by Elyse | Nov 14 | Management
Conducting effective one-on-one meetings is one of the most important and impactful things you can do as a new manager. But often, new managers don’t have positive past experiences to pull from when it comes to how to run an effective one-on-one meeting or proper training available to teach them.
Why One-On-One Meetings Are Important
As a new manager, it can be confusing to figure out what you are expected to do, what is important and how you are performing. It is equally as difficult to figure out how you can best help those who are now reporting to you.
Depending on your role, you may have one but up to many people now directly reporting to you. They are also looking to you for guidance, support, direction and even resources.
Building positive, impactful, and collaborative relationships with your direct reports is one of the most essential parts of your job as a manager.
The way these meaningful relationships are built are through your one on one’s.
One on ones are meetings that occur every week between you and each of your direct reports. They are regular, private and focused on what your direct report needs. These are the backbone of the managerial relationship you have with your direct reports.
How Often Should You Have One-on-One Meetings?
These one-on-one meetings should occur regularly and with consistency. One-on-one meetings should last at least thirty minutes but they can also be longer. They are there for the purpose of supporting your direct reports, with technical problems they may be having, conflicts they may be having or to talk about their career and professional development growth.
It is so important that as a manager, you make sure these meetings happen. It is equally important that you make sure one on one’s with your own manager happens.
These meetings should occur consistently at the same time every week and you should take care to show up on time and prepared.
Your First One-On-One With a Direct Report
It can be daunting to have a one on one with a new direct report. It is possible that you have no relationship with this person at all yet or that your new direct report was once a peer or even close friend.
In your first one-on-one meeting with a new direct report you should focus the meeting on discussing and establishing clear expectations and goals for the meetings going forward. The first one-on-one meeting should also focus on learning the preferences of new direct reports:
- How do they like to receive feedback?
- What would they most like help with?
- What is their preferred working style?
There are many articles that have a structured format for questions to ask your direct reports during your first one-on-one meeting.
These are the types of conversations that you want to have to make your future one-on-one meetings effective and these are also conversations that should be ongoing over the course of your relationship as you each change, evolve and grow as people as well as in your careers.
How to Prepare For a One-on-One Meeting
Part of holding an effective one-on-one meeting is to make sure that you are properly prepared ahead of time. You don’t want to just show up without having an idea of what you want to talk about or without having reviewed what you discussed in your last one-on-one meeting.
What you want to do to prepare for a one-on-one meeting as an effective manager:
- Review the notes you took from your one-on-one meeting last week
- Write down anything you want to be sure to touch on, including any questions you may have
- Complete any tasks that you committed to doing for your direct report in your last one-on-one. (This last step is what separates the truly extraordinary and effective managers from those that are just mediocre).
- After the meeting make sure you add any tasks you committed to doing to your own to-do list
What Should One-on-Ones Not Be Used For
One-on-ones are not status meetings so try not to turn them into status updates. You should be getting status updates from your team in some other fashion throughout the week.
An effective one-on-one is for the benefit of your team so you want to make sure that each one of your direct reports is getting what they want and need during these meetings. Status reports are boring and repetitive and miss the point of what a one-on-one is truly about.
A Final Note
One-on-one meetings when lead effectively can be powerful tools in your job as a manger and can also be incredibly impactful in the experience your direct report has at work while you are their manager. Spending the time to prepare for them properly and also learn how to lead with with confidence will serve you for the entirety of your management career.
by Elyse | Nov 7 | Leadership
What is the difference between management vs. leadership? The words are often used interchangeably, so it can be hard to distinguish the difference between them. This article will examine what makes management different from leadership and their similarities.
Part of what makes it hard to determine management vs. leadership is that as a manager, you also want to be a leader, and those in leadership positions can sometimes be managers.
What is a manager?
Managers are typically promoted after being exceptional individual contributors. Managers become responsible for more people or a more significant project than they can achieve alone.
According to the book “The First-Time Manager” managers are responsible for:
- hiring people
- communicating with their team
- planning
- organizing
- training
- monitoring
- evaluating
- firing
These tasks are much different from your tasks as an individual contributor. The change you make from an individual contributor to a manager is significant—the type of work you are doing changes substantially.
As an individual contributor, the primary value you provided to your company was what you could produce due to your talents and abilities.
When you become a manager, you focus on people instead of tasks and must learn to work through others instead of just doing the work yourself.
You become focused on your team’s success and have broadened your focus to how your team fits into your organization’s needs instead of just your individual work.
CLICK HERE to download the free guide: 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work to learn more about how to think about your new role and plan more effectively.
While this explains how a manager differs from an individual contributor, it doesn’t go into management vs. leadership.
“At the risk of oversimplifying the difference, management is about controlling, and leadership is about inspiring.”
-The First-Time Manager by Loren B. Belker, Jim McCormick & Gary S. Topchik
What Characteristics do Management & Leadership share?
Both management and leadership are about people and helping to get the best out of people and are deeply about caring for people.
Management vs. Leadership
Management is about responsibility and the processes to achieve specific outcomes.
Leadership is about inspiring other people to do the best that they are capable of.
