It's OK to be the boss. It's just that if you're going to be the boss, you've got to be really, really, really good at it. You want to be a great boss? Get back to basics.
The number one thing you have to do if you want to be a great boss is get in the habit of managing every day. Stop managing by special occasion and start managing every day before things go right, wrong or average. It's like taking a walk every day. You want to get in shape? You take a walk every day. You want to be a great boss? Manage every day.
Number two: Learn to talk like a performance coach. How do performance coaches talk? They tune in to individual performance and they tell it like it is. They describe the performance they're seeing and they describe the performance they want to see next.
Number three: Take it one person at a time. Every person is different. How you manage one person is not the same as how you manage another person. Who is that person? Why do you need to manage that person? What should you be talking to that person about? How? When? Where? You've got to customize your approach to every person you manage.
Number four: Make accountability a process not a slogan. Accountability comes from spelling out clear expectations and tying real, concrete actions to real consequences. Accountability is about asking somebody to account for their behavior on an ongoing basis. Ask for an account and follow through with real consequences. That's how you make accountability real.
Number five: Tell people what to do and how to do it. Real managers give orders. If you don't like the idea of giving orders, think of yourself as a purchasing agent and your employee as a vendor and place orders with all the specifications. Don't make people sink or swim. Tell them what to do and how to do it. It's just another way of saying spell out expectations clearly and vividly on an ongoing basis.
Number six: Track performance every step of the way. Monitor, measure and document performance. You've got to write stuff down if you want to be an effective manager. You've got to keep track.
Number seven: Solve small problems before they turn into big problems.
Number eight: Do more for some people and less for others because that's what's fair.
You want to be a great boss? Get back to basics. Set people up for success every step of the way and help them earn what they need.
Finally, here's a bonus best practices tip: Do you currently manage any direct-reports with a significant behavior problem that you would like to help solve? Do you want the person to change more than one behavior? You better take them one at a time.
Then, with each behavior in question, spell out the negative behavior in question and, more importantly, spell out the positive behavior you would like to see instead. Focus NOT on the behavior you want the person to STOP. FOCUS on the behavior you want the person to START doing instead. How can you help this employee use a checklist to remember the standard operating procedure? How can you help this employee use a checklist as a self-monitoring tool to help you both keep track of his/her improvement on this behavior?
Created by: Bruce Tulgan, © 2009 RainmakerThinking, Inc. in conjunction with Bruce's free video newsletter that's available at
Rainmakerthinking.com.