Top Managers Know How to Let Their Employees Excel – Here's a Few Tips

As a manager, the majority of your goals can be accomplished by focusing on just one – bringing out the best in your employees. After all, if your team is going above and beyond, you are likely keeping costs in check, meeting deadlines, and maximizing your productivity. Unfortunately, getting the best out of people is not as easy as simply requesting it. These tips can help.

Set the Example

You can’t expect your employees to give their best if you don’t embody that same spirit of perfection. In everything you do, lead by example, and be the professional that you want your team to be. Make sure that you are punctual, ethical, accountable, and honest, and those same traits will begin to run off on the  people around you.

Highlight Career Development

Effective managers make it easy for the people around them to visualize their own success. If you make it a priority to not just focus on meeting short-term goals, but creating opportunities for your team to learn new skills, complete comprehensive projects and mold themselves into professionals that are poised to move up the ladder, you create a natural incentive for your team to push itself further.

Create Realistic Expectations

Your goals should be to push your team one or two extra steps further, not demand that they meet unrealistic expectations. Ultimately, pushing too hard is bad for morale and typically dooms your goals to failure. When your team is able to meet your ambitious goals, it creates a powerful precedent that can spur on further achievements.

Provide Insightful Feedback

As we said earlier, it’s not enough to simply tell people to work harder. If you want your employees to take the next step, you have to give them the tools and guidance to help them get there. Provide thorough, honest, and constructive feedback as much as possible, and make sure you balance the positive with the negative.

Know Your Team as People

In order to get the best out of your employees, you have to look past the details of their resume and tap into the aspects of their character that really drive success. If your managerial style is overly formal, removed, or impersonal, you are probably missing opportunities to motivate your employees on a deeper level. Don’t hesitate to take time out of the work day for team-building activities or to have a conversation over lunch.

The final thing to remember is that success is a two-way street and that both you and your employees have an equal role to play. Hold yourself accountable, hold your team accountable, and know that any success or failure reflects something about everyone. Learn more about effective management by consulting the team at The Squires Group.


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