Whether you’re new to people management or not, it can sometimes seem like a difficult juggling act to get the balance right between being assertive and supportive. It requires a level of self-awareness and being in tune with others’ perceptions of you, of themselves and being aware of how you both perceive and interact with your environment.
How can you tell if you’re pushing people too hard or not challenging them enough? Is it the right time to push them harder or a time to question and coach them? If you become too assertive, you can be perceived as overbearing; if you’re not assertive enough, you may miss the opportunity to get the best out of people and to achieve your goals and theirs. Being too soft can rob your employees of the satisfaction of achievement just as much as it can let you down.
Aim for moderation and consistency for the best impact. Moderate between being competitive, aggressive, passive and submissive. Find your own balance and be consistent. People will have a clearer sense of your expectations and can get on with meeting them more consistently.
Being able to get the balance right consistently requires the skill of self-awareness and of being socially sensitive so that you can switch between pushing hard enough and backing off when it is appropriate. Achieving the ideal balance will enable people to feel motivated and engaged without them feeling micromanaged or bullied.
My Top 7 Tips for a New or Challenged Boss:
- Hire for attitude and passion; your employees will be motivated and self-driven and less-likely to need micro-managing.
- Develop self-awareness: be aware of how you naturally respond to assertiveness (or any other aspect of management), know where your comfort zone is and how others perceive you. Ask for feedback. Only through having this awareness can you objectively assess where you are and what you need to do to get to where you need to be.
- Understand what drives and motivates your employees and how to best tap into the individuals and team’s strengths and talents.
- Be clear in communicating job/task requirements to your team to avoid misunderstanding.
- Share the vision: share the why’s of the bigger picture to inspire buy-in and a sense of purpose greater than the task at hand and your employees will be more engaged and self-driven.
- Address sub-standard performance and attitude problems early. Don’t ignore them! Seize the opportunity to turn the situation around early. Issues could be arising due to miscommunication, misunderstanding and lack of training, or a misalignment between employee and the role or task at hand.
- If the situation cannot be turned around, don’t delay letting go.
Do this with compassion and integrity. In the long run, it is in the best interests of your organisation and releases a bad-fit employee to re-assess their career choices, and to grow and achieve better alignment elsewhere.
Download my free “5 Ways to Keep Employees Engaged, Happy and Productive” Poster.
Request my Free Step 1 Career Audit to assess your career satisfaction.
You can contact me here for more information: nada@innovativeconsultingsolutions.com.au
