence in their abilities, which motivates them further to put in their best efforts.
In short successful managers are creating their own successors by not only building talent pipeline through High Potentials but also by identifying High Performers, which will help businesses during expansion and transformation phase. This also ups the game for a successful manager by now becoming an identified successful leader to take up a new business leaders' role.
In a nutshell, being a successful manager is not only about managing just your own work, but also your team members with great responsibility and dignity. As a successful manager you are not only expected to deliver the goods but also command the respect of your team by being inclusive and creating your own successors.
Successful managers cultivate happiness at work and encourage every employee to be a better version of themselves. They positively influence the lives of their team members and help them develop their skills to build their talent for future. They groom them for taking up higher responsibilities for senior roles within the organization.
That said, you can't become a successful manager overnight. You must actively make efforts by practicing these traits consciously and consistently.
About Author: Amita, a well-rounded HR professional with over 18 years of work-experience as Human Resources Business Professional has cross-Industry experience in human resources field spread across various industries like Healthcare, Pharma, Telecom, Banking, Real Estate and Manufacturing. She has managed diverse portfolio like Talent Acquisition, HR Business Partnering, Talent Management (Succession & Career Progression Planning), HRIS Project Planning, Learning and Development and Business Unit Set-Up].
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