5 Essential Qualities Of A Good Manager

Being a successful manager is no cakewalk in the park. From project management, making difficult decisions every day, a great manager is one of your company's most critical assets. Thus, it becomes vital to promote the crucial qualities of a good manager so that new managers can learn from them.

Every manager wants to give their absolute best to the job. That means providing 100% to both- their team members as well as to their organization.

Gallup estimates that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.

As a consequence, companies should look for an organizer who has a particular set of qualities. These said qualities will benefit not only the managerial role but also the company as a whole.

To sum it up, a manager could make or break your organization.

These five qualities of a good manager give you a head start on being an effective manager who builds efficient teams and boosts business performance.

5 Essential Qualities Of A Good Manager

A good manager can be the cornerstone of the team's success or why an excellent employee leaves your organization. Here are the qualities of a good manager that you should look for during hiring:

1. Displays Leadership Qualities

A great leader is always a good manager first.

A manager with leadership qualities will encourage team members to devote their full potential to building productive teams.

On the other hand, an incompetent person in the managerial role will discourage employees to the point that they’ll want to jump ship.

Leadership qualities in a manager will not only drive employee engagement but also help to boost organizational success.

Just being in a managerial role doesn't imply that the person is a leader. This designation is reserved for people with certain traits and characteristics.

Inspires Others

Amongst all leadership qualities, this is perhaps the most vital. The ability to empower team members as well as to ensure individual success. Great leaders understand the importance of tapping an employees' desire to acquire success- and utilizes the same.

Transparency And Honesty

Great leaders not only talk about honesty but also practices it. Anyone in the managerial role should bring complete transparency to the table. This ensures building a solid sense of trust and loyalty among the team members. Additionally, this helps the team to work better under a trusted leader.

Communicates Effectively

Good communication skills are an essential asset to any great leader. A leader needs to be able to communicate clearly and effectively. This benefits the team members to understands the expectations from them. This, in turn, helps them to execute the said expectations into tangible results.

Leads By Example

This is perhaps the most distinguishing trait of a great leader. Anyone can issue orders, but a true leader is in the trenches with the troops.

2. Shows Emotional Intelligence

Good managers understand the intricacies of the business. Great managers understand the people working there.

Emotional intelligence is an essential skill that can no longer be ignored.

Everyone in the managerial role must recognize these simple workplace facts:

• Good comes coupled with the bad
• Your decisions may not be taken with joy every time
• You are as likely to make mistakes as every other employee
• A person in a managerial role should be able to tune in to the emotions and needs of the team members.

Managers that lack empathy not only makes bad decisions but also affect the overall productivity of the team.

In fact, 65% of employees say they'd take a new boss over a pay raise.

A successful manager should be able to treat all team members as equals. Additionally, they are able to work with the employees to encourage and provide opportunities for the employees to grow.

3. Practices Employee Engagement

Employees are the most vital assets of any organization. Thus it makes sense that happier employees are essential to more productive work culture.

It is simply not enough to label a boss as "good" or "bad." Companies need to understand how managers are fostering or destroying employee engagement in the organization.

The truth is that no successful manager ignores the importance of engaging employees in the organization. Engaged and happy workers tend to give more effort to the job and tend to stick out longer.

Gallup found that employee engagement is highest among employees who have some form (face-to-face, phone, or digital) of daily communication with their managers.

When you look at different teams in an organization- the engagement levels tend to differ. Among all the constants, the one thing that makes it a different experience for every team is a good manager.

Learn more: A Guide To Employee Engagement

4. An Effective Manager Avoids Micromanaging

Trust is the foundation of any relationship. Even more in the case of a manager and an employee. Perhaps one of the most significant ways to betray that trust is to micromanage your team.

Micromanaging is an unnecessary practice that must cease to be used.

Managers who probe their team members’ performance will be rewarded with a sense of distrust.

Being micromanaged makes team members feel that there is a lack of trust and judgment. This in itself is a significant reason for disengagement.

It’s important that managers not only focus on project management but also on encouraging employee autonomy. Successful managers understand the importance and need for employee autonomy among team members.

Here are a few ways to step back from micromanaging and getting great results:

• Identify areas where team members excel and provide opportunities for them to develop on the same.
• A performance management system is a great tool to keep progress in check while ticking off necessary goals from the list. Additionally, it allows team members to be more accountable while letting them do their own goal-setting.
• Clarify your expectations in clear and concise terms. This makes project management as well as goal-setting easier.

5. Ability to Look at the Big Picture

The ability to look at the big picture can be considered as the icing to the qualities of a good manager.

The importance of "big picture thinking" cannot be undermined. The big-picture thinkers are the ones who get the job done as well as take the initiative for some future innovation. Truth be told, it is the best of both worlds!

Wrapping It Up

Have any other qualities of a good manager that you look for during hiring for such a position? Let us know in the comments below.

This article is written by Barasha Medhi who is a part of the marketing team at Vantage Circle. Barasha can be found either searching for interesting HR, company culture, and corporate buzzwords to write about or looking at pictures of cozy Bel Air mansions. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com.