As a manager, embracing continuous improvement is essential for your career progression and the success of your team. Managers who neglect their development risk career setbacks, while those who focus on growth are statistically 20-30% more likely to achieve promotions and higher salaries on average. However, manager who neglect their own development are at a higher risk of being demoted or even terminated.
The importance of professional development cannot be understated, not only in enhancing leadership skills but also in securing career longevity and financial success. Seize this opportunity for improvement and unlock your full potential as a manager. By exploring these 14 key areas of improvement for managers, you’ll be embarking on a journey of personal development and setting a course for measurable improvements in team performance, which will drive remarkable outcomes in the workplace.
Why is Professional Improvement Important?
Continuous professional improvement is one of the most critical areas of improvement for managers. By improving your leadership skills, embracing change, and staying updated with industry trends, you can make better decisions and boost team performance.
- By actively seeking opportunities for improvement, managers can keep up with industry trends, adopt new strategies, and make informed decisions that benefit their teams and organizations.
- Professional development allows managers to acquire new knowledge, refine their skills, and gain a competitive edge, positioning them as valuable assets within their organizations.
- It enables managers to inspire and motivate their team members by leading by example, demonstrating a commitment to growth, and fostering a culture of continuous learning.
Fun Fact: Did you know that managers who invest in their professional improvement are 47% more likely to have high-performing teams? So, by focusing on their own growth, managers create a ripple effect of success and achievement within their organizations.
Essential Areas of Improvement for Managers
To improve as a manager, you should be ready to learn new skills, identify areas of strengths, and find ways to become better at your job. Additionally, always seek feedback from others, including your employees. By understanding how your staff perceives you and your interaction with them, you can know where you need to change or adjust.
Let’s jump right in!
1. Build Trust for Team Growth
The only way to win employees’ loyalty is to build trust. Workers follow leaders because they believe in them. However, trust must be earned, and one way to achieve this is to demonstrate honesty and integrity in the workplace.
So, how can you instill trust in employees? Some ways to improve this area include:
- Be transparent in your decisions. Openly communicate your thought process and reasoning behind key choices to build trust and encourage alignment within your team.
- Follow through on promises. Consistently deliver on your commitments to demonstrate reliability, reinforce credibility, and foster a positive work environment.
- Be respectful. Show that you respect your workers’ decisions and you only want them to do their best work.
- Treat all employees equitably, regardless of background. Ensure fairness by providing equal opportunities, recognition, and support to every team member, fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace.
2. Take Interest in Your Employees’ Growth
Another key area of improvement for managers is to remember that each employee is unique. Employees thrive when managers show genuine interest in their skills and career development. Focus on personalizing your interactions to understand individual strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations.
Take the time to listen to your staff and find ways to make them feel valued. Listen actively to their concerns, ideas, and opinions about work. However, don’t stop there. Consider their goals, abilities, interests, and skills and offer growth opportunities.
By doing this, your employees will understand that you have geniuine interest in their growth, which will foster a trusting and collaborative environment.
3. Improve Your Motivational Skills
How motivated are your employees? Motivation is a major area for development that influences team productivity. By fostering team spirit, celebrating successes, and promoting a positive work environment, you can inspire your employees to excel.
A good manager will strive to hone their motivational skills, so they can inspire their employees to remain passionate about their work. If you’re looking for effective ways to present goals or motivational content to your team, consider using presentation templates to make your points more visually appealing and organized. That passion is what breeds success and boosts team performance.
You can improve this area and instill motivation among your workers by:
- Lead by example. Demonstrate the behavior you expect from your team to inspire commitment and dedication, whether it’s arriving early, staying focused, or putting in extra effort.
- Foster an atmosphere of team spirit and cohesiveness. Encourage collaboration, celebrate team achievements, and create a sense of belonging to boost morale and drive success.
- Promote shared accountability. Emphasize that wins and losses are collective, reinforcing that success is a team effort and no one person carries the blame for setbacks.
- Avoid micromanaging. Empower your employees to take ownership of their tasks, giving them the space to apply their skills and develop confidence. (More on this in Tip #7).
4. Set the Right Example
Setting the right example as a manager plays a big role for your staff. If you work hard, never come to work drunk, respect employees, and follow through with your promises, chances are, your team will reciprocate your good habits. Managers who demonstrate strong work ethics, responsibility, and calmness create an environment where employees mirror those values.