Managers hold one-on-ones, remove blockers that their team members may be having, communicate with their team about the broader initiative in the company, and help develop the careers of their direct reports.
Leaders are visionaries for their teams and also for their companies. They think of their vision for the future, communicate it to others, and inspire others to help them bring that vision to life.
Resources:
Managers have authority because of the position they are in. Leaders have power because people want to follow them. Leadership is much more about influence and leverage than management is.
Leaders lead by example, take full responsibility, and are willing to do anything they ask of someone else. They are confident and self-assured. They are decisive, and others look to them for direction because others trust their judgment.
When you become an effective and exceptional manager, you will become a leader as well.
by Elyse | Nov 3 | New Managers
Learn the best time management tips for new managers so that you can easily transition, be an effective manager, and feel confident in your new role.
1. Take a moment to celebrate!
This is an underrated time management tip for new managers but one of the most enjoyable.
You have worked hard to reach this point in your career and finally step into a management role. Make sure you take a moment to celebrate and recognize yourself for what you have accomplished.
It is important to celebrate your accomplishments and make sure you are taking time for yourself. You are about to undertake many new responsibilities and tasks that will pull you in many directions, so taking this time for yourself is crucial to your self-care.
Celebrating yourself and your accomplishments also signals to your brain that you are important and matter. These messages will become more and more critical as you become responsible for more and more people.
2. Set aside time to learn
It may feel like you have too much to do and too much on your to-do list to set aside time to learn, but learning how to be an effective manager is a crucial skill.
The influx of your workload is a lot to handle when you are a new manager. It feels like there is too much to do, not enough time, and you don’t even know what you are supposed to do in the first place.
It can be overwhelming, stressful, and frustrating, especially if you are navigating your new role alone and without the help of your manager or a mentor.
This is why learning about management and setting time aside to learn about being a good manager is vital. You do not need to set aside hours daily to do this learning.
Even if you set aside just fifteen minutes a day for four days a week, that is an hour a week that you spend learning. You can learn a lot in an hour!
There are many different ways to learn about management. You can read management books, listen to podcasts that cover management topics, and learn through mentorship or executive coaching.
3. Plan now to save time later
It can feel like there is not enough time to plan your day or schedule, but that type of thinking leads to feeling rushed and stressed when you are working.
Planning your day, projects, and goals for the next quarter and year will save you so much time later.
As a manager, you need to be forward-thinking and think of not only your work but your team’s work as well and how your team’s work fits into your organization at large. This requires effective planning, especially if planning is not one of your strong suits.
Being a manager means planning becomes more important than ever before, and not planning is a mistake new managers often make.
New managers need to think about the vision they have for their team. They need to get clear on their team’s goals and the ongoing projects and plan for how future projects will fit in.
Planning upfront lets, you think through priorities, strategies, and obstacles and confront them before they happen instead of in the middle of a project.
Planning is one of the best time management tips for new managers.
The higher you rise in an organization, the more important planning becomes.
4. Focus on results instead of being busy
Being busy is widespread, and it seems like everyone is always busy. But being busy does not necessarily produce results.
When you plan, start to plan the results you are going to create instead of the activities you will do.
For example, a result would be:
- write and submit Sarah’s review
- schedule a meeting with human resources
- submit 50 lines of code to project
These results scheduled as activities instead would look like this:
- work on writing my team’s reviews
- talking about how you need to schedule that meeting with human resources
- working on your code
When you schedule results on your calendar, you have a clear outcome that you are going to accomplish. This helps keep you focused on the results that you want to produce instead of feeling productive but being busy not moving projects forward. You become much more efficient at work which is important because as a new manager you will have a lot more work on your plate so learning how to manage your time in a way that works for you will help lessen the stress that you feel.
If you want to learn more about how to change how you are thinking and planning, you can download my free guide, 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.
5. Learn how to get work done through other people
This is the biggest shift for new managers to make when it comes to getting work done. You are no longer the one who is doing all the work. Instead, you must learn how to work through others.
This can often be a hard shift to make, especially since you probably got promoted to manager because you are a skilled and efficient worker. It seems like it would be easier for you to just step in and fix the problem or do other’s work for them because you are faster, you know how to do it better, etc.
As a new manager, you must learn to work through others.
While this doesn’t sound hard as a task, it can be a lot harder to let go than people initially realize. It sounds very easy to work through other people but the reality is much harder.
This is an emotional process and it can take a lot of inner work to become the person who can let go of control and grow into someone who lets people do things in their own way. This is why coaching can be so valuable at this time in your career, you have someone who is there to listen to you, validate you and work through the difficult emotions that these new situations may bring up.
A Final Note
These are five time management tips for new managers. Implementing these strategies as soon as you become a new manager will help your transition so much.
by Elyse | Oct 24 | Leadership
This article is about the concept and style of enlightened leadership in Bhutan.
The Country of Bhutan
Bhutan is a small country in the Himalayas between China and India. It is commonly referred to as the world’s happiest country and the only carbon-negative country. Some call it the last Shangri-la.
Shangri-la
noun. An imaginary paradise on earth, especially a remote and exotic utopia. a faraway haven or hideaway of idyllic beauty and tranquility.
