5 Tips to Becoming a Well-Liked (and Effective) Manager
Found yourself in charge? Wondering how to balance positivity with results? You’re not alone.
Many managers find it hard to balance their job with good relationships. It can be difficult to juggle everything while directing people about what to do, especially when you’re under a lot of pressure and stress.
Below are five tips for becoming everyone’s favourite boss. It’s easier than you might think!
1. Be Kind
This is a given, but being friendly to everyone, such as your clients, higher-ups, and employees, is a must to becoming a well-liked manager.
This means that even if you’re overwhelmed with your own tasks, you can’t take your frustrations out on those working for you.
In addition, you may think that “positive punishments” (negative actions that aim to provoke a positive response) are an effective way of disciplining employees. But in reality, it doesn’t work. Positive reinforcement is the best way to train someone and get the best of their abilities out of them.
For example, yelling at someone for doing a bad job will just down their spirits. Doing this while expecting their behaviour to change is wishing on a star that turned out just to be a plane; it’s misguided in so many ways. Instead, you want to look into rewards to motivate employees, including positive feedback with every bit of constructive criticism.
Hard work pays off, but positive feedback is what sustains an ecosystem. It’s an asset – make use of it.
2. Use Clear Communication
It’s important to have good communication skills. How do you expect your employees to understand what you want if you don’t properly convey your ideas?
For example, if you want certain tasks completed quickly, you want to ensure this is conveyed through a shared planner or daily announcements. Your tasks won’t be completed if you don’t assign each task to your employees and give them their own goals to complete.
Not everyone understands things the same way. There will always be communication errors – how you handle and address these is what matters.
3. Give Credit Where Credit is Due
Even though you are technically the higher-up in charge of other people, giving credit where credit is due is important.
For example, if an employee worked really hard on a presentation that you are supposed to give, make sure to thank that employee and acknowledge their work. If not, there might be a build-up of resentment if you continue to take the credit that belongs to someone else.
4. Be Sympathetic and Empathetic
As a higher-up, you might be in charge of your employees’ schedules. Because of this, it’s important to be empathetic to your employees’ situations.
For example, don’t assign an employee who just had a newborn a bunch of work days (unless they specifically ask for it); they might want to spend more time with their child. Of course, it’s also up to them to ensure that they book proper time off.
5. Take Care of Yourself
Being liked by everyone is important, but it’s not the sole end goal of management. It’s also unhealthy to “need” everyone to like you. Getting tunnel vision will hurt you mentally and will most likely affect your own work.
Don’t only think about what others will think about you. Consider what you will think of yourself and your own situation when the day is over.
Final Thoughts
Becoming an effective leader doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a good relationship with your employees. Show that you care, and people will pay you back in hard work and loyalty.