While not everyone will follow your example, the vast majority will. The best quality about being a leader is the ability to hold it together even when things are hectic and intense. You need to show that you’re a source of stability, which in turn will keep the employees calm.
Reacting erratically not only leaves your workers confused and worried but also increases uncertainty among them. Calmness is a reflection of confidence while losing control shows weakness.
5. Improve Your Communication Skills
Strong communication is a fundamental area of improvement for managers. Treat communication as a two-way street and let your employees know that you’re approachable. It should be a productive tool that serves as a back-and-forth conversation. Moreover, when communicating, you should have the team’s best interests in mind.
As a manager, being an active listener goes a long way in helping employees feel heard. It’s an effective skill to propel success in any business model and one of the major areas of improvement for managers.
Additionally, make yourself accessible to employees. Managers can be a little intimidating to workers, and this may make them hesitate to ask questions. That’s why it’s crucial to communicate your availability for questions, be it in person, email, or direct messaging. For this to be possible, you must find the best collaboration and communication tools that work for everyone on the team.
Having an open-door policy helps you build trust with your employees, as well as gain important insights about them and the company.
Dynamic and forward-thinking managers often distinguish themselves by embracing innovative tools that boost team motivation and skyrocket productivity. A prime example of such tool is Traqq, a cutting-edge time-tracking and productivity platform specifically designed for today’s savvy manager
Figure out what works best for you and your teams and find the best tools to help you achieve that. For instance, you can monitor your team members’ performance and productivity.
This software will help you identify the top performers each month, so you know who deserves recognition and rewards.
6. Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Your employees can only work efficiently if they have clear goals to follow. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to paint a clear but succinct picture of each team member’s mission and desired outcome.
Your staff will become effective at their tasks and projects if they know what needs to be done. This brings us back to the importance of communication. When assigning tasks, be sure to provide clear instructions and all the details necessary to successfully complete the task.
Once you do that, trust your team to get the job done. Don’t control every step of what they do. Doing so only shows a lack of confidence in their skills and is likely to dampen their spirits and sink morale.
Be sure to set realistic and productive goals for your employees. The only way to achieve this is by involving them in the process of defining the mission and objectives. Remember, transparency is a key element in this strategy. Discussing everything openly is the best way to ensure team members approach tasks with the right perspective.
7. Empower, Don’t Micromanage
It’s not uncommon to find managers delegating tasks and then trying to control every little thing employees do. After assigning tasks, let them try to work on them without you getting involved.
Encourage them to try and solve problems on their own before coming to you. Encouraging independent thinking and trusting employees to accomplish goals on their own builds confidence and fosters creativity.
Micromanaging, on the other hand, makes employees feel powerless and unable to apply their skills and knowledge. In turn, this leads to loss of trust, lowered morale, and decreased productivity. Employee micromanagement also discourages teamwork and leads to an increase in employee turnover.
8. Be Open to New Ideas and Approaches
To improve as a manager, learn to be flexible and adaptable to changes. Being open to change is a vital area for growth for managers. Keep in mind that employees are the eyes of the company, and some of the best ideas you’ll ever get will come from them.
Think about it – they are the ones working in the trenches every single day. So, when it comes to suggesting new approaches to policy changes or new ideas regarding work, you should be willing to listen to your employees and take their feedback into account.
Don’t be afraid to take risks. You’d do well to discuss every possible outcome with your staff and decide what’s viable and what’s not.
9. Deliver and Encourage Constructive Feedback
Feedback is an effective tool for development. We’ve all received or given feedback of some kind at least once in our lifetime. Feedback has been cited as an effective method of highlighting weaknesses and strengths to help people become better at what they do. Managers should provide timely, actionable insights to help employees improve without feeling criticized.
Feedback has many benefits to the giver, the receiver, and the overall organization, including:
- Motivating employees to perform better
- Building better working relations with clients, suppliers, stakeholders, and vendors
- Helping formulate better decisions to improve performance
- Clarifying expectations
A manager should view feedback as a tool for continued learning.
Employees make mistakes, sometimes without knowing it. If you don’t make them understand how they perform, how do you expect them to improve?
A great manager tries to make constructive feedback frequently rather than waiting for the annual appraisal or for people to fail. For example, addressing issues affecting an underperforming team member may help him/her improve and deliver excellent outcomes.
Unfortunately, feedback can sometimes be mistaken for criticism, especially if not provided effectively. This can ruin relations with employees and create resentment.
