“LEADER’S EVEREST” TRAINING CYCLE

People are different. Organisations also are different and face various challenges and therefore a universal management strategy does not exist.

• The first step to managerial effectiveness is being aware of your management style (strengths, as well as limits in communication, partnership – on day-to-day basis and during situation of increased feeling of threat or stress), and impact that the management style has on others.
• The next step in developing managerial effectiveness is the skill to use own resources in a way that will allow to effectively adjust your management style to needs of employees, understand their behaviour style and motivations, and take into account organisational needs and challenges that your company is facing, including sudden crisis situations.

Considering the above, we propose you a unique manager skills development strategy, in which the entry point is diagnosis of managerial behaviour strengths (using the  DISC D3 study), as well as those areas, which are abused or the manager lacks in order to show operating effectiveness and easiness to adapt to challenges that his team and company faces.

An exceptionally significant part of improving manager’s effectiveness is increasing his/her awareness to the subject of his/her strengths and limits and how those two aspects can influence manager’s environment. Each party – both manager and team member – usually looks its own prism of: behaviour style, communication, values, or needs. Only the ability to meet the other party and adjustment of actions and their form by manager will allow him/her to effectively carry out company’s goals with understanding, acceptance, and engagement from people around him/her.

During training sessions, we help managers to translate knowledge about their own profiles into practical applications in actions and relations in day-to-day activities, both in stable and crisis situations. We teach how to handle differences, both on the manager-subordinate line and among team members. We show the best practices and solutions, for example full process of effective delegation or assumption to effective feedback.

Each of cycle’s module is dedicated to separate area of manager’s effectiveness according to the MPI model. Below you will find description of specific areas:

• DELEGATING

Managers, who have delegating among their strengths, make sure that everyone in a team has a specific scope of tasks to carry out. They feel that their task if to correctly distribute work to others (while taking into account their strengths, level of skills, and work load), but not necessarily be engaged in execution of specific tasks, take care of details, and perform the process themselves. They understand how many goals can be achieved through teamwork and make sure that everyone handles actions that him/her are really good at.

This becomes especially significant in crisis situation, e.g. when a manager must find him-/herself in a situation of reduced personal sets, in conditions different that up to this point (e.g. remote work), or has to quickly develop a new strategy for presence on the market along with his/her team.

• RELATIONS

It is said that employees come to a company, but leave a boss. Managers, who excel in relations, usually have a low turnover in team. They want to be close to employees and build bonds with them. They ensure a good atmosphere, make every employee feel good in the team, and guarantee that each employee feels that he/she is an important part of the team. Therefore, they dedicate time to meet employees (including their values and motivations) in order to respond to their needs. Quite often they maintain contact with employees even after working hours, for example, by initiating integration meetings. The manager’s ability to make relations is vital for majority of employees (the S and I style in DISC).

It is especially important in crisis situation because the way how manager builds relations with team members translates into their engagement, supporting manager in a difficult situation, and following his/her decisions. It is also important in order to keep a team calm and focus on searching for solutions. A challenge here may be constituted by making and communicating difficult decisions, which usually do not contribute to building a good atmosphere.

• SUPPORT

There are managers, who can list support of a team as their strength. Such managers find methods to excite the motivation of employees. Some might need communication that will turn them on to action, while others may require positive attitude to what is to be done, as well as people they work with. They always appreciate the weight of positive feedback when someone has earned it (they often express it verbally). Managers with high-level support not only focus on correction of errors, but first and foremost they also focus on finding out what a given person does well, improving strengths of such person, and extract the best traits of an employee.

In crisis situation, manager must be very careful in terms of if and how he provides support to members of his team. Without appropriate feedback (both positive and corrective) and honest appreciation, it is hard to expect that subordinates will find themselves in a crisis, take responsibility for common goal, and will feel that they play on the same team. The fact that someone simply does his/her job well does not mean that he did not earn appreciation or that a good word will not motivate him.

• TEACHING

Managers, who are good at teaching, feel great in the role of teacher or mentor. They see the value of teaching in improving employees’ effectiveness or development of their skills. Often, they are experts in a given field. They easily give out guidelines or instructions on how something should be done by sharing their knowledge and experience. Such people eagerly will engage in a process and execution of tasks not through execution, but through training and teaching others. Person, who sees teaching as effective team management strategy, has a chance to extract from employees their best traits. He/she will dedicate time to teach new skills to others and will be patient while doing so.

In crisis situation often seems like time without space to teach others. However, employees need to understand the situation, know person responsible for making decisions, or why certain change is implemented. Therefore, dedicating time to appropriately share such information and adjust their form and contents to needs of team members is exceptionally important to keep the team engaged.

• ENSURING COMPLIANCE WITH STANDARDS

Manager, who ensures compliance with standards, can be extremely effective in his/her role, in particular in a work environment, in which procedures and standards are a critical part of carrying out goals. Usually, such manager is an expert in given field. He/she encourages others to act according to adopted standards by providing rational arguments and pointing out benefits. Behind the ensuring compliance with standards stands easiness of looking on a situation and operation of a team in such a way that will allow to point out what should be changed or implemented to carry out a task or perform a process according to goals (e.g. implementation of written arrangements or checking if both parties understand each other). Such managers value precision and appreciate fulfilment of arrangements (e.g. punctuality and timeliness), as well as how much employees operate according to adopted rules and standards.

Aware approach to compliance with standards is especially important in crisis situation.  During uncertain or difficult times, it is the manager’s role to indicate such rules, which will make employees feel safe and confident in what they have to do. At the same time, this approach is about determination of key areas or tasks where an appropriate standard or observance of a procedure is necessary to ensure the performance of business goal.

• REWARDING

Manager, whose dominating behaviour area is rewarding, will most likely say “I believe that a job well done deserves a reward.” He/she is convinced that people are motivated by cash or other reward system (tangible and measurable, not only verbal). Such reward can also be free time, remote work, etc. He/she believes that this method will keep employees motivated. Usually, such manager ensures that specific people are rewarded not equally, but rather according to their merits.

In crisis situation, rewarding is very important because employees need stimuli to keep their motivation up more than during stable times. The manager’s knowledge on how to do it and what given person needs to feel motivated allows to keep engagement at good level and, as a result, carry out team’s goals.

• CREATIVITY

Manager, whose strength is creativity, thinks outside of the box and provides unusual ideas and solutions while taking into account the needs of market, customers, and business partners. He/she encourages employees to do the same. If current solutions stop being effective, such manager can easily provide new ideas, which the team can then implement.

Creativity has a significant meaning in crisis situation because difficult situations usually require manager to quickly provide new solutions. Here, appropriate communication and pace of implementing such solutions is important in order to make the team not feel burdened by too big or too frequent changes, as well as avoid the impression that manager delays with decision making for too long.

• MANAGING

Team managed by a manager, who is great at management, works like a well-lubricated machine. It works according to adopted plan and each person knows what to do and what are his/her tasks. Such manager easily thinks about what employees need in order to carry out tasks, as well as who at what time should handle a given task. If it is necessary to plan a process, then a manager with high management skill will look at the situation from a bird’s eye view and then will determine what resource are needed in order for actions to perform according to plan.

Managing in crisis situation translates into high operating effectiveness of a manager, who gives team members a feeling of going in the right direction and safety. During difficult time, manager should trust his/her experience and knowledge, as well as be able to balance needs of organisation and team more than ever in order to maintain management effectiveness.