For those of you who supervise people, what 'management style' have you found to be the most effective?

I can relate some of the aspects of my current supervisor as compared to his predecessor, and how what he does is working so much better. I’venever applied for a supervisory position because I don’t really have ths skills to manage people.

Read Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham. We’ve been using Strengthfinder to utilize what people do well in the workplace. Rather than trying to rectify shortcomings, we adapt work assignments to people’s strengths, you work in a way that you’re successful.

Consistency is paramount.
Positive reinforcement is most important.
Acknowledge successes in front of peers in staff meetings.
Have staff meetings on a regular basis and keep personnel informed on the bigger company picture so they feel part of the team.
Kill gossip ASAP.
Give subordinates new challenges to keep the job fresh.
Keep a positive attitude….it brushes off on your personnel.
Employee reviews are very important Be honest of strengths and weaknesses and be prepared to explain specifically what the employee can do to improve in weak areas.
Be a dedicated, hard worker and your employees will follow suit.
Delegate, delegate, delegate (the toughest thing for me to do).
Just some ideas…..but they worked well for me.
See ya….Gary/wtf

Don’t try to be a great boss. Great bosses tend to splinter crews. Terrible bosses tend to unite crews (against the boss).
Identify who likes you, hates you, and doesn’t have an opinion. Keep those who have no opinion away from those who hate you.
You can’t make everyone happy.

My attitude is that my job is to serve as a consultant. I train my employees to do their job. I tell them what our goals are, and teach them to understand how the organization works and what we want to do. Then I tell them what they are responsible for, and as suggested by others, I try to match responsibilities to skills. I also give them a choice and ask them to work out details of who does what amongst themselves.

Then I sit back and fluther. Sometimes they come to me with problems they can’t handle (which I encourage), and I use that as a time to teach them new stuff. After a while, they don’t need to come to me any more, except for really strange problems.

I see a few clients myself, and I also think about larger goals of the organization, and I invest time in educating myself. I practice my writing and my analytical skills, and wait for the really interesting problems to show themselves.

That’s how I see management. Not everyone can do it that way. Some of you need to spend a lot more time working directly on tasks instead of spending speculative time preparing yourself for whatever may happen next. I’m a consultant. I train my employees personally, so I know them well and I trust them. If they mess up, it’s usually my fault for not telling them something. I never blame them for messing up, but seek to use it as a chance to teach them something new. Of course, I’m lucky in having employees who are pretty damn smart!

I don’t subscribe to that heavy handed, I need to be fierce, mean or feared bull. I listen. I try to help. I try to understand. Sometimes they can’t be helped and I try to help them understand why. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I don’t ask anything of them that I wouldn’t do. I stress team and consider myself a part of it not above it. When review time comes there should be NO SURPRISES! If there are issues they should be discussed and worked on along the way. If they don’t like me that is fine as long as they do their job and don’t poison the teams efforts.

In addition to the above, a careful line between micromanagement and hands off.

@Austinlad – Good point.

@Austinlad Welcome to Fluther. Lurve.

I’m by no means a perfect leader, but I do my best, and so far we’ve been doing pretty well. My main philosophy is to provide positive feedback as often as possible. I also try to provide concrete deadlines, and give specific information about how a task should be done, in order to avoid the person doing it wrong, me having to tell them why, and them having to do it again, wasting all of our time. It’s also important to keep in mind, as far as delegating, what’s really important, and what’s not. If something is super-important, I’d rather do it myself. But I know that I need some work in the delegating department. I’m a perfectionist, and I like things to be done just so.

I would say my staff definitely trusts me, maybe too much. They seem to think I can move mountains. It’s nice to know I have their confidence, but it can also be scary at times, because I don’t know if I’m really capable of all they think I am. Of course there was one time when someone spent about $100 on our company credit card trying to cover up the fact that he didn’t do what I had asked him to within the time frame, and tried to hide it from me. He was_ technically_ my superior at the time, but NOT FOR LONG!

- clear expectations
– written objectives
– no micromanagement
– regular 1:1
– regular feedback
– appreciation of delivered results

I found the Michael Scott method to be very intriguing and effective.

I think it’s really important to hand out compliments and not get involved in drama. Period. Just don’t let it happen. Also important to act the way you preach, getting caught being hypocritical is just terrible!

In general:
– hire the right people
– reward publicly, reprimand in private
– set clear goals,
– shared objectives/ individual responsibilities
– monitor performance
– listen, do not speak more than you listen
– be honest and give timely feedback on performance
– lead by example when it comes to desired company culture and ethics
– listen to alternatives, value experience
– do not only notice positives, unnoticed fails demotivate just as much
– be sincere
– and yes… listen
– listen
– listen

I think it’s best not to be false. Allow your professional personality to bloom and you’ll gain respect. If you are false or over-disciplined in an unnatural you will hated, not loved.
However it is better to be feared than loved, as Machiavelian.

I have always tried to adapt my style of leadership to the circumstances, and to the personalities of those I am leading.