Learning to manage and managing to learn
Being a manager, in Information Technology or any other field, is a busy job. There will be questions about how applications work and how to customize them to better meet the needs of the organization, as well as questions about the reason for the newly implemented Saturday support shift. These are all things that you as the manager will see at sometime in your career. You may be a department of 100 or simply a department of 1, no matter the size of the team you need to take some time for yourself. This post is to serve as a reminder to benefit your occupation and your well being in all you do. It will help make you a better manager.
Read to learn
Usually when we start out in school, we as childeren have aspirations of being astronauts or athletes or even doctors, very few know that they want to be IT managers. We learn to read and read at increasing levels as we progress through school. Most of us read because it will aid us in passing the test at the end of the semester. Once you get into and beyond college, reading can open doors to new things from job offers to entertainment.
Do not forget that learning is important no matter how far along you are in your career. I do not mean to suggest that all your learning should be career focussed, but simply that learning something new can improve your situation. Suppose you deal with Microsoft Active Directory for the majority of your day, learning about Active Directory is helpful, but learning how to use your new digital camera so you can take pictures at the family reunion is fun. The same is true of reading. Opening up a magazine or blog about a topic you are passionate about will refresh your mind and might even provide you something to learn along the way.
Try something outside of your comfort zone
Many of us grow into our jobs. As we enter the land of management we grow into the role of manager and work to have the best relationships with co-workers and staff and to become the best managers we can be. These skills as a manager will get us noticed in our company in many cases and keep us moving forward on our career path. To keep your skills evolving and ensure you remain fresh in technologies that will help you along the way try new things or things you do not get to practice all that often.
If you are a wizard when it comes to Microsoft Excel and its formulas, but speaking in front of groups makes you want to have the flu, take the time to create presentations and attend meetings where you will have the opportunity to share information. You can help others learn things about a passion you have and help yourself to overcome a fear of speaking.
I still struggle with presentations and sometimes letting others read things I write but this blog has been a great experience and is just getting started. I will likely spend some time developing training presentations in the future to improve that as well.
Showing your employees and co-workers that you also have a willingness to learn and try things which may not be the best fit for you can increase their motivation to do the same.
Provide feedback frequently to help employees
I think this one falls in the best interest of many a manager. When managers have individuals reporting to them, constant communication and feedback, both positive and negative are surely on the list of best intentions. However many managers get into their ususal habits, just like everyone else, and provide necessary feedback in most cases. Putting yourself out there as a manager who provides feedback whenever possible will raise your standing with your employees in many situations.
An example would be to ensure you take the time to recognise when someone helps you (or your team) out with a project or when someone does something positive that would go unnoticed by other managers. Take the time to provide positivie reinforcement and ensure you provide negative feedback as soon as possible.
Note: Positive feedback is something to be shared with all in most cases, but negative feedback is not. It might work best to share positives at a weekly staff meeting with your team, but remember to ensure others within the company know about these positives as well. Negative feedback on the other hand, should be shared privately with the parties involved to avoid gossip and unneeded discussion.
If you take the time to learn new things and help your employees learn new things, either through budgeting for training or simply holding a weekly meeting with your team to brainstorm ideas and learn as a group, you will be a better manager and maintain a sense of being “up with technology” even when a busy schedule seeems to prevent this growth.
