How can I be a good manager? What should I avoid?

Managing employees and watching them grow professionally can be a very rewarding experience, but it can also be quite challenging. When everyone is looking to you for wisdom and effective leadership, it’s important not to fall flat on your face. Avoid the most common management mistakes by steering clear of these pitfalls:

1. Not leading by example. Your employees look to you as a leader and a source of guidance. Therefore, be careful about how you operate in the office. Listening respectfully, communicating clearly, and being open to ideas and questions from colleagues are all tactics you’ll want to employ to ensure your staff does the same. Where you lead, employees will follow, so be sure to comport yourself just as you want your workers to conduct themselves while doing business.

2. Dumping instead of delegating. Avoid giving employees the impression that work is being foisted onto them. Instead, when matching staffers with projects, allow them to ask questions about their goals and objectives. Make clear why they’re just the one for this task. By telling your staffers why you want them to be the ones to do certain jobs (i.e., “Jane, your phone manner is so professional, I thought you’d be the right person to make these follow-up calls to clients”), they’ll know you’re delegating to them because you value their work, thus motivating them to do their job well.

3. Forgetting to cultivate young talent. While there may be a level or two between you and your most junior staffers, it’s a good idea to cultivate their talents through some one-on-one conversation. This means making time to find out your junior employees’ professional goals. By chatting up newer hires, you’ll learn valuable things about where they want to go with their work. Most younger employees are itching for new opportunities, so take advantage of that by learning what kind of work they’re eager to take on.

4. Ignoring older workers. Sometimes the most seasoned workers on staff have a way of fading into the woodwork; they do their jobs so well, their efficiency doesn’t command much attention. This can lead experienced workers to feel taken for granted. Keep this at bay by encouraging them to bring up additional responsibilities they’d be excited to assume. Even reliable staffers can benefit from enhancing existing skills.

5. Issuing orders, not suggestions. No one likes being bossed around. Even though you’re the boss, you’d do well to take that into account. Instead of telling workers what to do, give them suggestions and encourage them to share their own ideas on how to best approach their work. Your employees will end up feeling more valued, and you’ll come across as more of a leader than a drill sergeant.

6. Not fostering creativity. It’s all too easy to get stuck in the rut of “same old” in the workplace. As a manager, the onus is on you to keep things fresh. To do this, be sure to solicit new ideas from staffers. Institute a drop box into which people can drop ideas, then review a few valuable ones at staff meetings. Businesses get better through a steady influx of fresh, creative thinking, and as a manager you should be sure to offer employees a penny for their thoughts.

7. Sticking too closely to the script. Entering a new management role with an established team? Don’t be afraid to tweak existing practices or processes to achieve greater efficiency. Just because something’s been done a certain way for some time doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Involving staff in how these practices evolve is a sure way of acquainting them with the new work cycles, and empowering them to take the improvements and run with them.

8. Saving it all for the review. Providing feedback for your staff should be an around-the-year endeavor, not something that only happens come review time. Employees need to know along the way what they’re doing right and wrong, so waiting until a formally appointed time to tell them so isn’t a strong strategy. Sharing your thoughts on areas for improvement, as well as where they’re succeeding, will arm staffers to do their jobs better all year long.

9. Keeping a loose grip on top talent. Got a strong performer on staff whose work is consistently top-shelf? Be sure you recognize that or else you might as well hand them their walking papers. Nothing gets an employee to seek greener professional pastures faster than feeling undervalued. Preempt this by being generous with compliments, pointing out successes, and rewarding strong performance with promotions and raises whenever possible.

10. Pointing out mistakes instead of giving positive feedback. If an employee’s work isn’t up to snuff, saying only what’s going wrong isn’t the way to improve the situation. If you need to counsel a staffer on how he or she might do a better job, be sure to go into the conversation with some positive feedback as well. Cushioning the chat with advice, as opposed to asserting that what he or she’s doing is wrong, will make your employee less defensive and more open to absorbing your guidance.

11. Failing to build a strong team. Having a group of talented individuals who do their work independently is nowhere near as productive for a business as having a highly skilled team working together. Facilitate teamwork by holding regular meetings where everyone gets a chance to share what he or she is working on. This ups everyone’s investment in one another’s work, and sets the stage for new ideas.