That’s why you should find the best ways to offer constructive feedback, based on the unique personalities of each employee.
10. Address Problems Proactively
Being a good manager means facing issues head-on and looking for appropriate solutions before they affect the entire team. Remember, your top priority is the success of the company and the well-being of your workers. That can’t happen if you sweep problems under the rug.
When employees quarrel, deadlines are frequently missed, and projects aren’t done properly, you should take responsibility and fix the problems. Keep in mind that not everyone will like your approach when trying to solve problems.
However, would you jeopardize the whole organization because of one incompetent employee? That’s highly unlikely. A great manager is proactive and identifies issues before they balloon. Honing your problem-solving skills makes it easier for teams to do their jobs and earns you respect from employees.
11. Don’t Shy Away from One-on-One Meetings
We mentioned earlier that employees are unique individuals with unique strengths and weaknesses. So, as a leader, you must make time for your staff members and address their concerns and personal issues.
Even when you’re busy attending other meetings, don’t forget to show your employees that they matter. One-on-one sessions offer an excellent platform for learning more about your team members, their careers, and life goals.
Let these meetings be entirely about them. Most importantly, keep in mind that some employees may respond well to a hands-on approach while others prefer their space.
Learning the best approach to manage each employee makes it easier to open up and excel at their jobs.
12. Involve Employees in Decision-Making
An effective leader knows the importance of real involvement and team collaboration when it comes to team management. Managers who engage employees in strategic decisions often build stronger teams and improve overall company performance. You want each team member to feel like a part of the company, and not just a means to an end.
It starts by taking steps to be a true collaborator, such as:
- Involving your team(s) in decisions that affect them. Let everyone be heard before making the final decisions. For example, if you plan to shift to a work-from-home model, ask about their concerns about the change.
- Seeking employees’ opinions, suggestions, and concerns and try to address them.
Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to employee management. You need to manage each team member in a unique way that brings out the best in what they do. Involving them in making decisions and valuing their input will encourage them to be more engaged and steer your company forward.
13. Master the Art of Delegation
Learning how to delegate tasks properly is among the top areas of improvement for managers since employees are more engaged when working on tasks that suit them best. The last thing you want as a leader is to force a staff member to fit a given role.
That’s why it’s important to know each team member’s talent and skills for better delegation. Think of each employee as a resource and use the resource efficiently. After all, your goal is to minimize time and resource wastage.
People always enjoy doing what they love. Assigning tasks that align with employees’ strengths boosts engagement and performance.
14. Appreciate and Recognize Employees
Nothing makes your team feel more appreciated than employee recognition. Celebrating achievements, no matter how small, inspires workers to go above and beyond to produce great work. It creates healthy competition, and the results can be mind-blowing.
Employee recognition and appreciation make them feel like pay raises and promotions are fair, spurring extra effort and creativity. There are numerous employee appreciation ideas that you can implement as part of your company culture.
You can also identify underperformers and help them grow. With Traqq, you can monitor the activity levels of each worker and generate reports that make it easier to analyze your company’s stand profit-wise.
How to Improve as a Manager in the Workplace
No one wants to work with a bad manager and it’s every manager’s goal to become the best leader possible for their team. A report by Gallup proved this with research that showed one to two workers will leave their job just to “get away” from their bosses.
The same report goes on to show that 54% of employees become engaged when they feel they can approach their manager with any type of issue. On the other hand, among workers who feel they can’t approach their manager with any type of questions, 65 percent are actively disengaged. The report brings to light that employees look to someone who guides, rather than bosses.
Another eye-opening study shows that employees cite a lack of engagement as the top reason for quitting their jobs. Unsurprisingly, the number one factor contributing to worker engagement is the type of manager-employee relation that exists.
You can tell from these reports that managers have a direct impact on employee performance and productivity. They can be the source of frustration or motivation in the workplace. As a manager, you should always strive to end up in the latter rather than the former.
Don’t Be Bossy: Improving Your Managerial Skills
Self-reflecting is a highly effective method when looking for areas of improvement for managers. Leading by example and learning to actively listen to your employees influences them to change their attitudes toward work.
Great bosses aren’t bossy – they are flexible and adaptable to changes. They pay attention to their employees, value their inputs, and try to build trust and confidence with the team. Remember, always ask for and give feedback. It’s one of the top drivers to achieving incredible results with your employees.
Independent Poll: How Can Managers Improve?
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