Level Up as a Manager: Key Strategies for Success

In today’s episode of ‘Profit Made Simple,’ we dive deep into an essential skill for any business leader: effective management.

Drawing on over 18 years of experience owning and operating businesses and seven years in coaching, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to manage people. Yet, mastering this skill is crucial if you want to increase your impact, income, and freedom.

People are complex, with different beliefs, learning styles, and motivators, making management one of the most difficult aspects of running a business.

In this article, we’ll explore several frameworks to help you build a world-class team, enhance your impact, and achieve more financial success while working less.

Through my years of experience and conversations with over 150 coaching clients, I have identified several recurring issues that managers face:

• Poor Delegation: Many managers struggle to delegate effectively, often taking on too much themselves.
• Micromanagement: Failing to trust and empower team members leads to micromanaging, which stifles creativity and autonomy.
• Communication Struggles: Managers often avoid difficult conversations or fail to hold team members accountable.
• Ineffective Meetings: Meetings can be poorly structured or lack clear objectives, leading to wasted time.
• Lack of Systems: Without clear processes in place, teams can become disorganised and inefficient.
• Handling Underperformance: Managers may not know how to address or improve underperformance.
• Unclear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Without clear KPIs, team members may be unclear about what success looks like.

Key Frameworks for Better Management

To address these challenges, I have developed several frameworks that can transform your approach to management

One of the most impactful changes you can make as a manager is shifting from transactional management to transformational leadership. Transactional management involves telling people what to do for each task, checking their work, and then moving on to the next task. While this approach might work with a small team, it becomes a bottleneck as your business grows.

Transformational leadership, on the other hand, focuses on outcomes rather than tasks. For example, instead of instructing a team member to launch a Facebook ad, you might set a goal of acquiring 10 new clients next month. You then empower your team to determine the best way to achieve that outcome. This approach has several benefits:

• Increased Ownership: Team members take ownership of their work and are more invested in the outcomes.
• Improved Problem-Solving: Employees who are closer to the problem often have better solutions.
• Greater Autonomy: By allowing team members to choose how to achieve their goals, you foster creativity and initiative.

Every team member should have a specific KPI that aligns with their role and contributes to the business’s overall success. For example, a KPI for a customer service representative might be the number of positive customer feedback messages received each shift. For a sales team member, it might be the number of closed deals per month. Establishing clear KPIs helps ensure that everyone knows what is expected of them and provides a measurable way to track performance.

Delegation is a critical skill for any manager who wants to scale their business and free up time for more strategic activities. However, many managers struggle with delegation because they are reluctant to let go or believe that no one else can do the job as well as they can. To overcome these barriers, consider the following tips:

• Reframe Your Mindset: View delegation as a step back to take a hundred steps forward. By taking the time to create a system and train someone to handle a task, you can free up time for more important activities in the long run.
• Accept Imperfection: Remember the rule from Dan Martell’s book “Buy Back Your Time”: “80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome.” It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.
• Follow a Clear Process: When delegating, provide clarity about what needs to be done, give autonomy to the team member to decide how to do it, offer support and feedback, and use technology to track progress and ensure accountability.

When dealing with underperformance, it’s helpful to use a simple diagnostic tool: the management triangle. This tool, inspired by Alex Hormozi, helps you identify the root cause of underperformance by asking three key questions:

• Do they know what to do? Are they clear about what is expected of them?
• Do they know how to do it? Do they have the skills, resources, or training needed to succeed?
• Are they motivated to do it? Do they have the drive and commitment to perform well?

By identifying which of these areas needs attention, you can provide targeted support to help your team member improve.

Becoming an exceptional manager requires a shift in mindset and approach. By moving from transactional management to transformational leadership, setting clear KPIs, mastering delegation, and addressing underperformance with a structured framework, you can build a more effective and empowered team. Remember, your success as a manager will not only increase your impact and income but also provide you with more freedom to enjoy the things you love.