A good manager knows how to stimulate and develop his people. This has great advantages for both the manager and his employees; independent employees who feel good about themselves can do much more work than an authoritarian manager could do or manage on his own.
Develop and stimulate
In order to function as a good manager, it is important to pay attention to the employees; Doing the right work at the right time comes naturally as long as employees are developed in the right way. Most managers know that developing and encouraging employees is important, but they usually do not know how to do this.
Autonomy
In order to stimulate employees and make them independent, where the advantage of the manager is of course ultimately that the manager has to spend less time explaining assignments and the employee can develop his creativity, it is important to give an employee a certain amount of autonomy. A manager does not like to hand over control, but in order to make an employee independent, an employee will have to be given a certain degree of autonomy. Of course this cannot be done in one go. An employee who is used to having everything explained, or an employee who has not been working in the field or company for very long, will still need to receive a sufficient degree of explanation to be able to work independently. However, one thing that must be guarded against is explaining information too quickly, or solving problems for the employee too quickly. First give the employee the confidence that he can figure this out for himself, and then do it yourself; also give an employee as much free rein as possible in how to fulfill a particular assignment. This last principle is promoted in professions where the fulfillment of the assignment is a matter of life or death, because it works. For example, this principle is used in the armed forces; Give a lower commander the framework and purpose of the assignment, but avoid hashing out the details. After all, the commander who has to carry out the assignment can do the latter much better; this person has more insight into his own level and is at the right level to be able to respond immediately and adequately. However, for this he will first have to be trained and developed; this is done by giving as much independence as possible.
Competences
An independent employee without the right competencies is of course pointless, sometimes even counterproductive. Developing an employee’s competencies is therefore of great importance for a manager. These competencies not only involve certain skills, but in particular developments in some mental aspects. For example, developing stress resistance can be a competency, or developing a more structure-oriented approach to working. By developing these competencies, an employee can further develop his technical skills. Competencies can also be developed by allowing employees to attend courses and training; where there is of course a danger that an employee will leave the company after following training and courses, an employee who does not do this will be a valuable asset to the organization. This also encourages other employees to develop themselves, something that can only be encouraged given the increase in human potential in the organization.
Social connectedness
To work in a positive way, some kind of social connection is needed at work; people should have the feeling that they can work in a pleasant, social environment, where they support each other to achieve a common goal. It is precisely the feeling of social connection that will ensure that an employee puts more effort into his work than is strictly necessary, precisely because he has the feeling of being part of a group from which he derives part of his social identity. This will make him want to perform and he will want to perform with his team. To cultivate this sense of social connection, it is not only important to have a drink every now and then, but it is especially important, as a leader, as a manager, to stimulate team spirit in every conceivable way. The most important thing here is to continually demonstrate a form of pride in the team in communication, a form of pride in which the manager does not say that he is proud of the employees, but of the entire team. The manager must see himself as a team member and not as a remote leader who leads the team from the sidelines; In order to create a feeling of social connection, he will also have to participate in the team.
Equality
Very important is to create a sense of equality between the input the employee makes and the output they obtain. A manager who ignores poorly performing employees or does not reward excellent performers will cause employee motivation to decline. This is because people compare their own input/output ratio with other employees and adjust their own input accordingly. Input should be seen as the effort that is put into the work and output is, among other things, the salary and appreciation that an employee receives. If a poorly performing employee receives the same output as well-performing employees, the latter will also work less hard; In their view, it is not necessary to work hard, the output remains the same. A manager can change this by adjusting output, in this example for example by ,punishing, the bad employee.