by Dean Shutt

Created on: April 04, 2007   Last Updated: April 13, 2007

Tips on Being a Better Boss

Well you've done it, you have kept your nose to the grindstone and been promoted to management. If you are anything like most first time managers you have no experience whatsoever leading and motivating people. Yet you are expected to immediately manage your team and produce results. I have been where you are, I was lucky enough to have some very good management role models, an understanding boss that allowed a certain amount of trial and error on my part and it must be said, a very good staff that helped immensely in my development. That being the case, I would like to offer you a few quick tips to ease your transition from worker bee to Queen (or King whatever the case may be).

You are not their friend Most of us want people to like us. Most of us really want the people that work for us to like us. There is something about holding power over people that makes their approval even more valuable. This is a dangerous trap to fall into because once you are in, it is very difficult to break out of it. Some employees will work harder for a manager they consider a friend, the majority will use that friendship as an excuse to slack off and not do their job. I am not saying that you have to be a martinet and completely lack understanding, but you do need to assert your authority on a regular basis. Once the power is firmly in your hands you can think about going out for beers with your team, until then be the boss, not their buddy.

Give them enough rope The best boss I ever had gave me a list of task that needed to be performed every week. He then informed me that he didn't care if it took me two hours or twenty to get them done. So long as they were completed weekly to his standards, the how and when of getting the list done was up to me. It is almost always better to give people guidelines and standards rather than rules. An employee will happily follow the rules to the detriment of accomplishing the job that needs to be done because he/she knows that no one ever got in trouble for following the rules. On the flip side, creative and motivated employees will chafe at having to toe a line that they had no say in developing. You will be shocked at the great ideas that can come from employees that know their boss will support their good ideas. Having a list of rules that are carved in stone is the quickest way I know to make everyone on your team dissatisfied.

Take the blame, share the credit It is hard when an employee that you have trained

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