People Management

Managing people is a labor of love type of job. It is not easy to manage a team of people. I have managed people for over 20 years. There are good times and bad times. My favorite part of managing people is accomplishing tasks together as a team where it would otherwise be difficult to achieve success alone. I also love helping people develop and reach their potential. It is very gratifying to watch people reach and surpass their goals.

It is easy to promote a star employee (individual contributor) to manager. Having a title of manager does not instantly make you a manager or at least not a good one. It takes a lot of work and effort to improve your management skills. Many star employees that become managers are not suited to be managers. It is a completely different job than the work people did before becoming responsible for a group of people.

In my experience you have to manage each team member at their needs. No two people are alike. There are different ways to motivate people. There is no one size fits all management style. You need to trust your employees and work with them and the team to complete work. There is a fine line here in that treating each employee slightly different can be perceived by the others as favoritism. You have to ensure that you give each person time to meet with them and understand who they are and what they need from the work relationship. Most importantly always be honest with your employees. When you say you are going to do something...make sure you do it. Never break their trust.

I am thinking about writing more about my experience with managing people/teams. This is my first post on the subject. I feel like I have a lot that I can share. I hope to post more here. I would love to hear from people what management topics of interest.