The 5-Minute Manager - How to change your Management Style

It’s important to understand how your current management style influences the way you think, feel, speak, and act. Your management style has a significant impact on the way you and your team operate, the right management style promotes team member engagement and makes your team members feel more comfortable approaching you with questions, suggestions, and ideas.

The right management style substantially increases your management confidence and lowers your stress levels. When you have a management style that fits your personality, your objectives, your team, and your business, not only can you focus more on exercising your strengths and achieving your goals but doing so becomes far easier.

Your Current Management Style

Imagine that your team members are completing the survey below – how do you think you would rate? Your answers to these questions directly reflect your current management style.

1.     I would recommend my manager to others.

2.     My manager assigns stretch opportunities to help me develop in my career.

3.     My manager communicates clear goals for our team.

4.     My manager gives me actionable feedback on a regular basis.

5.     My manager provides the autonomy I need to do my job (i.e., does not "micro-manage" by getting involved in detail that should be handled at other levels).

6.     My manager consistently shows consideration for me as a person.

7.     My manager keeps the team focused on priorities, even when it’s difficult (e.g., declining or deprioritizing other projects).

8.     My manager regularly shares relevant information from their manager and senior leadership.

9.     My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about my career development in the past six months.

10.  My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., technical judgment in Tech, selling in Sales, accounting in Finance) required to manage me effectively.

11.  The actions of my manager show they value the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from their own.

12.  My manager makes tough decisions effectively (e.g., decisions involving multiple teams, competing priorities).

13.  My manager effectively collaborates across boundaries (e.g., team, organizational).

Source: Google Oxygen Project.

Your Management Style dictates things like:

1.     How successful you are and how much you achieve.

2.     Your approach to others.

3.     Your stress levels.

4.     If you are admired and respected.

5.     If your team members want to be like you.

6.     How you respond in a crisis.

7.     How you relate to your team members.

8.     Always being on time.

9.     Arriving early for work.

10.  Staying back late.

11.  How you give presentations.

12.  How you run a meeting.

13.  Being organised.

14.  Your approach to mentoring and counselling.

15.  How your email is managed.

16.  Being controlling, and authoritarian.

By default, your current management style is a copy of your first or a previous manager which you typically copy for better or for worse. Most often it is the latter, as the style will almost certainly be traditional, meaning it has many negative consequences.

People leave managers, not companies.

The High-Performance Management Style

A high-performance management style is a progressive style, it is a personalised statement of the work persona you want to project. High-performance managers develop teamwork, they know they need to spend time with their teams, talk to them, and understand them and what they care for individually. A high-performance management style motivates others to do more than they thought possible. Managers using this style set challenging expectations for their team members who are managed as individuals, identifying, and developing their strengths. High-performance managers are supportive, provide mentoring and are role models who are respected and trusted. Team members emulate this style, a style that aims to radiate positivity, charisma and an energy that infects team members. These are the key advantages of the high-performance management style:

1.     It is excellent for rapidly changing business environments.

2.     It promotes growth.

3.     It builds and manages high-performance teams.

4.     It suits a both a management and leadership position.

5.     It significantly boosts self-confidence, team productivity and innovation.

Self-esteem, ability, skills, strengths, and innate intelligence all impact how your team works. You can have the best team in the world but if your management style is poor, it will reflect in your team’s performance. A high-performance management style needs to achieve what you want, empowering you and your team members and creating greater job satisfaction for all.

It is important to create a style that suits you and gets the best out of your team because after all, how you manage them can make or break your business. Your style influences how your team maintains itself and how it performs in reaching its goals. When creating a new management style, how others will perceive it and react to you is what is important.

List your Behaviours

Have a look again at the survey questions above and make a list of current management behaviours where you are falling down, that is, things that are negative about your current style. Also, identify good behaviours, your strengths, and things you are just good at and list these as well.

To develop a high-performance management style, the secret is to minimize your current negative behaviours and substitute them with high-performance behaviours.

Next, look at the high-performance behaviours listed below, and select those that are ‘most important to you, the ones you would like to adopt.

High-Performance Behaviours

1.     Considerate towards the needs and development of team members.

2.     Develop team members to successively higher levels of potential.

3.     Practise 'management by walking around.

4.     Expect higher performance outcomes.

5.     Establish open communication.

6.     Being fair and reasonable, open, and honest.

7.     Being respected, ethical and trusted.

8.     Accepting individual differences.

9.     Inspiring.

10.  Actively listen.

11.  Share information.

12.  Manage conflict.

13.  Promote innovation.

14.  Have charisma.

15.  Use emotional intelligence.

16.  A good influencer and collaborative.

17.  Empower team members and not micromanage.

18.  Supportive, providing tools, training, and advice.

19.  Have an open-door policy.

Create a new Style

Using the lists of behaviours, construct a string of keywords, then turn that string into a series of sentences that describe how you ‘want to manage. Next, merge the sentences into one paragraph that describes a new style. Keep reworking the paragraph until you arrive at something you feel comfortable with. The trick is to create a short paragraph or one or two sentences that you can easily memorise.

Example Style

“I am an enthusiastic CIO who is open and honest, fair, and reasonable, someone who mentors, motivates, empowers, and provides feedback. I develop my people to achieve more than they thought possible and to become professional in their chosen field.”

Limiting your management style to one or two sentences is important as it is easier to remember and later recite. Reciting it repeatedly makes it become second nature, i.e., a habit. As the new style becomes more integrated into your daily thinking, it moves from your conscious awareness into your subconscious, where it operates on "automatic pilot", executing without any conscious effort and with a sense of confidence and calm. This is how it works and changes the way you think, feel, speak, and act.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The secret to getting your new management style to take root and change the way you think, feel, speak and act is repetition and the timing of the repetition. As with learning anything new, repetition is the key as it psychologically changes your subconscious, influencing how your conscious mind works. It will take a few weeks for your new way of thinking, speaking, and acting to take root and take over, but it will happen, and you will change. Perseverance is required. Continually practising and reciting your new style to yourself will influence the way you lead. Here are the best times to practice reciting your new style:

  1. In the shower.

  2. On your way to and from work.

  3. Before you answer an email.

  4. Before you have a 1:1 conversation.

  5. On your way to a meeting or waiting for one to start.

  6. During meetings and conversations before speaking.

  7. Before giving a presentation.

As a suggestion, whilst you are practising, pause for a moment before you speak, and use the pause to recite your new style. No rule says you must immediately blurt out a response or answer to someone. Pausing also makes you look more statesmanlike; people will notice it and respect and admire it. Then, speak slowly, and aim to match your words and tone with your new style.

You can test if your new style is working by noticing people’s reactions to your conversations and the observations and comments they make. Look at people’s faces and eyes for a reaction and listen to their words in response to what you have said. If you are doing well, when a team member is asked to come and see you, they will run to your office - in a positive way.

Your management style is contagious, the central finding of EI research is that emotions are contagious, attitude and energy ‘infect’ a workplace for better or worse. Accordingly, your team members will emulate your style and they will in turn be influenced by it. I was often described as having ‘energy’ that radiated and infected everyone around me, it was only because even in the face of adversity, my management style made me remain positive and confident and as a result so did my team members making them feel supported.

Team members will copy the pace you set, the sense of urgency you create, even your work habits like arrival and departure times. They will copy your behaviours, your ways of thinking, the way you delegate, how you deliver on commitments and the trust you give.

Your management style directly affects your confidence, performance, productivity, and respect. It improves your team’s morale and retention. Engaged team members are motivated and supported making them more productive. Disengaged team members are more likely to be unsupported, causing frustration and disruption.

Management and TeamsRussell FutcherManagement Style