Over the years I have worked under some quite remarkable colleagues. They have led with confidence, dignity, and humility. While not everyone I have reported to has had these traits, I tried to learn from those who did to influence and impact my own approach to leadership and management.

I feel rather lucky that my peanut-sized brain actually protected me from falling into a trap that many of my colleagues have stumbled into. This is where, upon realizing they want to get into management, they read every book and theory on the topic, they take training courses and classes, and they focus on unfolding a big map of management shortcuts, tips, tricks, and techniques.

I liken this approach to the equivalent of get rich quick schemes and those annoying self help books. I prefer the Covey approach: focus on the right principles and success will flow more naturally than trying to shortcut success with a cheat sheet.

The issue I have with this management-by-numbers approach is that it gets away from what management is all about: relationships. Great managers build a foundation of trust that is formed from integrity and authenticity, underlined by a desire to help people succeed.

Over the years of working under such great managers, I have come away with a set of managerial best practices. “Come away with” is a nice way of describing it: in some cases I downright lifted some of this from these people like a teenager nicking a beer from a store.

I have tried to embed these best practices in my own management and in most cases I feel I have been generally successful in in doing so. In some cases though I have hilarious missed the mark and veered away from the right path. Ever the optimist, I try to see those unwitting mishaps as useful markers to illustrate what not to do.

So, let’s take a spin through some of these best practices….

1. A great manager assures success in your role as well as your career

At a basic level a manager is responsible for ensuring his or her team delivers great results. A good manager extends this further by ensuring that their individual reports are able to be successful in their role, both in terms of knowing what to do, getting unblocked, getting resources, feeling motivated, and achieving results.

A great manager further builds on this and not only wants their reports to be successful in the organization but also wants their reports to be the very best they can be in their career too.

I have always tried to take this approach with my teams. I have wanted my reports to not just enjoy working under me (as I enjoyed with my managers), but to also feel that their time with me helped evolve their career in a positive direction. I want them to feel it wasn’t just a job but also an investment in themselves.

This requires a nuanced approach to management. It means really getting to know your reports: understanding their motivations, fears, insecurities, ideas, perspectives, and more.

It means challenging them, believing in them, and supporting their personal growth and opportunity.

It invariably results in some breathtakingly frank conversations, which is fine, if that foundation of respect is there. When done right, this can bring tremendous loyalty and lifelong friendships.

2. A great manager learns from his/her team

In generations past there was a definitive divide between reports and managers. The managers led, the reports followed, and learning was generally a one-way street: the reports learned from their managers.

These days we like to think we are more sophisticated and that the learning is a two-way exchange. Sadly, while many managers profess this view, I suspect for some it is all hot air and that they don’t really see their teams as vessels of insight.

This all boils down to learning to listen and listening to learn. Many of us are guilty of listening for the purposes of planning our next sentence. A great manager resists this temptation and replaces it with a desire to gain insight.

They see their team as a collection of experiences, perspectives, and ideas that can bring huge value both professionally and personally. They give their teams room to share, ideate, and brainstorm, not just on projects, but on process and approaches too.

Some of the most significant shifts in perspective I have ever personally experienced have been from a single line thrown into a conversation by a member of my team. Learn from your team: they have much to offer if you give them the opportunity to share.

3. A great manger protects with accountability

We often talk about how good managers protect their teams. This is definitely true: there are all kinds of risks, misperceptions, insecurities, stresses, and agendas that float around above your head. You need to protect your team from all that nonsense and ensure they can do their jobs, do them well, and do them happily.

Some managers though take protection a bit too literally and defend their reports in cases where protection should really be replaced with accountability.

Whenever I have has a new person join my team I tell them there is only one golden rule on the team. I tell them that I will protect them from anything that they don’t need to worry about, but in return I expect honesty and frankness about my work as their manager so I can learn how I can refine and improve. Likewise, I assure them that I will provide the very same level of honesty. I call this my “full disclosure policy”.

Formally stating this social contract reduces paranoia that things are not being said, it builds trust, and helps us to all continually improve and learn. It sets in place a culture of renewal based on honesty and brings the team closer together.

4. A great manager manages in all directions

We often think of managers primarily focusing on managing their reports, but in reality a great manager managers a diverse set of relationships. I like to divide these into the following core areas:

My team

My peers

Senior leadership

Founders / key stakeholders

Each of these different groups requires a very different relationship and engagement.

As an example, my team requires high engagement, reassurance, validation, and encouragement. They need me to not meddle and instead trust them, but to be there when they need me.

My peers need me to be a dependable colleague and someone who can help unblock and solve problems. I need to be a team player, not play office politics, and focus on shared success, not personal score cards.

Senior leadership need to be assured that my department is being effective, that I care about the wider health of the organization, and that I will play a responsible, measured, and thoughtful role as a leader.

Founders and key stakeholders (such as board members) are a special breed to work with. Many founders suffer from either yes men/women who validate every breath they utter. On the inverse many founders are marginalized and told they need to fit into a set of boxes the senior leadership team has defined as a process.

I prefer to make founders and key stakeholders feel part of the process. I like to walk them through their ideas, explore opportunities and risks, and then assess the validity of an idea. If it doesn’t make sense, I will tell them, but tell them based on the core of having walked through the process.

The commonality in great management outlined in each of these examples is in getting to the heart of what each of those groups needs and how you can support them. This is not about focusing management on what you need, but what others need. This builds trust and loyalty.

5. A great manager is often wrong

Finally, and most importantly, great managers are wrong. A lot.

As our career paths grow and we rise up the hierarchy gaining greater levels of responsibility and status, it can be easy to think “failure is not an option”.

This is nonsense.

What makes great leaders is failure.

When we screw up, get something wrong, miscalculate or otherwise screw the pooch, the process of evaluating the goal, identifying the failure, having the humanity to accept responsibility, and then learn and improve from that failure, all helps us to become better people.

This doesn’t just improve us professionally, it also improves us personally. It demonstrates an honest, dignified, but accountable approach, which inspires others to do the same.

We don’t wallow in failure, we don’t punish excessively…we identify, accept, and improve.

I have done some really stupid things in my career. Nothing life threatening or illegal, but silly, stupid screw-ups that are embarrassing to think about. I am glad they all happened though because in every single one of them, I learned something new.

We need to embrace failure as an opportunity for future success, not just in ourselves, but in our teams, and with our colleagues. This is a really, really weird concept for some people and organizations, but important to focus on.

So there we have it. As usual, I want this to just be the start of the conversation. Let me know what you believe are attributes of great managers in the comments.