How to lead and motivate the managers in your team
How to lead and motivate the managers in your team is different from how you manage employees. These differences are very important to be successful when going from junior manager into middle management and even more so when going into senior management.
I am explaining 5 big differences to managing employees that you must be aware of. I will explain how to adapt your management approach so you can be very successful in leading and motivating the managers in your team.
For each, I am sharing practical ways to do each of these really well, so you have very motivated, happy and high performing managers in your team who love working with you
The 5 big differences for how to lead and motivate the managers in your team are:
- Give mangers a lot more space. I share 5 very effective ways to do this
- Delegate problems not tasks
- Focus on developing specific leadership skills
- Push them to think strategically
- Help them build relationships outside of the team
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The first difference when leading your managers is give them a lot more space
Managers have a different range of skills to employees. They are better problem solvers, they are proactive, they have good people skills, they communicate better, and they are essential for you to get great results and outcomes from the teams you manage.
To get the best from your managers, to utilise all these great skills they are building, you need to give them space. The more important questions are “How much space?” and “How do I keep control of what they are doing?”
Firstly what NOT to do. Don’t micromanage your managers. Avoid giving them too many detailed instructions of what to do. Don’t keep asking about their progress. Don’t expect a lot of questions from them or a lot of contact points.
Instead, do take these 5 approaches.
1 – Set Direction & Goals
Together set and define their direction and the goals they need to achieve. Set and define the goals and targets of the team and ask them how they are going to contribute to the team achieving these goals. Ask them to plan their tasks and activities and then present their plans to you. You then know what they are doing, how credible their plan is, and you get a chance to input, guide and coach them. They get to use their skills and get support useful to them. Two happy parties.
2 – Focus on Results
Focus on results not tasks and activities. Ask them to deliver clear measurable results. Focus on progress towards that result. Don’t focus on the tasks and activities until your manager’s progress starts falling behind plan. Then you can dive in to help. Managing the tasks and activities is their job. Ensuring the team delivers the results in your job.
3 – Define Responsibilities
Define clear areas of responsibility. Provide a clear framework in which your managers can work within. You won’t step on their toes, nor will they step on each other’s toes. Plus they will have space to use their skills and independently solve problems. Give your managers clear authority to support their responsibilities.
4 – Safeguard Ownership
Carefully manage your actions and behaviours so your managers keep ownership of the results they need to deliver. Ask questions and coach rather than giving instructions and making decisions for them. Treat them like your partner and solve problems with them when they ask for support.
5 – Develop KPIs
Develop relevant and sufficiently detailed KPIs to track progress towards the results needed for each manager. Visibility and tracking results replace the more hands on and involved approach you might have taken when managing employees. KPIs and visibility give you an early warning system for potential problems and enable you to ask the right questions at a much earlier point.
When leading your managers, always give them plenty of space and adapt to a more hands off way of keeping track of their progress. Never be afraid to jump in to help the minute you become concerned they might be struggling.
Flex how much space you give to each manager and how well they are delivering progress and results. Visibility gives you hands-off control. Give your managers space.
Secondly, when leading your managers, focus on delegating problems rather than tasks
Individuals are promoted into the management ranks because they show good promise in problem solving, decision making and managing relationships as a minimum. Managers should be good at building solutions.
The minute you delegate tasks to managers – that is telling them what steps to take to get to implement a solution – you take away their opportunity to solve problems and you give yourself a lot more work than you need to.
Spend time defining the problem you want solved and be clear what an acceptable result looks like. Be light on how to solve the problem. Leave that up to them. Be on hand to help them if they get stuck.
Treat your managers like important partners, delegate problems and you will have motivated problem solvers, eager to take your problems away from you.
There are different types of problems that you could delegate. Start by delegating common straight forward problems which have known solutions. Then start delegating less common problems and those problems which have a partially known solution. Finally work with your managers to solve new problems that don’t have a known solution. Strengthen the problem solving skills of your managers by periodically pushing them out of their comfort zones while being on hand to help and support.
Third – develop specific leadership skills in your managers
When you meet with your managers, the most valuable use of your time is likely to be on developing their skills, jointly solving problems and making decisions together. Try to use automated reporting and KPIs to keep track of updates. This keeps the basic information sharing portion of the one-on-one meeting to a minimum.
Dedicate a portion of your one-on-one meeting to developing the following skills:
- Problem solving skills
- Decision making skills
- People management skills
- Communication skills
Each of these are essential skills for all managers and the sooner you start helping your managers improve these leadership skills, the better off you and they will be.
Use a coaching approach rather than telling them what to do. Ask questions to get them thinking. Provide scenarios to talk through. Undertake role plays to see them in action.
Add to this, problems and projects which will give them the opportunity to practice their skills within the team each week. Skills need practice to improve so give them as much opportunity as you can while being on hand to help, support and guide.
Give them plenty of detailed and specific feedback so they know exactly where they are and what they should be working on to improve further.
I will include links in the description to guides on how to get the absolute most from one-on-one meetings with your team members.
Thinking Strategically – The fourth approach for how to lead & motivate the managers in your team
Strategic thinking or big picture thinking is an easy area to ignore developing in junior managers. Middle management should be thinking about the function or business unit they work in. Senior managers should be thinking at the company level. Starting earlier makes the transition into more senior leadership roles easier, quicker and usually a lot more successful.
Ask your managers to give you their opinion on the direction and goals of the function or business unit or ask them to explain the pros and cons of the company strategy to you.
Give them regular strategic level updates and ask them what the updates mean for the company. Use “what if” scenarios to develop discussions, ideas and planning. Set your managers homework to look into the marketplace and competitors. Ask them how these factors impact your company’s approach and positioning?
In short ask questions and create regular discussions to get them thinking about issues at a higher, broad level than they need to for their day job. This work will provide them great context and help them align their work more closely with what is needed to achieve company goals.
Better alignment helps the business reach its goals quicker while using less resources, plus makes each sub-team’s work more valuable.
Push your managers to think strategically.
5 – Help Your Managers Build Relationships Outside of the Team
Managers help their teams become more effective and deliver better results when they are able to coordinate activities within the team and with other teams in a business AND when they are able to get resources and the work output of others in place exactly when needed.
The better the relationships managers have with those they depend on, the more likely they will be able to achieve great outcomes.
As a team member and junior manager, you are primarily focused on building and maintaining relationships within your team. Enter middle management and your sphere of relationships expands. You need to work with a greater number and greater range of people inside and outside of the business. As you climb the management ranks, your relationship sphere needs to keep getting bigger for you to increase your effectiveness and success. [Click for articles of networking skills]
Help this process by introducing your managers to your peers and other managers within the business. Invite them to participate in or lead cross functional projects. Ask them to attend cross functional training sessions, meetings and social events. Give them the opportunity to meet as many senior team members as practical. Coach them on how to start building professional and personal relationships with these senior managers.
Help them build positive strong professional relationships across the business. Better relationships will make them more effective and able to deliver more, which is great news for you, your team and the business.
in summary
How to lead and motivate managers in your team is different from how you manage employees. Adapting your management style ensures you remain very successful and get the get the best from your managers.
The differences in successfully leading managers are:
- Give mangers a lot more space using the 5 very effective actions discussed
- Delegate problems not tasks
- Focus on developing specific leadership skills
- Push them to think strategically
- Help them build relationships outside of the team
If you have any questions on “How To Lead & Motivate The Managers In Your Team”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
[For further reading on leading junior managers click here]
