How Great Managers Engage With their employees
Being a manager isn’t an easy job.
To be a manager, you need to be skilful, experienced, and approachable, all at the same time.
It’s the responsibility of the manager to communicate and engage with their employees, extending themselves outside of their daily work duties.
Skills and mistakes
Managers start out as high-performing employees with particular skills that blossom into a decent managerial skillset.
They have the experience of working at the company they were promoted with for a long length of time, and typically show work habits that make them stand out among the crowd.
When managers and employers are looking to hire new managers from their current staff members, they often look at how the candidates are engaging with employees.
Managers are self-aware, but they also know the strengths and weaknesses of their team.
It’s their duty to try and not swoop in to fix things every time something goes wrong; instead, they know that learning means making mistakes, and that mistakes can usually be fixed very easily.
By engaging with employees, managers learn more about them.
What they can do, what they aren’t ready for, and what skills they need to learn.
They surround themselves with a team that complements their own skillset, where each member has a trait that can balance out the weakness of another.
Personality
Great managers don’t need to be over-friendly 24/7, but they do need to understand how engaging with employees in a certain way can yield better results and a more driven workforce.
Friendliness and kindness can go a long way in the workplace, but if a manger lets their employees walk all over them, there is no respect in the equation.
A great manger should endeavour to find the balance that is needed to ensure their team is working at its optimal capacity.
Employee feedback
The best way for a new manager to start better engaging with employees is to implement regular employee feedback.
One of the best ways to engage any employee is by making them feel like they are being seen by their manager.
Great managers regularly ask for feedback and have performance meetings with their employees to help them understand where they’re going wrong and what they’re doing right in their work.
Ultimately, this also creates a safe space where an employee can air any of their grievances without being worried about repercussions or not being heard over their co-workers.
Team players
Great managers are amazing team players.
A manager should delegate some of their work to their team, yes, but not all of it.
Great managers will get involved while engaging with employees, to ensure that their team is doing the best it can while in a stressful situation.
A great manager will quickly realise that they don’t just have a team – they are a part of that same team.
It shows great leadership when a manager decided to start engaging with employees by becoming a part of the team; rather than overseeing it from the outside.
How to engage your employees
There are many ways that a manager can communication or engage their employees.
The most typical one is face-to-face during meetings, personal reviews, and feedback sessions – but this isn’t the only time you’ll see your team.
Every email you send, or telephone conversation you have, is a chance for your team to get to know you as a person, and for them to get to know you, too.
Whenever you’re contacting your team, or a member of your team, always try to be the manager they need.
