My one extraordinary manager –
Patrick Walsh – was (and is) a great communicator. In his role as National Sales Manager, he
managed a sales team of around 13 strong individuals who were scattered across Australia and New Zealand
With such a geographic spread,
there was no way he could check up on us and know what we were doing from day
to day. He could not micro-manage us even
if he had been inclined that way. Pat
firstly had to select his sales people very carefully; he needed to be able to
first, trust us and second, control us yet with a light touch. After all he was located in Melbourne
thousands of kilometres from most of his 13 direct reports.
Pat’s preferred method of
communication with each member of his team was the telephone. He reserved emails for purely administrative
matters. If he wanted to know how we
were doing, Pat knew he had to make a personal connection. On the telephone, he could easily tell if we
were happy and working well, or if we were discouraged and lacking
motivation. It was all there in the tone
of our voice and in the words we used as we responded to Pat’s perceptive
questions.
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| Managers can earn respect, trust and admiration from their team members. |
Mostly we held nothing back from
Pat. We complained; we blamed; we vented
our frustrations. Pat listened and asked
more questions, and listened. Where he
could fix something for us, he took it on to his own task list to do so. He took notes during the conversation and followed up on every
issue. In the following week, he would
ask about the progress of an issue or how was a particular prospect working
out. After we had spoken to Pat each
week, we felt relieved and less worried as he had somehow taken the load off us
simply by listening and understanding.
Like every senior manager, Pat had
a massive workload in addition to his management of a team of 13 sales
reps. Yet the area on which focussed
most of his time and energies was his people.
I think there were two main reasons why he focussed so much on managing
his people: first, he was acutely aware
that our individual success would ensure the success of the whole team and
second, his No. 1 responsibility was the achievement of the national sales
budget. He knew that getting to and
above budget kept his masters at the executive level happy and effectively out
of his hair. They would forgive other
irritants so long as Pat consistently brought the numbers home year after
year.
It has to be said that in his people
management skills, Pat was blessed with a natural aptitude for getting to know
people quickly and accurately. He knew
each individual’s personality and what made us tick. He related to each person in his team
differently because he was conscious that the words and actions that would be
effective to manage one individual would not necessarily work with
another. He was able to suit his message
to each individual and yet remain true to himself. In this way, he was able to gain the best
performance from each member of his team.
Pat practised a very practical
style of leadership. He was a servant
leader. Certainly no one in his team
would have thought of Pat as a “servant” to our needs and wants. Yet subtly Pat managed us in a supportive and
encouraging way, listening and responding to our problems and concerns and being
there to help. One question that Pat
often asked each of his team members was, “How can I help you to do your job
better/easier?” He did not demand,
he did not blame; he asked what he could do to help. And in so doing, he built the amazing respect
and trust that each of us developed for him.
In the ways this extraordinary
manager/leader communicated, there are three lessons:
1. Communicate with your team members in personal ways and regularly. An email is not personal, a text message is not personal; a face-to-face conversation or on the telephone is personal. Don’t leave it too long in between conversations. To make it a habit, book it in to your diary for once or twice a week.
2. If you know you are poor at relating to people, recognise this deficit in your skills-bank. Do something about it because it is vitally important to your success as a manager. As a manager, you can no longer produce all the results yourself. You must work through your people by understanding them, responding to their different needs and encouraging their efforts. Actions that will be effective include doing more reading on the topic of managing people, attending professional development courses and asking your manager if you can have some coaching.
3. To borrow a famous quotation, “Ask not what your people can do for you; ask what you can do for your people.”* Does the servant-leader model of leadership hold some insights for you? By listening, responding and offering to help the different people in your team in real, practical ways, you can build their respect and trust over time. From being trusted, it is only a short step to being the kind of leader that engenders admiration and devotion from their followers.
Our next article in this 3-part
series – Only One Extraordinary Manager - will look at consistency as an
attribute of great manager/leaders.
Please note: People Results provides tailored Executive Coaching and Mentoring programs for managers and executives. For more information, please click here.
To your Out-Standing Success,
Lynne
Lynne Lloyd
Managing
Director
People Results
Executive Coaching and Talent Development Workshops
Level 24, 10
Eagle Street, Brisbane, 4000.
PO Box 10073,
Adelaide Street, Brisbane, Qld.4000
T 1300
167 981
