Executive Assessments
CEO and Business Coaching
How Your Working Style Influences Your Employees
Have you recently looked at your working style and checked to see if it varies from those of your employees? It goes without saying, that to successfully manage others, we must know how to manage ourselves. Certainly, we can’t do everything perfect all of the time, but do we expect more or less from others than what we are contributing ourselves? Now may be a good time to review your company’s working environment by asking yourself a few questions about your working style:
- Am I a creative, out of the box thinker who enjoys a casual, free for all work atmosphere?
- Am I structured and thrive on rigid deadlines?
- Do I encourage others or do I prefer to handle problems by myself?
Chances are, you hire employees that follow your work patterns. Whether in our personal or working relationships, we often tend to be drawn to those who are similar to us. However, can we be critical of an employee’s working style if it is different than ours, yet the desired results are produced? All of us have our own strengths and weaknesses, but being a role model can allow others to develop their own skills.
Think about this:
“Is it critical that work be done only one way?”
By letting your employees take the lead once you both have agreed on a final outcome there is an excellent chance that productivity will be achieved. A leader that allows others to work in a style that allows creativity, not only enhances their employees efficiency but their self worth as well. In a team setting, a person’s strength can extend beyond another’s weakness. By communicating and interacting with your team, you are allowing them to develop and establish responsibility. Experience has proven that the most effective and successful teams contain working styles that are complimentary — not alike.
What is the role of the manager?
Leadership does not necessarily mean you are a team member. Think about it: Is it possible to be an authority figure when asking your team to take the lead in a project? Certainly you must be the mentor, or mediator, perhaps even serving as a cheerleader, however, your main role is to make certain your employees are informed, knows their responsibilities and understands the desired outcome. Nothing is more satisfying for a leader when a team comes together — a group that develops and moves forward.
Finally, while a successful team shares characteristics, which includes an understanding of tasks at hand as well as the goals required, issues such as disagreements, or other behaviors that could undermine a project for a less focused group of workers, are more easily resolved, because an effective team focuses on the problem, and not the person creating it. Open communication is where people feel free to share concerns, and ideas with their co-workers, as well as with you. This can be through casual conversation or more structured appointments. Because no group of workers will always see eye to eye, or work in the same style as others, communication, cooperation and understanding is critical for a group to be successful, to feel valued and to achieve its goals.
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