What Makes a Good Manager

I’m often asked for ideas on how to be a good manager and how to be a good people manager.

These are the essential skills of managers no matter what is the end product – computers, customer service or bread.

Make a list of the names of your previous “managers”. You may even want to go back to schools and when you were growing up. You may even want to consider your parents and how they managed you.

Consider also stories which stick in your mind which you’ve heard from friends and relations about their experiences of people who managed them.

Against each “manager” make 2 lists – what they did well and what they did badly.

Don’t rush this – give yourself a couple of days to ponder it all.

The aim is to give you a reminder of what works and what doesn’t work and importantly, why it works or doesn’t work.

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