6 Practices to Help You Be a Better Manager

Treat people like they make a difference, and they will

By Rodger Dean Duncan

Are you a first-level leader? Do you manage a team of individual contributors who don’t have direct reports of their own?

Then you know some of the challenges of making the leap to management.

You really want to be a good manager, but your training for that role may be light or even non-existent. You really want your team to succeed, but you may not have the resources and support you’d like.

My best advice? Avoid the temptation of trying to do too much at once. Focus on a handful of tried-and-true practices that will bring simplicity, clarity, and success to your work.

An excellent guide is Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team. Written by leadership consultant Victoria Roos Olsson and two of her colleagues (Scott Miller and Todd Davis) at organizational performance firm FranklinCovey, the book highlights the best practices of leaders who earn trust, build strong teams, and consistently produce top results.

The six practices include:

1. Develop a Leader’s Mindset—Learn the critical mindset shifts from those of an individual contributor to those of a leader.

2. Hold Regular 1-on-1s—Conduct these conversations effectively to increase engagement of team members, better understand team issues, and help team members solve problems.

3. Set Up Your Team to Get Results—Learn to create clarity about team goals and results, delegate responsibility to team members, and provide the right level of support.

4. Create a Culture of Feedback—Give and receive consistent, honest feedback to build confidence and competence.

5. Lead Your Team Through Change—Take specific actions to help team members navigate and accelerate through change to improve performance.

6. Manage Your Time and Energy—Use weekly planning to focus on the most important priorities.

I interviewed Victoria Roos Olsson to dig deeper into the mindsets, behaviors, and practices that enable leaders—and their teams—to perform at peak levels.