How to develop managers for the future growth of your business

by Startacus Admin

Chris Farmer, leadership and management training expert and founder of Corporate Coach Group, discusses the attributes you should look out for in potential managers and how you can best develop these skills to help your business grow.

Within your existing workforce you already have people who possess the potential to become excellent leader-managers and therefore will help to grow the business. These potential leaders already have most of what they need to be great. They have the expert knowledge of your organisation’s systems, customers, processes, history, culture and staff. All they need now is the addition of a few essential skills and techniques relating to effective leadership and management. 

There are a set of universal principles that describe and prescribe successful leadership and management. These principles apply to all leaders and managers irrespective of the particular product and service provided by the organisation. The reason why leadership and management principles are universal is that all organisations are made up of people.

It is important to recognise that we cannot get the best from other people unless we first learn to get the best from ourselves. Ultimately, all leadership and management development boils-down to personal development. Your potential leaders are those people in your organisation who already have technical knowledge that they combine with a burning desire to learn, improve, and to develop themselves so that they can help others to win.

Universal leadership skills

Your top candidates for internal leadership development should be those who already show a natural talent for the following:

1. Goal focus mentality - The ability to set a goal and stick with it for weeks and months until it is achieved. It is a mentality opposed to those people who start too many goals simultaneously and lose interest with them as soon as the going gets tough or something new comes along. A goal focused mindset is an essential leadership quality because having a clarity of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. 

2. Clear communicator - The ability to speak and write in a clear, distinct and persuasive manner. This is in contrast to using vague, ambiguous or imprecise language which is open to multiple interpretations. Ambiguity in language is a cause for failure because each person who hears the leaders’ message interprets and applies it differently, which sets the scene for confusion and error. Good leaders are excellent communicators. They are precise, definite, accurate and persuasive. Most people need training to help them improve the accuracy of their communication, both in the spoken and written form.

3. Decision making - Leaders and managers must be willing and able to make excellent decisions and must have the courage to act upon them, once they are made. Many people are afraid to make a decision, for fear of making a wrong one. Instead, they dither and hedge their bets. They say neither yes nor no. Indecisiveness is the death knell to business. Somebody needs to make the decision and those people who are able and willing to do so, make natural leaders 

4. Conflict resolution - Leaders must harmonise the personalities in the team. Not everyone gets on well. Conflicts are inevitable. If internal conflict within a team is allowed to fester into an emotional bloodletting, then the whole team suffers; so too does its performance. Therefore, leaders must know how to identify and quickly resolve conflicts and ‘nip the problem in the bud’, before it has a chance to escalate. Many managers mishandle conflict and most people need additional training on the best methods to resolve conflict rationally.

5. Self-confidence - Leadership and management imply a certain level of self-confidence. In addition, leaders also need self-discipline, self-awareness, self-motivation and the ability to manage their stress. Those who cannot discipline their temper or their moods, language, and bad habits, do not make good leaders. Therefore, self-control is an important skill. Self-confidence, self-control and self-awareness can all be improved with the correct training.

6. Source of strength and inspiration - The ultimate attribute of great leadership is the ability to become a source of strength to the others. Many people lack optimism; they do not believe in the possibility of a better future. Great leaders are those who, irrespective of the current circumstances, maintain their conviction and belief that the goals they set are achievable and that there are good grounds to believe that, in spite of the current problems, their future will be better than the past. Leaders must exemplify this attitude and become role-models of possibility.

Within your existing network there are people who have the potential to become the next generation of great leader-managers who will take your organisation to the next level. These are the people who already have:

1. Good technical knowledge and expertise

2. Good understanding of the organisation’s systems, customers, processes, history, culture and staff

3. A keen desire to learn, improve, and to develop themselves so that they can help others to win

Their potential can then be achieved by giving them specialist training in order to develop the ‘Six Universal Attributes of Effective Leadership and Management’:

1. Goal focused mindset

2. Clear communicator

3. Decision maker

4. Conflict manger

5. Self-control

6. Inspirational role model

 

Chris Farmer is a leadership and management training expert and founder of Corporate Coach Group

 

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Published on: 2nd November 2020