How to manage people and be a better leader

One of the biggest areas where most entrepreneurs face challenges is managing their people and functioning as leaders.

Today we will understand a practical approach of managing, retaining, and building people to become more responsible and result-driven.

1. Take an effort to understand your people

Everybody who is working with you has their own set of reasons and aspirations because of which they are involved with you professionally.

One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is not making an effort to understand the driving forces of the people who are working with you.

You cannot lead the people you don’t know.

So what are the areas you need to know to effectively manage and lead them?

What will they want to achieve in their life
Why do they do what they do (what drives them to work)
What are the roles and responsibilities they would like to handle
What kind of money they would want to make from their future role.
What would they need to contribute to be eligible for that kind of growth

Understanding these areas will give you a whole new level of clarity on how to manage, drive & motivate them, and what kind of growth path should you design for them.

2. Give them clarity of their roles and responsibilities

So many business owners complain that their team is not productive or their team is not driving results, or their team is ineffective.

A big reason most entrepreneurs face problems here is that they fail to provide clarity of the roles and responsibilities to each and every team member in their organization.

Clarity leads to action. So step one of improving your team management skills is to design a proper role and responsibility document for each team member so that they have clarity on 4 areas:

Their role in the organization
The responsibilities they have
Their day-to-day tasks and activities they need to perform.
The outcomes they are responsible for

Once this is set right, you will see nobody would work ad hoc in your business. Instead, you will see more focus and better performance in your people.

3. Create a growth plan for your team members

In today’s world, everybody is working for personal growth.

You are running the business for your own personal gain like growing your profits, growing your brand, achieving time & financial freedom, and of course, offering the highest quality products and services to your customers.

Similarly, your team is also working to grow and need growth for:

Handling better roles and responsibilities
Better salary
Better contribution and reward and recognition

One of the most essential pieces of work that you must do as a leader is to create a proper plan for each individual to grow in your organization.

This means you need to define for every individual how they will handle better roles and responsibilities in your organization and achieve a better salary.

This will effectively help you create commitment in your team and also drive them to outperform themselves.

4. Design an organizational culture

Most entrepreneurs often don’t understand what it means to create a company culture.

The most hilarious explanation that I’ve ever heard from not one but many entrepreneurs is that we treat our team as our family.

This is absolutely contrary to what the business culture means.

Designing an organization culture means defining:

How do people conduct themselves in the organization
What are the factors that will determine their growth
Creating a strong sense of accountability.

If you treat your business as a living being, having a business culture is equivalent to having a soul.

So when I say designing an organization culture, what I mean is

Defining performance will lead your people towards growth
Defining a code of conduct to keep your organization disciplined
Defining mechanisms which will hold them accountable for the good and the bad.

This will effectively help your team members understand that they have to contribute and perform and conduct themselves in a certain way to grow in their career in the organization.

You should not treat your team like a family. Instead, focus on building an army of warriors driven on a mission.

5. Commit to constant self-improvement

So many entrepreneurs fail to manage their people is because they don’t invest their time, energy, efforts, and money to learn how to become efficient leaders.

Leadership is not inborn. It’s an acquired skill. This means, through constant efforts and learning, anybody can become an effective leader.

What does it mean when I say you need to be a leader in an organization. The answer is 3-fold.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to create the right vision and goal for the organization (one that everybody will work towards achieving)
As a leader, it is your responsibility to hire the right people, train and guide them, hold them accountable and provide constructive feedback to help them grow.
You are also responsible for building the right systems and cultures that lead your people and business towards a high pace of growth.

If you do not possess these skills, you must commit to learning and improving your capabilities to become an efficient and effective leader.