A Tip From The Manager’s Answer Book: Your Management Brand

 

As a manager, all eyes are on you.  You bring knowledge, skill and experience to the job. Managing in our current environment is and will continue to be different. As work gradually moves back into offices, managers will have to manage differently and trust their employees. Now more than ever before, the quality of output and results must be the focus of performance measurement, rather than the number of activities or amount of time spent at work stations, in order to sustain productivity, avoid burnout and produce results. 

Successful managers have to show they are not only competent in their area of expertise, but they have to show they are credible, agile, and empathic.  So how do you do that, and why is it important.  

Manager’s Tip:  You do it by creating your personal brand. Your brand is how you present yourself – how you communicate, act and interact with others. As a manager, you are representing the organization – whether interacting inside or outside – so you always want to be mindful of how your actions uphold the organization’s positive culture.  There are critical traits that illustrate a positive personal brand. Clearly at the top of the list are ethics and integrity – being true to your values and principles. You demonstrate this by making decisions that don’t contradict your values, seeking out people with common values and respecting the people around you. Trustworthiness is a close second to integrity.  You show other people that they can trust you by maintaining confidences, exercising discretion and avoiding rumors and gossip.  Listen to your staff and be as transparent as you possibly can. Be fair and consistent with your staff and admit when you are wrong.  And finally courage – having the confidence and integrity when you see something is wrong or not moving in the right direction to say something. Confront wrongdoing no matter where it’s occurring. Step up and do the right thing. Finally, courageous leaders not only speak out and take an opposing point of view, they also advocate for ideas and positions that may not appear to be popular.

You can read more in The Manager’s Answer Book a proud 2020 Winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award.  Section Four is devoted to creating your personal brand.  Ethics and integrity is discussed on page 111, courage on page 113 and trustworthiness on page 120. The Manager’s Answer Book, is available from Amazon -- https://tinyurl.com/y8umaqpz - Barnes & Noble or your local independent bookstore.

National Ask a Stupid Question Day

Now I know for sure that there is day for everything!  Who knew there’s a National Ask a Stupid Question Day?  It’s celebrated on September 28 or, if that date is a weekend like in 2019, it is officially on the last Friday of September.

Ask A Stupid Question Day was created by teachers in the 1980’s to get kids to ask more questions in school. It started in the United States, but is now celebrated in lots of other countries including India and Britain.

I have to admit that this day might have been started by those who taught me in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. As a student, I thought that it was better not to ask questions for fear of sounding stupid—and I hate the word stupid.  Now I know that was not a good learning strategy!

These days, I love asking questions, and I really love answering them.  As you may know, Cornelia Gamlem and I co-authored The Manager’s Answer Book in 2018. The tag line of that book is “Powerful Tools to Build Trust and Teams, Maximize Your Impact and Influence, and Respond to Challenges.”

In our book, we respond to questions around these topics:

• You’re a new manager, now what?
• Developing your management skills
• Building and managing your team
• Creating your personal brand
• Managing up, down, and around
• Avoiding potential land mines
• Recognizing legal pitfalls

When we were working on this book and collecting questions to answer, we never considered a question too stupid to include in our book. If something is one your mind or if there is something you don’t understand, odds are many other people have the same question and they may be like me in school—not brave enough to ask it.

So, ask as many questions you want. Don’t worry about what other people think and don’t wait until September 27, 2019 to ask them. We’d love to answer more of your questions anytime you’d like to ask.

The Manager’s Answer Book, along with our other books, is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or you can order it through your local bookstore.