Are you ready to manage?

“It’s lonely at the top!” I am sure you have heard this saying before, and yes, management can sometimes feel solitary because, as a manager, you are often the one who must make that final decision. However, I truly believe if you are a good manager, you can minimise this feeling.

Here are five things that an effective manager needs to do, based on my experience.

Demonstrate impeccable communication skills

Communication skills are paramount in management. We need to be able to communicate well in various ways:

Verbal skills: ensure that you use clear language. Avoid any acronyms or jargon, but if you must use them ensure that you define them. Monitor your tone, diction and pace of your speech. 

Having good verbal skills is not only about how you speak but also about how you listen. Communication is a two-way process and if you are actively listening and engaged in what the person is saying, you are paying respect to the person you’re speaking to. A good way to show that you are actively listening is to repeat parts of what the person has said to you in your response. So, you may say something like “What I heard you say was…” This not only shows the person that you were listening, but offers an opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings.

Non-verbal skills: you must be mindful of your body language when communicating because the person you are speaking to will interpret your message in specific ways depending on what they see. Be mindful of your facial expressions and hand movements.
Written skills: we all have felt someone’s tone in an email. Therefore, it is important to be cognisant of how your written message could come across. Be aware of how the words you have chosen may be perceived and of how you are feeling when you are writing. If you are feeling a strong emotion such as anger, frustration or annoyance, it would be better to write that email a little later!

Be likeable without the need to be liked

We are socialised to be likeable and nice. We were taught to share, be kind and speak to people even when we do not want to. This causes us to need to be, or at least appear to be nice. Now, being nice is fine, and being liked is also necessary for a manager. However, it is the need to be liked that can cause challenges. As a manager, you are not always going to be liked, and if that is a motivator, you may be unwilling to make the right decisions, which will affect your performance and your institution. Even if people do not like you, having them respect you for your standpoints or for how you generally behave is much more important than being liked. 

Making yourself likeable can be difficult when dealing with many different personality types. However, some things I have found that have helped me as a manager include:

• Being equitable
• Being trustworthy 
• Admitting if you don’t know something 
• Having a sense of humour
• Admitting when you are wrong.

Show integrity

For a team to be effective, they must trust their manager, and without integrity, there is no trust. Honesty, probity, rectitude, whichever word you prefer, a manager must have these qualities.  You can demonstrate them in the following ways:

• Giving credit where it is due 
• Showing gratitude
• Showing respect 
• Avoiding gossip
• Following policy and procedures.

Delegate effectively

As a manager, you should delegate with the intention of developing your staff and give them opportunities to shine outside of their normal roles. It can be difficult to delegate if you feel that the person may not be able to do the job as well as you can. However, to be a good manager, you must be able to develop and enhance the skills of the people you are responsible for.

• Resource collection: Should I become a university administrator?
• An introvert’s guide to networking
• Bridging the communication gap between administrators and faculty

Demonstrate emotional intelligence

You must be able to manage yourself before you can manage others. This is where emotional intelligence comes in. The theory of emotional intelligence was introduced by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer in the 1990s, and further developed and brought to the lay public by Daniel Goleman. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you want to enhance your emotional intelligence:

• How self-aware are you? 
• Do you know what triggers you and what calms you? 
• Do you have a realistic perception of how others see you?
• Do you know how to manage your emotions and behaviour? 
• Can you keep your emotions under control and remain professional?
• Can you detect people’s emotions?
• Are you able to understand another person’s opinion even if you do not agree with them? 
• Are you able to imagine what a person’s experience might be like even if you have never had it?

Management is rewarding, but managing people is not an easy task. It takes commitment and genuine passion to develop and empower people to achieve their very best. Happy managing!

Colleen Robinson-Hunte is a programme manager at the University of the West Indies Global Campus and a subject matter expert and curriculum writer in small business management and management and leadership. 

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.