Are You Trying To Be A Friend With Your Employees?
You can be friendly but not a friend when you are managing employees. You can be liked but it’s better to be respected because you are focused on managing their contributons and growth. Employees need a combination of mutual respect and strong leadership. As their manager, you are willing to listen as well as make the hard decisions. The following article provides some insight into the trends in managing employees:
“Management tips, traps and trends: How to stay current” Conversation with Bruce Tulgan on Federal Computer Week.
Like any other trend, ideas around management change frequently, but Tulgan said the foundation always remain the same. The basics of leadership, management, and supervision are as old as the hills: Spending time one on one with your employees, talking about the work that needs to be done, making expectations clear, following up regularly, monitoring, measuring, documenting, providing feedback and tying rewards directly to performance, he said.
In managing employees you need the ability to evaluate each team member, be clear around expectations and set standards for performance. You have to be fair to each person and yet you need to provide different recognition depending on performance .
If you want to be their friend, you will decrease your own performance as you are not clear what the priorities are for the success of your team members and the company. Don’t be concern whether they like you, but rather do they respect you for your performance.
Be well,
Pat
Other Articles:
How Often Do You Give Praise?
7 Ways To Motive Your Employes
