Hello there, Fans of Plans! In this fortnight’s blog I’m going to be looking at an area of management that can be the most tricky to get right – people management. 

Some managers are seemingly natural people managers – they have that empathy with their team, and their team members go to them when they have issues without worries of negative repercussions. These are the managers, who unsurprisingly have the highest engagement scores when it comes to employee surveys. 

But what are they actually doing that stands them out from the rest? Let’s take a look at how your organisation can harness some of that leadership magic across the organisation. 

Training 

It’s really great when an organisation promotes from within. It shows that employees can progress within an organisation. But they may have been excellent in the role they were doing, but they may need support and guidance if there are aspects of their promoted role they have little experience of. One of the key aspects often missed is people management, or leadership, and this can really make or break a team. 

It can be awkward for the newly promoted employee to go from co-worker to manager/supervisor. There are different expectations and there are new skills to learn on how to lead the team. This is where it is worth the investment in training for your new manager, whether you choose to make sure they are enrolled in a managing people course, or you create a mentorship scheme within your organisation from another manager that has more experience, both of these can work well to help them in their new role. 

Setting the standard

Having a set of standards that your organisation expects from their managers can help to make sure that new managers into the business know what your expectations are of them. They may have gained people management experience in another organisation, but how do you know that their people management skills and behaviours are what you would want to see demonstrated in your organisation? 

The difference between leadership and management

If you’re on LinkedIn, or you have attended any people management course, you’ll probably have seen one or all of the following quotes: 

“Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.” – Steve Jobs

“A manager, says “Go”, a leaders says “Let’s Go”.  -  John Maxwell

“Leadership is about motivating people to comprehend and believe in the vision you set for the company and to work with you on achieving your goals. While management is more about administering the work and ensuring the day-to-day activities are getting done as they should.”

As you can see, having both management and leadership skills are important. When it comes to people, they want to see a leader – here is a list of some of the differences between the two:

So, Fans of Plans – take a look at your organisation and think about what you need to be doing to shift your thinking towards a leadership style that will motivate and inspire others. 

PS - If you are keen for some individual wellbeing tips to complement this Working Well life, check our Being Yourself Series with Jane. You can read the latest edition here:  https://www.makemeaplan.com/news/