4thwave

There are many books about being a great manager, fortunately I never read books on being the best successful manager.

But starting of as a manager is very difficult , and here are several points you should consider to being a successful manager.

Don’t expect the company to change overnight. A lot of us have great ideas how we can improve performance, cost and time to our department or to the company. The situation is you need to convince everyone to your idea. This takes time and effort to convince people, specifically stakeholders if you want your ideas to succeed. I have seen very aggressive managers trying to push their ideas and agendas to the company, and yet it takes a company to approve the idea approximately 6 months to a year. Don’t expect the company to change overnight.

Be a good role model. If your department is working long hours, you should as well. You need to be showing that you are doing more than they are. By doing so, you are showing the team, that their manager understands the needs of the team. This may sound like common sense, but we have all met many managers who just have no idea, what their team is doing. These kind managers get little respect from their team. Of course, having a drink or two with your team, definitely does not hurt.

Be communicative. When things are going bad, speak up. Tell your manager, or the project manager, but tell someone. You may be blamed, but most likely not because you are confronting situations which are occurring in your team. By speaking up, you are giving the opportunity for other people to help in resolving these issues. If you do not communicate, and you reach a point that the project is doomed to fail, you will be blamed for the project.

I will write additional tidbits with real examples, during the next week or so.

(Picture is done by Delgoff [Easy])