Refine Your Management Style and Improve Employee Engagement
Refine Your Management Style and Improve Employee Engagement
Companies are defined by their leaders. In other words, employees don’t leave organizations, they leave managers.
A study in Gallup’s 2017 “State of the American Workplace” reported that 51% of employed adults in America say they’re on the hunt for new jobs or are open to new job opportunities.
Much of this dissatisfaction is due to a rather unfavorable management style, one that’s negative and particularly hostile. Management style can prove to be either be beneficial or detrimental to your organization.
With that said, the style of leadership you adopt can determine the future of your company. A goal that every business should strive for is to adopt a management style that increases employee engagement.
There are other areas that should also be analyzed on a frequent basis. They include:
· Work environment
· Reward processes
· Empowerment
Keep in mind that every one of these areas are directly affected by management style.
Identifying Your Current Management Style
Understanding your management style and how exactly it affects your employees and their engagement levels is critical to the success of your business. As of now, there are five management styles often associated with business leaders.
The majority of these styles can be identified to some degree in every company.
1. Coaching
With the coaching management style, leaders strictly motivate their team by providing the necessary tools and resources for growth. Coaching is a management style that’s particularly well liked, since managers place an emphasis on helping their employees develop their skills and improve their overall performance at work. The coaching manager prioritizes improvement and aims to help their team recognize their faults. To properly hone this management style, you must work to build relationships with every one of your employees.
Begin by developing a culture of trust and respect in order to build a solid relationship with your team.
2. Participative
With the participative management style, leaders encourage their team to get involved with analyzing problems. Participative managers work to create a sense of ownership for their organization.
That said, they’re able to instill a great sense of pride in their team and motivate them to increase their levels of productivity. This management style helps employees boost their engagement at work.
When employees feel like they’re a part of a team that shares common goals and interests, their self-esteem will improve tremendously, generating a sense of pride and loyalty. To be successful at this management style, you must first feel secure in your position.
This style requires an open mindset and the ability to trust your team.
3. Autocratic
The autocratic management style is considered a traditional one. This is the style that’s deemed particularly aggressive and unfair in nature. Autocratic leaders have a “because I told you so” mentality.
This management style thrives in environments that are extremely demanding, for example, the military or firefighting. While it can be useful, it’s not necessarily a style you’ll want to adopt for the long-term.
Autocratic leaders believe that rules are extremely critical in leading a team to triumph. Yes, this management style has proven to be effective in certain settings, like factories, however, in the modern workforce, autocratic leadership does more harm than good.
4. Affiliative
The affiliative leader aims to create harmony in their organization between employees and managers. This management style puts people first and projects second. It’s successful in creating harmonious work environments, ultimately boosting employee engagement levels.
However, it can be difficult to maintain a people-first attitude without accountability when your organization’s profits decrease. One way to boost the effectiveness of this leadership style is to encourage your employees to build positive work relationships that benefit their performance.
5. Pacesetting
The pacesetting management style is when a manager sets the tone of work for their team to follow. In most cases, employees are more motivated to keep up with their manager’s expectations by increasing their performance.
This type of leader prioritizes strong performance levels, almost obsessively. While this style is an excellent motivator for everyone capable of keeping up with faster-paced work environments, it tends to have a shorter lifespan than other management styles.
Sharpen Your Management Skills
A leader’s relationship with their employees is positively correlated with employee engagement, the main force behind a successful organization. Employees should feel comfortable approaching their manager with any issue, question, or concern.
Setting goals is another area where this correlation is strong. Asa leader, you should help your team set performance goals as much as possible.
The best leaders tend to combine various qualities from every management style and change their approach depending on the situation at hand.An exceptional manager is not born, they’re made through experience, hard work, and patience.
Engagement is the End Goal
Getting to know which management styles your team is most receptive to is critical to your company’s overall success. The management style you decide to use should strictly depend on the circumstances you and your employees come across at any given moment.
As a manager, you have to act as a chameleon, changing their approach in response to changing environments. Regardless, every management style’s primary objective is to achieve positive employee engagement.
FRIDAY Helps Small Business Manage and Pay Their Team
When it comes to managing, tracking, and paying your employees, additional help goes a long way.FRIDAY is the simplest software created to help small businesses manage, track, and pay their team without any paperwork involved.
FRIDAY is an easy to use, yet powerful payroll and team management solution. Stay up to date on our blog, where we frequently post educative and informative articles for small business owners.
