If you’ve ever asked someone how they manage people, more often than not, they’ll say “I manage people the way that I’d want to be managed”. Now, that all sounds very fair and sensible, until you think it through. Unless you’re just one of those lucky people, then that approach is only ever likely to please one person: the Manager, because they’ll be doing all the things that they would want to have done to them.
How about flipping it on it’s head and managing people the way that they want to be managed? And even more radically – let’s ask them how they would like to be managed? Maybe that’s too far and really what we ought to explore is how do they like to work with their Manager, so as to get the best out of them. The secret is to do more asking and less telling. Let’s involve our team members in conversations about the way to help them succeed. Management is something that you do ‘with’ people and not ‘to’ them.
