I often ask the CEOs I work with, what keeps you up at night?
4 out of 5 times, I get an answer that goes something like this:
The people issues drain me. If I could just get on with my job and everybody would just get on with their job, it would be so much easier.
My answer goes something like this: The people stuff is your job.
When you’re leading people, your top priority is the well-being and success of your people.
A great study on this is Google’s Project Oxygen, which started off trying to answer the question: Do managers matter?
Taking a statistically rigorous approach, they found that good management does make a difference (keeping their org structure flatter than most but not getting rid of managers entirely).
In fact, the top 8 behaviours of great managers are:
- Is a good coach
- Empowers the team and does not micromanage
- Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
- Is productive and results-oriented
- Is a good communicator—listens and shares information
- Helps with career development
- Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
- Has key technical skills that help him or her advise the team
Notice that first on the list is being a good coach, last on the list is technical skills and guidance. Interesting?
Not surprising – since being a great manager is closely connected to being a great coach and knowing how to lead people. in fact, 5 or the 8 skills above are people management skills.
If you had to use this as a checklist for yourself, give yourself a score of 1-10 on each of these behaviours and then add them up. (If you’re brave, ask your team to score you in each of these areas, as well.)
What’s your score? Click here and let me know.
Next week I’m going to talk more about the first quality – being a good coach.
- What does it mean?
- Why is it important?
- How do you, as a manager, become a good coach?
You can choose your perspective. Either, your biggest problem is the people issues.
Or, your biggest opportunity for growth is the people.
It’s the people, people!
If you’re looking for a leadership mentor that will help you grow your leadership mindset and achieve your business goals, get in touch with us for one-on-one leadership coaching & mentoring.