How to Lead and Manage People:Essential People Management Skills.

If you know the secrets of how to lead and manage people you will be able to relate to others in your organization effectively and take your people management skills to the next level. Managers with superior people management skills are the men who know how to bring out the best in their team members in every situation. I am going to mention here twelve such people skills of managers which are essential to improve their abilities to lead and manage people effectively in their workplace. By using these excellent people skills the managers can create highly engaged workers and high-performance work units, which are sure ways of making of a truly successful business. During my long experience of handling various types of workforce in different industries I found these golden lessons on how to lead and manage people immensely effective towards enhancing people management skills of managers in difficult situations.

Why superior people management skills are essential for managers?

People skills focus on dealing with people and as such knowledge of these skills is a sure way to encourage the employees to give more to their manager. The new supervisors and managers are initially seen to find it a little difficult to manage people effectively at their workplace due to lack of knowledge of how to lead and manage people and bring out the best in them. In a world in which managing people provides the differentiating advantage, it is my strong belief that every new supervisor and manager needs to learn the typical people management skills essential for managing his workforce to achieve the best possible outcome. I have already explained in one of my other hubs on Employee motivation at workplace, how engaged workers are vital for enduring profits of a company.

Do people skills really matter?

People management skills of managers are not specific to nature of any industry but apply equally to any business. Some of the skill-requirements discussed here may appear too basic and elementary but have great values when it comes to managing their workforce by managers and supervisors. It takes all sorts of people to make a world. Some people are selfish. Some people are good. Some people just don’t bother at all. But this is what a good manager needs to realize. He mustn’t expect perfect people all around. The managers and supervisors, who take into account all the different peculiarities of people, are the men with good qualities to lead and manage people effectively that are going to get results. From my own experience I am more than confident that if the lessons on people skills discussed here are sincerely tried by the managers and HR professionals in handling their workforce they would be surprised to see the positive results of their efforts in a very short time.

The twelve Golden Lessons

The twelve golden lessons on how to lead and manage people that gave me magical results to motivate, inspire and encourage my workforce at the shop-floor level are given below. I am confident that these essential leadership qualities of managers would go a long way to greatly improve their people management skills in any situation in any company.

1. No matter how good they have it people will always complain. Don’t take it personally and let complaints upset you as it is human nature to complain. Play it cool and take it in your stride. It’s part of your job as supervisor to deal with such matters;
2. No matter how trivial a grievance of a worker may appear to be to you, for goodness’ sake don’t brush it aside. Consider all grievances patiently. It’s well worth the time and the trouble;
3. Don’t approach any employee with a proposal on a matter concerning him without first taking the trouble of seeing how it looks from his point of view, how will it affect his pride or what will his objections be. It’s always best to sound people before taking any action directly affecting them;
4. Be careful when you talk to employees about their prospects and their future. They will remember every word you say and years later. It is easy to throw out promises, especially if you are in a good mood. But don’t do it unless you are sure you can fulfill them. Otherwise, your reputation will stink;
5. When you are upset or irritated do not take any impulsive action so long you are in that mood. Wait till the next day and things will then look different;
6. We go out of our way to show courtesy to strangers but closer the people are to us the less we think of using the same to them. That is unfortunate because the courtesy which we give so freely to complete strangers is an excellent way of winning the cooperation and friendship of those with whom we work every day. Therefore, an important lesson for a supervisor about people management is that it always pays to show similar courtesy as freely to the people who are close to him and with him every day;
7. Phrases like, ‘Thank you’, ‘Would you mind’, ‘May I suggest’, ‘Perhaps you would consider’, make all the difference between a friendly workplace where everyone works as a team, and a place where you have tension everywhere;
8. Another most important lesson on people skills for new supervisors and managers is to try to make the jobs of their workers more interesting and give them change of work wherever possible to break their monotony. Otherwise, because of the dull routine nature of the jobs, there may be signs of be havioural problems even in case of the most active and intelligent workers. This also happens to the best among us under similar circumstances;
9. Don’t push your workers around. However meek and quite they might appear to be, they are individuals just as we are and they all feel very fiercely about the things that concern them. Each of them has hopes and ambitions. They also aspire to own luxuries of life and become a boss. We should never treat them as a machine- as a chess piece, which can be played around with;
10. When dealing with your people, don’t be tempted to contradict outright and tell them straight away that they are wrong. First show that you understand their point of view and stress the points on which you agree. Then you can gently tell them what’s wrong. But if you contradict flatly, you’ll get into a time-taking and fruitless argument;
11. If someone comes with anger and in a confronting mood, the best thing to do is to disarm him first. May be a question about his family or cracking a joke about something-- anything except the subject on hand, may do the trick. He will then be in a mood to take any amount of persuasion and he won’t bristle any more;
12. Teach the people with whom you work and always encourage for their development, which is very much one of your important jobs as a supervisor or manager;
    

Conclusion

In conclusion I can say that every good company expects its managers and supervisors to learn these essential lessons on how to lead and manage people for improving their people management skills, which are crucial for relating effectively to their workforce with whom they work and there is certainly no better way for the managers to attract the management's attention on their path to career advancement.

The readers may also enjoy reading my other hub on 'how to be a good supervisor'.