6 Painless Ways Become A Better Boss
Whether you feel like a natural leader or a reluctant ringmaster, sharpen up with these management skill-builders. Managing an office or company well is no small feat, but it is something you can get better at. If you're looking to take your management to the next level, these six tricks can get you headed in the right direction.
1. Take communications classes.
Even if you feel comfortable getting up in front of a large crowd and talking your heart out, part of good management is efficiency. If you cannot say exactly what you mean concisely and clearly, you'll create confusion and conflict, slow operations and waste the very resources company leaders trust you with. Make sure to cover all types of communication (email, public speaking, or phone calls). Consider pairing these kinds of courses with ones on body language or foreign languages. Learning about various cultures can help enormously given the increasing diversity of the workplace.
2. Spend more quality time with employees.
A huge part of management is delegation, which requires problem-solving and matching employees with the most appropriate task given their skills and experience. Frequent assessment gives you more data about what employees can and cannot handle well and how much they have learned in a specific period. At the same time, putting in more face time with them builds rapport, giving you better clues about how to communicate and help them. Both of these things put you in a better position to assign the right person to the right project.
3. Lighten up and do something fun.
It's sometimes hard to be carefree when you have a hundred things to do in 15 minutes or thousands of dollars are at stake. But the fact is, things can and will go wrong in the workplace every day. If you don't counterbalance the negativity of all the errors and stress, you'll likely burn out and start interacting more negatively with those you oversee. Employees also tend to be more productive when they are cheerful, so
1. Take communications classes.
Even if you feel comfortable getting up in front of a large crowd and talking your heart out, part of good management is efficiency. If you cannot say exactly what you mean concisely and clearly, you'll create confusion and conflict, slow operations and waste the very resources company leaders trust you with. Make sure to cover all types of communication (email, public speaking, or phone calls). Consider pairing these kinds of courses with ones on body language or foreign languages. Learning about various cultures can help enormously given the increasing diversity of the workplace.
2. Spend more quality time with employees.
A huge part of management is delegation, which requires problem-solving and matching employees with the most appropriate task given their skills and experience. Frequent assessment gives you more data about what employees can and cannot handle well and how much they have learned in a specific period. At the same time, putting in more face time with them builds rapport, giving you better clues about how to communicate and help them. Both of these things put you in a better position to assign the right person to the right project.
3. Lighten up and do something fun.
It's sometimes hard to be carefree when you have a hundred things to do in 15 minutes or thousands of dollars are at stake. But the fact is, things can and will go wrong in the workplace every day. If you don't counterbalance the negativity of all the errors and stress, you'll likely burn out and start interacting more negatively with those you oversee. Employees also tend to be more productive when they are cheerful, so