How to pick the right people to be managers
Gallup has
just published their “State of the American Manager”
report. “Managers,” according to Gallup, are people who are “responsible for
leading a team toward common objectives.” The vast majority of managers are
“wrong for their role” and they account for “70 percent of the variance in
employment engagement across business units.”
If you didn’t know it before,
picking the right people to lead your teams will go a long way toward achieving
great performance.
According to
Gallup, “talent is the most powerful predictor of performance.” I disagree. I’d
rather look at prior behavior. “Talent” is a guess. Behavior is reality. To
understand what behavior I think is important you need to know my assumptions.
Important Assumptions about New Leaders
Assumption
number one: Leadership is a different kind of work from the work of an
individual contributor. The main difference is that the leader is evaluated
based on the performance of others.
Assumption
number two. Most people don’t change their basic psychological make-up much
after they leave young adulthood. So you can use the way people have acted in the
past as a guide to how they will act after they become leaders.
With those
assumptions in mind, here are four kinds of behavior to look for in people you
are considering moving into a leadership role.
Look for a positive work ethic
“As Lee
Iacocca said, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the team.” You want
people as managers who set the example.
Look for the willingness to confront others about
performance or behavior
This is one
of the most important things that a leader will do and to be done well it must
be done quickly. People who aren’t willing to confront others when necessary
will put off the tough conversation and their performance and behavior issues
will get worse. We can teach people to do this well, but we can’t teach them to
be willing to do it.
Look for the willingness to make a decision and be
accountable for results
In most
situations, team leaders are the default deciders for their teams. Again, this
is something we can teach you to do well, but we can’t teach you to be willing
to decide and then be accountable for results. You have to show up with that.
Look for behavior that indicates a joy in helping
others succeed.
This is a
biggy. Great leaders, especially first line leaders, love to help other
succeed. That’s the kind of team leader you want throughout your organization.
Bottom Line
You can
poke, prod, test and hope to wind up with the right talent. Or you can observe
prior behavior as a guide to how a new leader will perform.
Source: threestarleadership.com
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