5 Quick Tips to Being a Better Manager

Get to Know Your Team Members

The best managers know the individuals on their team both professionally and personally on a deeper level. It’s critical to have honest dialogue about each employee’s strengths and weaknesses and how you can help them achieve their goals.

It’s important to try to really get to know the colleagues that you manage. Getting to know your team members inspires engagement and loyalty, which will ultimately help with retention. However, don’t just run through the motions—getting to know someone requires mutual investment, and if you’re disingenuous, you can be quite off-putting. 

Understand Your Team Members Personal & Professional Goals

A desired outcome of getting to know your team members will be understanding what their personal and professional goals are. It’s important to take those aspirations into consideration when delegating projects and work. While a job can’t necessarily always be perfectly aligned with an employee’s goals—constantly disregarding passions and feedback will cause resentment, frustration, and burnout.  

It’s also important to invest in your colleagues in a way that is meaningful and tangible. If they share interest in a professional training opportunity, the best manager will advocate on behalf of that team member to ensure the company provides the resources. 

Check Out Sometimes

Nothing can burn a team out faster than a manger that is burned out themselves. It’s critical that every member of the team gets an opportunity to check out, unwind, and have a clarity break—YES, that includes you, the manager. 

Not only will you likely come back fresh after some much-needed rest and relaxation, but it also gives other members of your team an opportunity to take on more responsibility, grow professionally, and help broaden their skillset.  

If a full-on vacation isn’t on the docket for you, be sure to schedule frequent breaks throughout the week to find mental clarity. Mix things up with your team members too, instead of sitting in the office for a 1:1, take a walk instead—anything to mix it up and keep it fresh.  

Reduce Meeting Load

Have you taken the time to really think about how much time you and your team members sit in meetings? How many of those lack a clear agenda? How many times do you walk out of a meeting only to think your time, and your team members’ time would have been spent better off doing actual work? 

Now, sometimes meetings are absolutely necessary—but many companies fall victim to repetitive, reoccurring meetings that don’t exactly move the needle. To help combat fatigue around meetings, take a peek at your calendar—see any redundancies or meetings you could clear off the books? Cancel them 

Likewise, many organizations designate a day to be completely meeting free—think “No Meeting Monday.” This gives employees a day to breathe, organize their week, and prioritize their focus on the most pressing issues.  

Use Data to Verify Your Gut

Most people managers aren’t data analysts or data scientists. That doesn’t mean they aren’t inundated with a mountain of data. Within that data a valuable story often exists, they just need some help digging it out. Likewise, by using data to lead and manage a team—decisions are rooted in fact and truth, rather than gut feeling and experience. 

Peoplelogic is a People Intelligence platform that helps managers build better teams. Declining team morale, poor engagement, overloaded teams, and broken processes lead to missed goals and a lack of growth. By using the data your teams are already generating, Peoplelogic provides analysis, insights, and recommendations that improve the employee experience, prevent burnout, improve performance management, and helps managers evolve into true leaders. Get started for free.