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by Renee Fellows

January 7, 2008— Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions. Thoughts of ‘I’ll be more organized,’ or ‘I’ll be better with my finances and work out more’ are rampant during this time of year. One goal that you can set is to learn to be a better boss and manager. It doesn’t need to be overwhelming or an Ebenezer Scrooge turned Mr. Wonderful, rather it can and should be a gradual transformation that will help you to become even better at what you do best.

Be more than a manager, be a director.

In a chorus, there can be many good voices coming together to create a song, but with a great director the chorus can unite their voices to produce new heights in harmony. A solid business manager has many of the same qualities. The key to effective management is knowing how to lead your staff and provide guidance in order to achieve your goals. Providing guidance and being a micromanager are two very different things. By giving guidance you are allowing your staff to be empowered, make decisions, and follow through on tasks in order to complete the job and reach the desired goal. When you micromanage, you overstep your employee’s ability to make decisions. You paralyze her and your staff and halt progress. If you do this repeatedly, your employees will know that no matter what you say, your actions and inability to trust them will mean that the goal will never be attained.

Set a Challenge

Another management strategy is to allow employees to stretch their own abilities by giving them a challenging project. Provide opportunities for growth both personally and professionally. Whether that means bringing in coaches or educators or encouraging employees to continue their education through a local college or university, expanding your staff’s educational horizons is a win-win. They will feel more confidence in their roles as they increase their knowledge and you will in turn gain a better, stronger and more adept team.

Lead by Example

Like it or not, as a manager you are a role model for your employees. If they see you treating employees with fairness and compassion they will be far more likely to do the same. The concept of ‘paying it forward’ works well here too. If you demonstrate solid leadership and guidance by performing random acts of kindness, your employees will do the same for their staffs and customers now and in the future.

Learn Communication Skills

The best way to lead your staff is to communicate clearly. There are different modes and types of communication and each person has a unique way in which they receive information. To be most effective, learn the styles of communication.

 Introverts – Draw their energy from inside themselves and can often be seen as a ‘lone wolf’ who needs to be fixed by the rest of the group. Rather than just ‘dropping by’ his or her office, schedule an appointment. Focus on body language as an indication of feelings and match your body language. Be open with facial expressions and SMILE!

Extroverts – Draw energy from external situations and are eager to strike up a conversation. They have a tendency to speak first and listen second, which can sometimes cause hurt feelings. Encourage extroverts to take a minute to listen to ideas before they give their own thoughts.

Sensors – Are down to earth realists who rely on schedules, order and facts. Don’t over-generalize with a Sensor, rather provide time for him/her to digest facts and think about feasible solutions.

Intuitives – will begin problem-solving with the possibilities on a more global scale. The Intuititve personality relies on hunches and imagination. To work with an Intuitive, provide facts and keep projects in ‘real time’.

Thinkers – enjoy theoretical debate and tend to remove the emotional issues to focus on the goal. Often times they can be perceived as uncaring or callous because of their emotional detachment, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t deeply care about the issue at hand. Be appreciative of comments from thinkers and when communicating, try to make your comments relevant and goal focused.

Feelers - can be empathic and sensitive to how a situation will impact another. They can often be overwhelmed by emotion or have difficulty working with negative feelings. To communicate more effectively with a Feeler, remove the idle chit-chat and try to remove their attempts to ‘personalize’ emotions or situations. Focus on goals and objectives and provide reward for hard work and significant achievements.

Judgers – tend to be organized, structured and purposeful. Judgers tend to be highly goal focused, limit digressions and aim for the end result. All too often they make a decision only based on the facts and are opposed to theoretical ‘what if’ conversations. When dealing with Judgers be decisive and avoid the use of “but what if…” conversations. Be less vague by telling the situation and explain your options thoroughly.

Perceivers – are flexible and oriented to options and conclusions. They can easily undermine their own self-confidence but are willing to change direction mid-plan and take a new course. Create a window of downtime for Perceivers to devise a new plan or idea but set a specific timetable for a new course of action so they don’t become overwhelmed with options or choices.

Now you’re asking yourself, “How do I communicate to all of these personality types when I’m struggling to get through the day and only have 15 minutes to meet and get the project assigned?” The answer is simple. Incorporate a little of what each person needs into your message. Give statistics and analytical backup for your project along with the team enthusiasm and a well defined goal. That way each personality type has a bit of what they understand and you can get back to the business at hand. Later on, individual questions can be handled on a small group or one-on-one basis and you can further hone your conversation to more readily match their communication style.

Remember that this isn’t a process that will happen when you cross the threshold of your office door on January 2 nd, rather it is one that you will need to reinforce and utilize throughout your career. Give yourself a little credit that you’ve already done a great deal of varying communication styles without even realizing it. Now you’re armed with a little more insight into how they think and why. The next time Bill comes to you with charts and spreadsheets, you can think, “Ah, I know that Bill is a Judger so I should clearly outline our situation and give him a specific task. I know that if he’s armed with the information he needs, he will be able to run with the project.”

To learn more about using human resource skills and training to expand the power of your teams, talk with a Fiducial Advisor by calling 866-Fiducial or visit www.Fiducial.com.

Renee Fellows is the owner of ClearPoint Marketing Communications in Derry , New Hampshire . She works with small business clients to develop marketing and public relations strategies that bring business and customers closer together. She can be reached at 603-434-9433 or via email at Rfellows@oneclearpoint.com .

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