Essential Advice For Being An Excellent Leader

When you’re running a business like Charlie Bouri, or are taking charge of a big project, you need to learn how to be a good leader.  Some people think that you have to be a natural at management and leadership to be able to do it well, but you can easily learn skills that will help you become a better leader.  If you’re going to be in a leadership position, follow these tips to ensure that you’ll be the leader that you need to be.

Avoid Blaming

Playing the blame game in a managerial situation is sure to result in a lot of missed opportunities.  Your employees may have messed something up, but in the end everything comes back to your managerial skills.  You don’t have to avoid mentioning someone else’s mistakes, but you shouldn’t immediately set out to pin a problem or setback on someone.  If you consistently get angry and blame your employees for problems, they’ll be less likely to come to you when there are actual problems.

Cut Your Losses

Nobody likes admitting that they’re wrong, but sticking to something that clearly isn’t working to seem competent is a big mistake.   When you find out that original idea you had for a project isn’t going to work, don’t stick with it and hope that it’ll sort itself out later.  If a new hire you brought on has been turning in inconsistent and bad work, don’t give them a few more months to figure things out when it’s apparent that they aren’t doing a good job.

Lead By Example

If you tell your employees that they should work hard and put in extra hours on a project, they won’t take your words to heart if they see you taking half days three days a week.  Being a manager shouldn’t put you above your own rules, and if you practice what you preach your employees will notice it.  Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule, but if you want your employees to trust your leadership skills, you’ll need to show them that you’re more than capable of living up to your own standards.

Letting Employees Go the Right Way

If you ask a manager what they think the most difficult part of their job is the majority of them will say it's firing an employee.  Large multi-national businesses like Seament Holding and small mom and pop operations all have to deal with the unpleasantness of having to fire workers.  Despite what some disgruntled employees think, most managers dread having to hand out pink slips.  And to make matters worse, if they end up terminating an employee the wrong way their company could end up with a nasty lawsuit.  If you think you'll have to resort to employee termination soon, follow these tips to make that it goes as smoothly as possible.

Remember That Firing is A Last Resort

Is this the first time the employee has caused a problem, or have you addressed the issue several times before?  Firing an employee should only happen if you've tried every other tactic possible to change their behavior.  Unless if they've broken a very important company rule, try to see if there's anything else you can do to help them keep their job. 

Be 100% Certain About It

There era of zero-tolerance and lengthy employee contracts hasn't made making the decision of firing an employee any easier, if anything it's made the termination process more time consuming and difficult. Before you officially fill out the termination paper work it would be wise to carefully review company rules and the employee's individual contract to ensure that you're making the right choice. 

Don't Argue

Sometimes when people are told that they're being let go they stay silent, others may get angry or even openly weep.  When people get emotional when they're being fired they may try to bargain or argue with their bosses, and that's why it's important to remember to not join in on the disagreement.  If you see an argument looming on the horizon remind them that the time to talk is over, your word is final and there's nothing they can do to change it.

How to Successfully Solve Employee Disputes

When you're a manager only a small portion of your job is running the company and supervising employees, when you're overseeing workers you'll also have to spend time resolving disputes between them.  It doesn't matter if you’re the owner of a large company like Alex F Bouri or if you're running a small family business, if you have a position of power you'll eventually have to handle some sort of problem between workers.  If you find that you're constantly having to handle problems between employees you may feel more like a baby sitter than a boss, but there are ways to quickly resolve disputes and hopefully prevent others from happening.

Don't Ignore Problems

You may think the Rachel in accounting is complaining about a trivial matter when she tells you that someone in sales stealing her coffee creamer, but it doesn't seem that way to her.  If employees are coming to with you problems that you write off as small or unimportant, that will guarantee that employees will take it upon themselves to deal with the issue.  Take every employee problem seriously and them know that it's important to you, if not you could have problems when they try to solve it themselves the wrong way.

Mediate Immediately

As soon as you find out about the conflict between employees, you need to start taking proactive steps to solve this.  This doesn't mean that you have to confront the employees in question ASAP, but you should at least be thinking of ways to successfully solve the issue at hand.  This can be anything from reviewing company policies on employee disputes or asking people in upper management about the best way to solve the problem.

Follow Up

This is without a doubt the most important part of handling problems at the office.   While you were mediating a conflict the employees in question may have promised to change their behavior, but after they leave your private office the problems could start up again like nothing ever happened.  If you don't follow up with the employees  you don't know if any changes have been made.  Along with keeping an eye on their behavior, ask other employees or managers if they've noticed any positive changes as well.