-dictionary.com
In most countries, a country’s health measures are measured by gross domestic product. But, in Bhutan, they measure gross national happiness. To the leaders of Bhutan, gross national happiness is more important than gross domestic product. They heavily emphasize the happiness and well-being of the people living in Bhutan, as well as taking care of their pristine natural environment.
The phrase and concept of enlightened leadership was something I first heard in this video by Yes Theory when I was looking for Bhutan travel vlogs. In the video, the creator gets a chance to meet with the ex-prime minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, and discuss the country of Bhutan.
Enlightened Leadership
In the interview in the video, the ex-prime minister talks about the importance of leadership, specifically the importance of enlightened leadership.
The gross national happiness development philosophy takes a holistic approach to growing the nation. While economic growth is still essential to the country, the leaders of Bhutan strive to balance economic growth with the following:
- social development
- environmental sustainability
- cultural preservation
- good governance
These are the building blocks of the nation’s gross national happiness. While economic growth is essential, it is done with other considerations.
To Bhutan, economic development should be sustainable, environmentally sustainable, and equally spread throughout society.
The country provides free healthcare and free education to its people, as well as a focus on community and preserving the culture.
The government has limited the number of tourists allowed to visit to curb over-tourism and to help protect their environment and has charged a ‘sustainable development fee’ to tourists to help make tourism a low impact on the country.
The country has many environmental sustainability initiatives. One is that five million acres of protected areas are connected to each other in a network to allow wildlife to roam freely. Also, Bhutan’s constitution demands that sixty percent of the country’s land stay under forest cover.
Putting the happiness and well-being of the people of Bhutan, as well as the protection of the environment and the preservation of the culture is why the leaders of Bhutan are known for their enlightened leadership.
They are thinking of the future: future generations of Bhutanese people, future conservation of the land, and preservation of a culture.
Leadership Styles: Enlightened Leadership
The enlightened leaders of Bhutan are a great example of someone developing their own leadership style. It is clear that the leaders of Bhutan knew what their values were and used to values to guide their leadership of a country.
There are many different types of leadership styles. Knowing the types of the leadership styles that exist and the one that you prefer to employ help you develop a dynamic and effective leadership style of your own.
A Final Note
I hope you enjoyed learning about the country of Bhutan and some of their guiding principles. If you are ready to get started on your own leadership journey, make sure you get this free guide: 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.
by Elyse | Oct 10 | Leadership
There are many different types of leadership styles. Knowing the different leadership styles can help you become aware and develop your sense of leadership.
Different kinds of leadership are needed at other times.
Understanding your situation and which leadership style to employ for each case can be very valuable.
What is a leadership style?
A leadership style is how you behave and interact with others while you are leading a group.
In 1939, Kurt Lewin identified three leadership styles: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. These are often cited as the original framework for leadership styles.
Although, in modern times, there are many more and varying types of leadership styles. In this article, we will cover autocratic, transformational, and servant-leadership.
Leadership Style #1: Autocratic Leadership
This was one of the leadership styles that Kurt Lewin identified during his research. This standard style can be defined as one leader in charge with everyone else as followers or summed up into the phrase, “do as your told.”
The autocratic leadership style is defined as giving clear expectations to others of what needs to be done, when to do it and how to do it.
There is an emphasis on autocratic leaders telling others how to do something. This style can be effective at getting things done but lessens creativity in people.
Autocratic leadership can be seen as bossy or controlling.
In an autocratic leadership situation, the leader has absolute power and is the person to make decisions. This leadership style works well when decisions need to be made quickly or in the military or other high-protocol situations.
Leadership Style #2: Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership is also known as visionary leadership. One of the critical defining parts of transformational leadership is that the leader has a grand vision, and people want to rally behind the singular cause.
Everyone’s commitment drives this leadership style to a larger, overarching goal.
A significant component of this style of leadership is open communication. Clear communication, motivation, passion, and high emotional intelligence are markers of a leader who prefers the transformational leadership style.
This leadership style is very forward-thinking, inspiring, big-picture, and focused on the end goal. In teams where this leadership style is employed, there is a high level of trust, a lot of autonomy, and space for people to think and innovate.
Leadership Style #3: Servant Leadership
The phrase can sum up servant leadership: Serve first, lead second.
Servant leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf, who was skeptical about traditional authoritarian leadership styles. He thought that leaders should emphasize people so that people could become autonomous and free-thinking.
The main focus of servant leadership is to serve others. This means the leader prioritizes the people and puts the needs of others over their own.
Leaders who employ servant leadership as their main leadership style focus on ensuring that people are personally and professionally fulfilled. They are focused on employee satisfaction and collaboration. They want to help others and develop leadership qualities in others.
The servant leader is seen as the steward of the group’s resources. There is a focus on the servant leader being committed to the people’s growth and well-being.
Conclusion
In conclusion, what leadership style feels most like you currently? Are you a mix of two of them? Or all three? And what type do you aim to be? Can you see how different situations may call for different styles of leadership?
Being a leader is a lot of responsibility, and navigating the new role can be challenging. If you want something to help, you clarify your new leadership role, grab my free guide: 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.
