Managers can be super

A lot of managers can keep an organisation chugging along, but some people have discovered a way to become a super manager.

A Harvard Business School professor, Renato Tagiuri Ph.D., says that after decades of social sciences research, what makes a super manager is not personality but behaviour.

Gail Reichert, director of Leader's Edge in North Shore City, agrees that it is not all about personality.

"The research tells us that there's such a wide variety of people who are successful in leadership. You can have a personality who is friendly, outgoing, bubbly etc and someone who is reserved and they can both demonstrate empathy, then they will get good results regardless of how friendly they are and that sort of thing."

So, can anyone be a super manager? Reichert says certain things need to be "hard wired".

"You wouldn't get a super manager who is low on emotional intelligence. If they have everything else and they don't have high emotional intelligence, then they won't go far. And if they do it will be in a dysfunctional environment."

Managers with the right motives, values, attributes and traits can learn to be more achievement oriented and become super managers.

"There are some elements that are what we call attributes and traits which are deeply seated. So they are things which are genetic or learned from an early age that will make one person a more effective leader or manager than others. If people are highly motivated, they can learn to be more achievement-oriented. And they can learn to be more influential. However, most of the time they will not be as effective as someone who has that as a natural trait."

Tagiuri identifies 10 actions which must be done to be a super manager.

- Clarify objectives of job assignments

- Describe assignments clearly

- Listen to your employees's views

- Make sure the resources necessary to carry out assignments are available

- Be explicit about evaluation standards

- Reward effort and offer incentives

- Give prompt feedback on performance

- Avoid personal friendships with employees

- Admit your errors, don't tell lies

- Make the decisions that are yours to make.

Missing any one of these actions, he says, will prevent you from being a great leader.

Suzie Sauer, director of Creation Works in Christchurch, says we learn certain things at a very young age which can impact on our ability to manage later in life.

"What a lot of people work to do, and we've done it from very young ages is trying to eliminate our weaknesses as opposed to building strengths. So these guys focus on building strengths rather than eliminating weaknesses. Because the theory of eliminating weaknesses only ever makes you average. It doesn't make you great."

Sauer says the focus on eliminating weakness could be because of our upbringing.

"You get a report card as a kid and you might get three "A"s and a "D". What would your parents focus on? It'd probably be the "D", right?"

But to focus on being a super manager as an adult, Sauer says you need to understand your staff.

"What you hear people say often is treat people like you like to be treated. Well, if you treat everybody like you like to be treated - it really doesn't work. And the managers that are really effective find out how their staff like to be treated and then they treat them that way."

Reichert echoes the sentiment that employees must be treated as individuals.

"My mantra has always been to reward employees in their currency. So whatever is going to spin the wheels of the person, you match that as closely as possible. If the employee values public praise then make sure they're the ones who get praised in the team meeting. If you've got a really shy person then that could be a disincentive. The shy person might like a book voucher. It's thinking about the currency of the person receiving it."

Besides managing their staff, super managers must also be able to control themselves.

"In terms of the influence motive, which is the other one that's important, is their ability to manage themselves - their ability to maintain control on their emotional state, especially when things are getting tough, the ability to show empathy. They need to understand the emotional state of the other person."

Reichert says that of the characteristics which make up a super manager - leadership is number one.

"I think the trend today is for leadership to be a preferred attribute rather than management because you're looking for leadership right throughout the organisation."

But there are many other attributes a good leader must have.

"If you think of a leadership model, you've got an underlying assumption that a person has the technical competence to do the job. So, they know either the industry or the specific business they're in. Then there are the skills such as strategic skills. Further up the ladder these become more important. So, you're looking at things like business acumen, problem solving, creativity and innovation, flexibility, ongoing learning and that sort of stuff."

If you're lacking some key characteristics, Sauer says all hope is not lost.

"You don't have to be good at all of them to be seen as effective, to actually impact the bottom line. You only actually have to be good at three or four of them to be seen as a great leader.

Sauer says that our super manager obviously needs to be able to motivate people and have the process and systems in place for an effective team to function. But she says the most important characteristic to gain respect above and below the management chain is to have integrity. With integrity some leaders can get away with lacking some other qualities.

"They rely on what's known as the halo effect - that if somebody's good at one thing, people assume that they're good at other things. That's how building three things up to be strengths can make you be perceived as a really effective leader."

The most effective leaders are also the best communicators. Reichert says this is where a lot of people are found lacking.

"The most common skill that would improve communication is learning how to listen. People don't get taught how to listen. As a person that's looking for one key skill that will help them improve their leadership ability, it's the ability to listen to other people."

And for the super manager, excessive emailing can be like kryptonite.

"I think more and more people are understanding that email has its place. But because you're missing a huge part of the communication message by reducing it and taking the personal side out of it, important messages need to be delivered in person. I think more and more people are understanding that, but there's still a lot of pressure to get things done fast so they're reverting to emails."

She says there is way too much email flying around offices today and it is no substitute for actual communication.

"You're missing the body language interpretation so the power of communication message, the majority of the communication message comes from reading the other person, not from listening to the specific words they use. And when you take that away in a written message then people put their own interpretation on that. They don't have the feedback from the person coming from the person who's giving the message."

Conflict can often result from misunderstood emails.

"Even if you're trying to give praise or incentive rewards by email, it can still go astray because individual words get interpreted differently."

But with the right communication skills under the belt, a super manager can keep flying high.