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Selecting talent, getting the best from your employees, managing the escalating aspirations of younger people and handling under-performance begin to give a flavour of just a few of the challenges today’s leader-managers face. At a practical level, there are pressures – here are three that leaders need to be able to navigate in today’s fast-changing world of work. (1) Agile managing The advancement to manager is a common part of career progression. Consequently, when many professionally qualified and technical people become managers they get the title, the job description, the team, the office/desk/car and the increase in pay. Being an agile leader-manager means you need to: • Think about how you behave, how you approach easy and difficult things and people, noticing the effect it’s having and being deft in flexing when necessary to achieve the wanted outcomeWhy being agile is powering the growth of British SMEs
Part of the agile leader-manager challenge you face is about knowing which hat to wear and when. The technical hat is all about getting the job done, using your technical knowledge and expertise; your leader-manager hat is all about how you get the job done through your team and other resources. An effective leader-manager will constantly be engaging with business issues and considering them from multiple perspectives. Yet being an effective leader-manager with people takes hard work, tenacity, practice and ongoing commitment. It requires great planning, agility in handling different people and difficult conversations, the ability to manage resistance to change in a changing landscape filled demanding employees and challenging clients.Seven rules of engagement for successfully managing expectations in your business
(2) Understanding millennials at workRead more on millennials:
- Millennials: The recruitment problem and hiring solution for SMEs
- Maintaining our skills base with an ever-changing workforce
- Freedom, promotion and pandering: The best ways to retain your millennial workforce
• Leadership skill development
• The opportunity for career progression
• Alignment of personal and organisation’s values
• Work- life balance and
• Flexible working using technology Successful leader-managers find and address employees’ individual drivers, preferences and values. If you as a leader learn about what is important to your employees and why, you’ll have a better handle on how best to motivate, engage or re-engage and retain them.
Continue reading on the next page for the final pressure leader-managers can expect to face in today’s workplace.
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