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Leadership: These Seven Challenges Help Managers Succeed
Written by: Greg SchinkelArticle Overview: We learn best from experience. Even though the school of hard knocks is time consuming and expensive, no amount of management training can completely prepare you for what you will experience as a manager. These seven challenges and experiences help managers succeed.
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Leadership: These Seven Challenges Help Managers Succeed
We learn best from experience. Even though the school of hard knocks is time consuming and expensive, no amount of management training can completely prepare you for what you will experience as a manager.
On your leadership journey, seek out and savour these valuable lessons:
Enjoying Success and Experiencing Failure
While it's natural to prefer success over failure, managers can get spoiled by success. During good times, it's important to think about what is contributing to the success so you can repeat it in future situations. A challenging or even disastrous project can be a good teacher if you can observe what went wrong and how to avoid it the next time. Humility is acquired through disappointment and is a great antidote for excess ego.
Operating in Luxury and on a Shoe String
Managers can get spoiled by having lots of financial and human resources at their disposal. Most managers do not extract as much performance as they should in these situations. It helps to experience how to manage when money is tight and there aren't many people around to help. Challenge builds character.
Working for a Great Boss and Working for a Terrible Boss
Having a supportive, encouraging and motivating boss is preferred in terms of overall personal growth. A manager can also learn a lot from a boss who is either too easy on people or too bossy. The lessons learned help the manager decide what approaches he or she will use and which will be avoided.
Hiring the Right Person and Hiring the Wrong Person
Despite improvements in interviewing techniques and pre-employment testing, there is still a high degree of variation in hiring success. A great hiring decision pays for itself many times over while a bad hire will create much aggravation and soak up lots of time in addressing performance issues.
Losing a High Performer and Not Confronting a Poor Performer
Having a high performer leave your organization can be a major blow and it can provide good management lessons on how to retain top talent. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the poor performer who the manager avoids confronting, or gives too many chances and ultimately terminates and then wishes he had done so weeks or months earlier.
Dealing with Customers, Selling your Product or Service
Working in sales and marketing, especially if it requires dealing directly with customers, can give the manager insight and sensitivity to how decisions impact customers. Since the lifeblood of an organization is revenue, the manager can enlighten her staff on how to balance keeping customers happy with applying company policies.
Dealing with Conflict
Conflict is essential for organizational health and continuous improvement. The manager plays the role of antagonist, negotiator, and peace keeper. Rather than avoiding conflict, the manager learns to embrace and work through conflict as a necessary companion to change.
Battle scars help managers achieve success and be more adaptable to a wide variety of scenarios and situations. It increases both opportunity for future promotion and increases value within the organization. If you aspire to management excellence, seek out these learning experiences. If you are looking to groom leaders for succession, put them in situations where they can learn these valuable lessons.
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Article Tags: aggravation, antidote, boss, disappointment, ego, failure, good times, human resources, humility, improvements, interviewing techniques, leadership journey, management training, money, performance issues, personal growth, school of hard knocks, shoe string, variation, wrong person
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About the Author: Greg Schinkel RSS for Greg's articles - Visit Greg's website  Greg Schinkel and his team help entrepreneurs and business leaders improve profit and grow their business by providing management training, supervisor training, team leader training, lead hand training and executive coaching. The challenge for many successful organizations is that leadership becomes diluted from the senior leadership team to the front line leader. For organizations who choose to be union-free, Greg and his team equip leaders to maintain excellent employee relations while focusing on results. For unionized workplaces, the focus is how to effectively lead employees within the boundaries of the collective-agreement while achieving results. Greg Schinkel has reached more than half a million people through his writing, broadcasting, speaking, training and coaching. Greg has appeared on television, radio and in print more than 200 times for his leadership expertise. He is co-author of the best-selling book Employees Not Doing What You Expect, published in North America, India, Latin America and Korea. Since 1992, Greg has owned and operated Unique Training & Development Inc., a leading provider of supervisor training, management development, team leader training and lead hand training. His website is http://www.UniqueDevelopment.com Click here to visit Greg's website   Career Tips for High Achievers Who Are Feeling Stagnant Want to Change Employee Behavior Change Yourself First Leadership These Seven Challenges Help Managers Succeed Your Need to Always Be Right Might Keep You From Achieving Greater Success Want Greater Success Be Ready to Work Harder and Smarter |
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