How to Become A Great Manager

June 22, 2011 Aileen Gilpin

Google, the king of search engines, recently set out on a search of its own—to identify the qualities that make the highest- quality managers at Google Inc., and then to replicate those qualities across the entire company.

Being Google, it first looked at data. According to a New York Times report, a “people ana­­­lytics” team compared correlations in the words and phrases that came up again and again in performance reviews, feedback surveys and recognition nominations.

The end result: A simple, yet elegant, list of eight management practices that the best Google managers consistently do. Some are obvious, but all serve as a good reminder of what an effective manager should be doing on a daily basis:

Here’s the list, in order of importance to Google:

  1. Be a good coach.
  2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage.
  3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being.
  4. Be productive and results-­oriented.
  5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team.
  6. Help your employees with career development.
  7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.
  8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team. 

3 common pitfalls

Google also identified three common pitfalls that its managers often run into:

  1. Have trouble transitioning into management.
  2. Lack a consistent approach
  3. Spend too little time managing

By Business Management Daily …Read the full article here>>