You expect your employees to slip up and make mistakes often. These are minor errors of course. But you don’t expect your managers to even make minor errors that affect the way you do business, the way you’re perceived or how your brand is seen by your competitors. However, sometimes managers show their human side and they do have flaws like the rest of us. The issue is, what do you do? If you are a small business or you own a home business, you can only hope that your team leaders or managers can behave in the proper way when certain kinds of hardships are in their way.
Managers facing timing issues
We’re not talking about schedule issues, timing issues are a different story. This is when tasks do not align up, they finish early or later than expected and thus, one manager is held up waiting for another manager to get his team in order. You can ask your managers to do a few things when they are having timing issues.
- Communicate: they need to be in lockstep with each other, so that before issues arise they know what they are expecting. One manager gives a heads up to another manager that a task that was going to take 3 days will now take the whole week because he or she has a member of the team ill from work.
- They need to make a formal note. This can be done in management task software which has internal flagging features. This can essentially turn a green task into a red task and attach an alert or note with it. This logs in to the system and reminds the managers what is going on at the start and end of each day.
Give them training
No matter if you are running a business from home or perhaps you run a small business outside of your home, you could always give your team leaders and managers more training. Speak with the Corporate Coach Group or CCG about leadership training courses for your management teams. They will give them basic training on delegation, people management, soft skills like listening and empathizing but also, skills such as problem-solving, and team structure design. This last one is so important as managers understand how to pick certain people to promote and help them in their daily tasks.
Give them time
Don’t panic, sometimes managers really do need time to mold into the role. They will take time to learn names, remember processes and understand the kind of customers and market expectations you have for products and services. The general rule of thumb is, give your team leaders and or managers about 6 months to ease into the role, but judge them on a 9-12 month performance. Then decide if they need more training, a better understanding of your processes and operations, etc.
Managers that aren’t behaving like managers aren’t always a reason to throw up the smoke signals. You need to give them time, help them to understand their role and how you operate. And focus on specific areas of issue, such as timing and aligning of tasks.