People Management Skills:Twelve Golden lessons.

In today's business world where people management skills of managers provide the differentiating advantage it is a big challenge for a new manager to acquire the essential skills for effective management of his people at work, which accounts for attaining the best possible result in their every management action. It is the superior people management ability of a manager that influences his team members and helps to build a powerful work force around him which eventually makes easier for him to achieve set targets on time and take his managerial skills to the next level. A new manager initially is seen to find it a little difficult to handle his workforce effectively due to deficiencies in his people skills which can only be acquired over a period of time through experiences.

Here is a list of 12 timeless tips for a new manager to develop his people management skills that will help him to achieve the best possible outcome from his workmen. I could learn these golden lessons on ‘how to manage people at work’ over my years of working in various industries, which gave me magical results. Some of the management skills list mentioned here may appear too basic and elementary but have great values when it comes to handling work force in difficult situations.

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 behavioral 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;

These people skills always account for achieving the best possible outcome in every management action. The managers with these superior skills for managing people are the men who know how to bring out the best in their team members in every situation. It takes all sorts of individuals 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 desiring to learn people management skills needs to realize. He mustn’t expect perfect individuals all around. The managers, who take into account all the different peculiarities of individuals, are the men with desired qualities of a leader for managing people that are going to get results.

From my own experience I am more than confident that if the tips given here on essential people management skills are sincerely tried by the managers and supervisors at their workplaces they would be surprised to see the magical results of their efforts in managing their workforce in all circumstances. By attaining these excellent people skills they would be able to create highly engaged workers and high-performance work units in a very short time, which is a sure way of making of a truly successful business. In fact, there is certainly no better way for a good manager to attract the management's attention on his path to career advancement.

Readers may also enjoy reading my other article on 'developing team leadership skills'.