10 Leadership Principles for New Managers
Doyle Slayton | Jul 19, 2009 | Comments 20
1. Power – It isn’t about who has the most authority. It is about who has the most influence. Develop unity among the most persuasive members of your team.
2. Character – Integrity is the strongest foundation when building long-term success.
3. Opportunity – It’s easy for people to quit if they can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. The leader must shine the light.
4. Perspective – The greatest leaders succeed because they have an incredible ability to relate to their people. When leaders fall out of touch, they fall out of influence.
5. Inspire – As I look around, I see champions among us. I am convinced… victory is on the horizon!
6. Retention – You greatest decisions are reflected in the people you choose to hire. Long term success is built around teams where veterans represent the majority.
7. Progress – Be better tomorrow than you were today.
8. Predictable – Create a culture of clarity and stability. Establish guiding principles. Your decisions should be consistent with your core values.
9. Experience – Great insight comes from great hindsight.
10. Perfection – You don’t have to be perfect… but almost perfect sure does help! (smile)
What other leadership principles for new managers would you add to this list?
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Read the book “Leading Minds” by Howard Gardner and get back to me. I think he puts forward something a little more cohesive than you have here.
Smiling.
Authenticity – Be authentic. Your team needs to know you are human, you don’t have all the answers all the time. If you let those around you see the real you, it will give you power, you will inspire others and it will be the foundation to several other of the principles you mention above.
Doyle,
I like Melanie’s and I’ll add two more to your list:
12. admit when you are wrong – it is better to be honest with your team.
13. have their back – when someone comes to you with an issue about your team or an individual on it, as questions – talk with them – then figure it out.
Lynn
Well said Doyle!. I would add two:
- Integrity, when your “followers” know you will always have their back and accept accountability for your actions that tend to trust you.
- Vision, being able to share a vision or idea and bring others to share it creates engagement.
And i add, its about human relation, read:
14.How to win friends and influence people.
Hello Doyle,
I have enjoyed reading your posts and other things for sometime now. I love one line words of wisdom, for they often are the equivalent of reading entire chapters of books.
What I would add to your list is communication. Of course that sounds simple. However, there is a specific sort of communication “mistake” I see managers engage in all the time. That is “incomplete” communication. When a new program is implemented, a product is launched, a decision is made, etc., managers are frequently part of the development process. As a result, they have an in depth understanding about the initiative. Sometimes they forget that the people they are managing don’t have all the information they do and yet they expect them to share their passion. My advice to new managers, when communicating an initiative to their team, is to imagine that their own mind went nearly blank, relative to the initiative. Then ask themselves how passionate they would be about it. If they go through that exercise with themselves, they will know what they need to do relative to communicating with their teams.
I would have to agree with “being personable” It is hard for a manager to instill greatness and hard for an employee to follow or listen to advise from someone who is not personable. Someone who cannot relate to people, thats for sure.
Thanks for the post
Doyle:
Great list! I would also include asking for help and input where and when appropiate. Your point about veterans being so essential for success has become “trumped” by economic woes as an excuse to dismiss veterans. Results are showing the insanity of this strategy.
Keep up the great work.
Doyle,
Clear, simple, memorable!
You have taken us back to some of the key basics. Leaders, especially Managers can be drawn into the enormous and complex world of “How to Manage Others” losing sight of the real key principles for being an effective leader.
I agree with many of the comments posted here. There are other critical issues that leaders must deal with. Your list is a good start.
Thank you for the reminder!
Admit what you know, and ask for help learning what you don’t know. You can read more about this at my blog post :Your “gut” and “intuition” are not enough…today http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/youre-gut-and-intuition-are-not-enoughtoday/ .
Great post, I plan to share it with my network!
Mark
Doyle:
Here are two other principles that I believe should be included: 1) Effective Communication, and the 2)Desire to see people succeed.
Thanks,
Arnel Tanyag
Enlightening!
I’ve found your ten principles very interesting and aplicable. Perhaps another big principle might be courtesy, because all the other coure moral principles whithout courtesy might have the rong influence to our teams: honesty without courtesy may be hard, valenty without courtesy may be rude, prudence without courtesy may be coward.
I think this is very true and everyone that is in management or aspires to become management needs to read and understand these rules or guidelines!!
I find it interesting that of the things mentioned in the original post and the subsequent comments, very few are “trainable” or learned skills. And I believe this is one of the reasons many new managers fail.
Thanks for your Blog, it is great.
The list elaborately encompasses the important points. What, however, can be added are:
HUMILITY as against ARROGANCE that gets reflected in bahaviour showing I KNOW ALL or I KNOW BETTER, which will block new idea.
ARDENT LISTENING will encourage the team members to ooze out all of one’s feedback or complaints or suggestions.
DEMONSTRABLE INTEGRITY has to be establihed. Preaching without practice will erode credibility… and it is important that people believe you will do when you say I will do.
Doyle-
GREAT Article!
I would add MENTORSHIP –
A good leader develops other leaders. There is no success without a successor.
Great article for any new manager…http://bit.ly/1NvG6t
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Great article for new managers to read…http://bit.ly/1NvG6t
This comment was originally posted on Twitter