The Effective Manager

1What Is an Effective Manager?

There's a lot of talk about what good management is. When someone tells you they know how to manage or what it takes to manage, ask them, “How do you measure what a good manager is, or does?” If you don't get a crisp answer (like the one I outline below), don't take what they tell you very seriously.

I suspect you've known both good and bad managers. What makes them so? Is it what they do? How they think? Their personality? What they feel? Where they went to school?

Think about this for a minute: How do you know someone is a good manager? What is the definition of a good manager?

When we ask these questions at our Effective Manager Conferences, we get all kinds of answers, such as the following:

• Their people like them.
• They communicate a lot.
• They're smart.
• They CARE.
• They listen well.
• They are respected.

These are good efforts, but they're still incorrect.

Suppose a manager reported to you who did or embodied all of the above, and for the past three years, he had never achieved a single objective that the organization had set for him. Would you describe him as a good manager? Of course you wouldn't.

Your First Responsibility as a Manager Is to Achieve Results

This may be the most important concept related to being a manager. Your first responsibility is NOT to your team of directs. It's NOT to your people. You should NOT worry about them first.

Your first responsibility is to deliver whatever results your organization expects from you. Whether ...