Discuss the challenges of managing people within an organization

Managing people in my opinion, is quite a challenging task. One reason is that, as the text by HBR states, managers must be able to “motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.” I find this challenging because not every employee is the same, therefore you may not be able to motivate an employee the same way you motivate others.

I have had a bad manager before, and it wasn’t apparently clear that she was bad until I learned of the behind the scenes antics going on at the store I was working at. Long story short, she had a friend transfer to her store who she put in line to be a manager only because they knew each other, leaving out more qualified individuals who, in my opinion, deserved the management role more than the one who was lined up for it. The situation made me feel as though the manager used politics instead of production to make her decision of who to make manager, in contrast to the ideas of the article.

I did have a good manager while I was working at the same store. He would always take the time to show me how to do things on the floor, finding items, figuring out where certain stock went, etc. He was always communicative in a positive manner, but he certainly always made sure that I was doing my job and not slacking off. I find that he followed the motivation, and assertiveness talents very well.

I do certainly agree with the five talents, and have a hard time thinking of anything else more that pertains to the idea of management talents.

I do think to a degree that these managers have to be selected, as it seems they have to be people-oriented persons, especially when figuring out how to motivate and communicate with their employees. I also think they must be very adaptive when dealing with their employees as well, as stated previously, not all employees are the same and may have to be treated or communicated with in different ways. I would say if someone is very adaptive in dealing with people, but aren’t quite management material that there is a possibility to train them to be a manager, but I personally think someone has to be predisposed to the qualities that make a good manager.

Post 2

Management Principles
Leadership Discussion Post
1. I do not feel or believe managing people is challenging. I believe managing circumstances can have its challenges, but if you have a team working together and a manager who motivates their team, most if not all challenges can be resolved. Finding the right manager for any circumstance is the most challenging. It’s not by coincidence that the saying; “people don’t quit jobs, they quite managers” holds such truth.

2. The poorest manager I ever experienced was for a healthcare company I had gotten into after my time in the military. While there was more than one manager I could mention, I will speak of my immediate supervisor. They felt the best way to manage people was through threats of losing hours or their jobs if they didn’t complete “their tasks.” When I took the manager position over, after they were promoted, the damage had been done and turnover was ever increasing. I walked into a complete mess after only a short 2 weeks of training. When I tried to creating relationships with the workers, I was taken off to the side and told to go clean or start a project, “there is no time to mingle.” While the first few months proved very difficult, we came together as a team and did very well for our annual state inspection.

3. The best manager I have ever experienced was the director of the building when I was in the healthcare company. They communicated with transparency; they had a diverse group, they created value as a team, even with different company managers, and were very effective at motivating during hard times. We would hold daily meetings to ensure accountability and what the short- and long-term goals where. There was never any confusion in what was being communicated. If this person had not been there, I would have left the company much sooner.

4. I do agree with the five talents mentioned in the article. I would add two more personally. A good manager needs to have a high emotional intelligence, to control and express emotions, and handle relationships empathetically and judiciously. Second talent, that’s important is charisma, without using it to be manipulative or to do wrong.

5. As mentioned in the article, you can train someone as much as you want, and to the point where they can be “ok” managers. But, to have a complete and whole manager, they need to already have the above-mentioned traits or abilities. If they have the traits to some extent, and they are willing, they can be trained to be complete and effective managers.