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You are here: Home / 4 - Management / What Do Great Managers Need?

What Do Great Managers Need?

September 2, 2010 by Matt Perman

Great managers.

It is wrong to think that great management is important for front-line employees, but that managers themselves can have bad managers and get along just fine.

Maybe this is an overstatement, but I think it would be better to have no manager at all than a bad manager. Actually, that’s probably true.

Regardless, great managers perform better when their manager is also a great manager, providing just a bit of outside perspective to help them make sure that they are doing what they do best every day, that the expectations of their role are clear, and that they are on track to being as effective as they can be.

Here’s how Rodd Wagner and James Harter put it in the book 12: The Elements of Great Managing:

We are often asked what makes great managers perform so well.

Some of it is pure talent — a natural ability to discern an employee’s mindset, a persistent optimism, or a strategic acumen difficult to duplicate. Some of it is a deeply held personal mission to change the world for the better.

Much of it also requires that a front-line supervisor have the same experience with the 12 Elements as those he directs. One of the most fundamental needs of a great manager is . . . a great manager.

As obvious as that statement may be, there is an undercurrent running through many organizations that assumes recognition and praise, a mentor, clear expectations, and the rest of the 12 are required only for the front lines. The best managers, so this line of thinking goes, are more self-aware and self-contained, impervious to such forces, and able to maintain a steady course without much regard for the circumstances.

The evidence is just the opposite. The engagement of managers ebbs and flows just as much as it does for anyone else. Moreover, the engagement level of a manager correlates strongly with the attitudes of her team. No one is an island.

. . . The anecdotes and, more important, analyses of manager performance point out that one of the best things a senior executive can do to motivate the entire population in a company is to first look out for the enterprise’s supervisors. Before a person can deliver what he should as a manager, he must first receive what he needs as an employee.

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What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

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About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

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