Better management through understanding yourself

Do you want to be an effective manager and leader of people?  Truly knowing yourself will give you useful information into your capacity for managing and leading others.  Knowing and understanding yourself allows you to understand why people respond to you the way that they do, how they perceive you and how you can get them to perform at their best for you.   This first lecture is a short introduction to the remainder of the section.

Reflection is a wonderful method for identifying various factors that are key to self-awareness and defining who you are.  Reflection is a powerful tool that can benefit you as a manager and leader immensely.   
 

A journal is not the same as a diary.  You will be using your journal to record information of a more personal nature.  

Analyzing all your traits, strengths weaknesses, likes and dislikes enables you to identify ways to maximize or improve upon them.  

To help you to gain perspective on your experiences and truly learn from them, it is important that you find a person (or group of like-minded people) that will give you gut-level, honest feedback. 

If you want to be the best manager that you can possibly be, you need to have a thorough understanding of what your values are and you need to act accordingly.

As a manager and leader it is absolutely vital that you clarify your values – both professional and personal.  Identifying your values will help you to determine what your goals are and how you can manage yourself and others in order to achieve them.

Personal values are different from professional values and they need to be clarified.

Knowing what your values are can be challenging, especially when they clash with the values of the organization you work for.  Variances in values can also exist between individuals or sub-groups. 

A personal mission statement is a written articulation of who you are, what your purpose and goals as a manager are. 

Developing your own personal mission statement will help you to direct your thoughts and energy towards your goals and aspirations.

Ensure that your mission statement is an accurate reflection of your aspirations, values and goals. 

Goals that are properly defined and within reach are more likely to be achieved.  Reflect and visualize your future.

Getting things done requires that managers behave in an assertive and active manner in order to be effective. 

People possess skills like assertiveness and the ability to express your feelings to different extents.  

Being assertive is a necessity for effective and efficient management of a team of people.  In order to get the best from your team, you need to be able to communicate effectively. 

Challenging your own assumptions about people, is one of the first steps in becoming a better manager and leader.  

The environment, working in an organization managed by X-style managers, is very different from that of an organization run by Y-style managers.  

Challenging your assumptions is an important and interesting exercise.  It is clear that the assumptions you hold influence how you manage and lead people. 

The ability to scrutinize and work with your and others emotions is known as Emotional Intelligence.  

Your EQ is the degree of your ability to interact with and understand those around you.  The more people you deal with or manage, the more important it becomes.  

There are two aspects of EI - The one inward-facing and the other outward-facing. 

Being a successful manager and leader of people today requires more than simple sheer intelligence or technical ability – it requires a high EQ.

Thank you again for taking my course.  I hope that you enjoyed it and that you will implement the various techniques and skills to improve your management skills.

I will be launching my next course in a few weeks;  Be a better manager: Better Management though interacting with others.  This course will help you to better manage and lead your team through effective communication, teaching and appraising.