Step 1. Outline Your Goals

Everyone should have goals in their life. These goals are what we are trying to achieve, whether personally, financially, academically, the list goes on and on. This is no different when it comes to the workplace. Setting goals for the team that you manage means that they now know what they should be striving for.

Having the goal promulgated means that employees need to do less wandering, and even though not all who wander are lost, it sure is a hell of a lot more helpful if you know where you're going.

Step 2. Determine Where You Want to Improve

Every team has weaknesses, and these weaknesses should not be kept in the dark or shoved under the rug. If you can't do something that day, say you can't. If you don't think you're the right person for a certain project, tell the manager and suggest someone who is.

Knowing your weaknesses means you can begin a journey to improve them, and as a manager, I'll take any employee that is willing to find their own weaknesses and let me help them grow in those areas. That honesty and commitment to growth is a key part of every manager's dream employee.

You can begin finding your weaknesses (and strengths) just by taking a few tests, like the Myers Briggs personality exam, StrengthsFinder, or HubSpot's Career Assessment quiz.

Step 3. Talk to Your Team

Probably beating the dead horse here, but communication is important when it comes to any interaction being living entities. As a manager, it's not only your job to make sure your employees are moving projects along, but also to make sure that they are being nourished and developed.

Make sure you talk with them to see areas that you could improve on as a manager, whether through anonymous surveys or chatting during coffee breaks. Even though it might be a little awkward at first to ask them how you could be a better manager, you'll get better answers from asking them than just from reading a book (but books are still important!).

Step 4. Get Organized

All great managers know how to stay organized. If you have recently been promoted to a manager role (like myself), you might be dealing with a lot more projects than you previously had been working with. That means it's going to be much easier for items to fall through the cracks.

Take the first step as the manager and find these areas of disorganized chaos and turn it into...organized chaos. It's still better, right? It could be as easy as setting some reminders on your calendar or finding some easy-to-use organization software.

Step 5. Take a Leadership Course

I'd like to think that once I graduate college, I don't have to worry about going to class or doing homework anymore. But then again, that would make life boring and stagnant.

Learning on the job and in your free-time is a surefire way to broaden your skills, improve your job performance, and boost your value at the company. For managers, it could be better ways to manage teams, how to communicate more effectively, or even understanding different leadership models.

There are a metric butt-ton of resources to learn all these things and more, you just have to start learning.

Step 6. Read Management Books

Along the same vein as taking a leadership course / just overall learning, books are a tried-and-true way to keep your brain and skills sharp. You're not going to be an expert in everything you do, so why not read about the people who are experts in their fields.

Step 7. Learn How to Listen

Ah, listening. Something I probably do too much of.

Working in a small business, I don't think this is gotten to be too much of an issue yet, but sometimes, employees feel like they aren't heard or their opinions aren’t taken seriously by leadership.

As a mid-level manager, I have the opportunity to meet with employees every month and have them explain all their qualms and victories with me. I am then able to bring many of their fears and pain points to our high-level managers and work on changing different aspects of the company and its inner-workings to remedy those pain points.

Step 8. Practice Praising and Rewarding

Praising and rewarding, something I definitely need to do more of. Around two, maybe three summers ago, I was living with a friend’s family and they all decided to take the Love Languages quiz. Turns out, the love language that means nothing to me is Words of Affirmation. So basically, I don't really understand why people need to be praised.

Understandably, this makes it harder for me to do it as a manager, though I still try because I know a lot of people where Words of Affirmation are the first and best way that they feel appreciated. I don't know if this is crossing a line, but maybe having your employees take this quiz can be helpful in your quest to finding how to support them in the way that is most helpful for them.

Step 9. Find a Mentor or Coach

We've recently started a mentorship program at DD, mostly for people who have been recently hired.

It's important to have an outside perspective when it comes to your personal and professional life. People who aren't (or at least not too) personally invested in you are able to give you honest and unbiased feedback when it comes to how you could improve. Plus, mentors are full of wisdom that can help you navigate the stormy waters of your job since they have probably experienced something like it before.

Step 10. Learn How to Effectively Communicate with Anyone

Pretty much a no-brainer, though I will point out the four types of communicators:

Thinkers Socializers Directors Relaters

The actual names for these four may change depending on what source you are looking at, but the basics are consistent. Feel free to learn about them on your own, though their names are fairly self-explanatory.

Step 11. Be More Transparent

People like transparency because people like trust. If you're not transparent with your employees, it's going to be harder for them to trust you. When you as the manager are transparent, your employees are more likely to be engaged in their work and look more favorably upon you.

Step 12. Create a Feedback System

Like our mentorship meetings, giving a place where employees can feel like they can express their views and opinions and then actually be heard is a great asset to company culture.

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