Train Management Candidates
The best managers know how to lead with a carrot, rather than a stick. It can be tough to inspire excellence in today's fast-paced economy where only immediate results are valued, but by learning to build a solid team, both you and your team will be able to come ahead, looking sharp.
Contents
Steps
Assessing the workplace culture
- Look at the workplace culture. It may seem like a retroactive step, but grooming a candidate for management requires a look in the mirror. Are there any obvious signs of demoralization? If so, pay attention to and investigate the employees' concerns. People are simply more productive when they are happy and feel valued. Get to know your team and encourage an open door policy.
- Make sure management candidates get to see supportive approaches and team spirit exemplified by you. Project humility and a willingness to support.
- Make sure that your management candidate gets to see what a true open door policy looks like.
Helping your employees work at their best
- Get to know all of your employees. In turn, evaluate each person on a composite level, strengths, weaknesses and all other relevant competencies. Try to make sure that your employees have the equipment, means and time to do what they need; find out what is needed by being supportive and listening carefully.
- Help your management candidates attain growth in areas that they struggle in, while tasking them with things they are uniquely gifted for.
- Allow your management candidates to give feedback on how operational goals might be better met. It may save the company time and money and will give the employee a sense of ownership, satisfaction and pride. Show your management candidates how you do this every day.
Being collaborative
- Consider the principles of "Servant Leadership". Allow plenty of time for collaborative problem solving between peer employees. Cultivate a culture where employees can be part of the solution to the organizational challenges that you face. If something needs improvement, let an ad hoc committee be formed to help make that happen, or at least create a research framework.
- Let your new management candidate try their hand at solving a problem, such as getting budget approval for new equipment, or streamlining a work process.
- Genuinely care about your coworkers and employees. Congratulate them on their successes and console them in their grief. Managing people is all about relationships, and a management candidate that wants to succeed should see a real leader at work.
Creating harmony
- Focus on team-building. If some employees are not getting along, take them all out for lunch with margaritas or a bonding event that is not forced. No koosh ball or trust falls, but just a break. When the tension in the room is so thick that one could slice it with a knife, no real work is getting done. Take that time for team-building.
Helping your management candidate to succeed
- Cross-train and build knowledge across different functional areas. Management can be overwhelming, but having a bit of knowledge here and there will help your management candidates develop contacts from the bottom up, top-down and a more cohesive idea of how the company is fundamentally run. Even more importantly, knowing who to contact about what is something that takes years for some employees in larger, more bureaucratic organizations. Relationships, again, are key to solving problems and getting key information. More often than not, that knowledge will come from below, and people will more readily respect a neophyte manager who cares about them. More people respect that knowledge was earned from the bottom to the top, with a willingness to get their hands dirty and pitch in than just having an MBA.
- Have the management candidates conduct interviews, create presentations, sit in lieu of you in important meetings and take on more of a personal assistant role while you groom them for larger tasks. This will help them to develop analysis, requirements gathering, presentation and other managerial skills.
- Make sure your manager in training isn't thrown to the wolves. They need to know how to set up new user logins, develop staff, create SOP's, lead employees, and if they can do that, they will make you look good. Your new manager, protégé, what have you, is your fruit. If you cannot churn out good people to replace you, you cannot, and you will not, be promoted. Make sure you set everyone who could fill your shoes next up for success, no matter what your job is, because people will always remember what you did for them, or didn't do for them. Ultimately, as a manager, your job is to cultivate talent, develop employee potential and assist in facilitating human resource development. If you leave your protégé stranded, you have missed the whole point of management.
- Lastly, have your management candidate learn valuable lessons in managing upwards. It's hard to truly be successful without having the team backing you. Help them create meaningful relationships with people that will be directly reporting to him or her, to the people he or she will be reporting to or by finding ways to focus on common problems and solutions. Soft skills are hard to come by, but a bit of coaching on potential pitfalls can keep you, your new hire and your department looking ace.
Tips
- Hire someone with a background that exemplifies a solid grasp on customer service, conflict resolution or other "people focused" jobs, as soft skills are very hard to come by and are essential in management.
- Hire someone who treats your receptionist well.
- Hire someone with a high degree of humility and empathy.
- Try to get the new manager to wear many hats, but be supportive when they get overwhelmed. The overall objective is to expose them to a little of everything, but never to burn them out. Know when to push, and when to let go.
- Try to give an object lesson in picking battles while they sit on the sidelines before they actually have to enter the fray.
- Let them make mistakes. That is part of the learning process.
- Never publicly dress down an employee, not ever, regardless of their status. Instead, create clear and reasonable development goals that are attainable and assist in making sure that your new management candidate can meet these development goals.
- Last, and most importantly, give candidates that you are grooming for management a bit of power and watch very carefully how they handle that power. If they show antisocial or abusive tendencies, consider removing them from the candidate pool, or if they are insecure in their role try to mentor them by showing effective leadership skills that don't include bullying or grandstanding. A toxic leader can and will ruin your organization, especially if you run a small business with a tight profit margin.
