Leadership Tips for the Manager Who is Too Easy
The Plant Manager was becoming increasingly frustrated. His production manager was struggling to meet plant performance targets and was not getting his team to take ownership of achieving results. The initial diagnosis was that the production manager was being too easy on his team.
As with most management problems, only two or three behaviours cause the majority of aggravation and frustration.
Using feedback from a Leadership Style Inventory, we determined that the production manager was passive-defensive. He did not have a clear idea in his mind on what he wanted to achieve each day in the plant. He wanted people to like him and tended to either have no goals, or set the goals too low. He was overly rigid with policies and procedures and tended to jump in and do the work himself instead of delegating tasks to others.
As part of the coaching process, I offered this prescription for performance:
- Clarify what you want to see happen. I suggested that he list his frustrations (the things that happened that he did not want) and the corresponding list of things he did want to see instead. It is like driving a car. When you look over the hood, the road is always bumpy and jerky and when you look to the horizon you will tend to move more smoothly in that direction.
- Be specific in communicating expectations and directions and give a reason. I suggested that when he gives direction on the shop floor he should use the word because and give a reason. The reason can be part of his vision. People tend to do what you want when you give them a reason.
- Ask for a commitment. When we teach communication skills, we encourage managers to ask for a commitment when they make a request. Asking, "Can I count on you to take care of this?" gets the individual to enter a verbal contract and makes it more likely they will do what you want.
- Take action. Passive leaders tend to enter a state of paralysis, fearing to make the wrong decision in case it offends an individual on the team. My prescription was that the production manager should take action when he noticed himself slipping into a passive mode.
Leadership Tips for the Manager Who is Too Easy - To learn more about this author, visit Greg Schinkel's Website.
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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