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How to choose the best managerial approach for you and your team by Dan White
By Guest Contributor Dan White
Author of The Soft Skills Book, Dan White gives his top tips on how to choose the right managerial approach for you and your team.
There is no specific personality type or approach that makes someone a good manager. Effective management depends on being clear about what you need from your employees and doing your best to get the most from each of them. Listening to your team, treating each individual with respect and having a genuine desire to help them develop their knowledge and skills will go a long way towards achieving this. Great managers nurture the abilities of their employees and inspire them to pursue a career path they’ll find rewarding.
The right approach to take when managing someone depends on:
- The team’s overall objectives or immediate priorities
- The experience and capabilities of the individual
- The personalities, potential, motivations and ambitions of other team members
Accounting for these varied considerations makes management a major challenge. The framework below helps managers identify the approach best suited to their current circumstances. It shows that when the stakes are high and time is short, managers should be more prescriptive. This is particularly important with an employee lacking experience. You can give greater freedom and more opportunities for learning when the risks are low and time allows.
Inexperienced individuals tend to learn quickly if they’re given responsibilities for low-risk projects and only provided with guidance when it’s asked for or absolutely essential.
COACHING
When an inexperienced employee is working in a low-risk scenario, you can give them something to own and just enough advice to ensure that they learn from the experience. This builds their confidence, gives them a sense of achievement and helps them become more resourceful, decisive and independent. As manager, your role is to then keep a close eye on progress and only provide guidance if you see things going awry.
PARTICIPATE
This approach is a great default for day-to-day management. You define the objectives but ask for employees’ input to co-create the plan. You only use your first-among-equals status when needed to resolve a conflict or finalize a decision. A participative approach involves actively checking, on a daily basis, what team members are doing and providing your input if and when it is helpful.
DIRECTIVE
When you need employees to act without debate or delay, you will need to tell them exactly what to do. In a well-run business, this style of management is rarely required. However, in the event of a crisis, the business’s reputation — and survival — is more important than the individual’s development. So, inexperienced team members may need to be given explicit instructions and firm managerial oversight. Experienced teams, on the other hand, should be given more freedom.
FREE REIN
When business is running smoothly, an experienced team member can be given licence to do whatever they think is best for the busi- ness, especially if the financial or reputational risk of failure is low. They can be given the freedom and resources to stretch out and experiment as they see fit. This can lead to breakthrough thinking and create new opportunities for the business.
VISIONARY
In day-to-day business matters, an experienced individual can be given authority to make their own decisions, based on the com- pany’s culture and vision. As manager, your job is to continually remind your people of the end goal and motivate them to figure out the best way of getting there.
PARTICIPATE
In a crisis scenario, managers with experienced team members should adopt a consultative approach, drawing on their collective experience and intelligence to identify the best route forward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAN WHITE is a marketing and insights innovator. His frameworks and visualizations have influenced generations of marketers via the methodologies they have informed, including the world’s leading brand measurement, media evaluation and copy-testing systems. This unique blend of expertise ensures that every piece of advice offered in The Smart Marketing Book and The Soft Skills Book is based on robust evidence and a wealth of practical experience.
Website: https://www.smartmarketing.me/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danwhite1000
Suggested Reading
In this practical and savvy guide, Dan White describes the soft skills that anyone in today’s world of work needs to learn, absorb, and demonstrate if they are to progress in their career. Uniquely illustrated and presented, the author explains each soft skill clearly, why it is relevant and important, and how to apply that skill to your working life. In short, the book provides the missing link to ensuring your job and career is successful and fulfilling.
In today’s complex commercial environments, marketing has become a central aspect to every successful business. Businesses need flexible, effective means of gaining commercial traction by managing their relationships with audiences, stakeholders and competitors. They require effective marketing and branding that move beyond the standard forms of brand orientation and commercial interaction. New marketing models must think smart to create innovative strategies which have long-term sustainable economic goals.
The Smart Marketing Book is a practical, reliable and concise title that offers the core marketing principles – applicable for anyone who wishes to improve their organization’s financial and creative values. It is a straightforward guide that avoids unnecessary and time-consuming practices. An illustrative handbook that covers marketing principles and topics through visual innovation. A credible statement to all marketers trying to source the most relevant strategies from a field cursed with infinite information.