Research

• Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.
• Gallup corroborates the idea that 50% of employees cite a bad manager as the top reason to quit their jobs.
• Among employees who strongly agree that they can approach their manager, 54% are engaged. Only 2% of employees who don’t feel comfortable talking to their manager are engaged.
• 75% of survey participants in a recent Mc Kinsey survey said that the most stressful aspect of their job was their immediate boss.

Statement

Enhancers of this driver

• Managers make a concerted effort to get to know their employees and help them feel comfortable talking about any subject, whether it is work-related or not.
• Employees value regular communication from their managers about their roles and responsibilities and what happens in their lives outside of work.
• Great managers don't just tell employees what's expected of them and leave it at that; instead, they frequently talk with employees about their responsibilities and progress.
• When managers help employees grow and develop through their strengths, they are more than twice as likely to engage their team members.

Detractors of this driver

• A manager who takes a cookie-cutter approach to management rather than understanding the different personalities of the people they manage.
• Organisations that don’t provide management training.
• Not showing appreciation for the small wins and milestones made within a team.
• Irregular and inconsistent feedback.
• Taking credit for the work of the team without acknowledgement.

Individual

• Put yourself in your boss’s shoes. Figure out the challenges your boss will encounter that day and be prepared to offer solutions.
• Anticipate the questions that your supervisor may ask about your work or a project and have thoughtful answers or next steps for them to take. Thinking ahead can show that you’re an invaluable team member and lighten the manager’s role.
• Know when and how to communicate with your boss. Learn how your supervisor likes to transmit and receive communication and reproduce this style.
• Ask for feedback. Too many people shy away from speaking up for fear of the unknown. Ideally, your manager should already provide feedback, but this is your career, so don’t be afraid to take the driver’s seat.
• Keep your supervisor informed. No one likes surprises. Whether things are going well or not so well, you're building mutual trust and integrity if you keep your supervisor in the know.

Leaders

• Employees value communication from their manager not just about their roles and responsibilities but also about what happens in their lives outside of work.
• Great managers don't just tell employees what's expected of them and leave it at that; instead, they frequently talk with employees about their responsibilities and progress. They don't save those critical conversations for once-a-year performance reviews.
• Be open to feedback: Improving manager effectiveness requires managers to widen their horizons by accepting and appreciating employee feedback. Managers must actively seek feedback on what is working and what is not to provide a pleasant employee experience.
• Flip the traditional performance process. It's common for managers to rate and review their employees, but great managers want feedback to flow both ways. They make sure their employee surveys not only look at organisational culture as a whole but management effectiveness, too.

Leaders

• Invest in leadership capability According to research by MDA Training, 58% of managers claim to have not received any leadership training. Conventionally, most managers watch and learn from their bosses, especially about team management practices.
• It isn’t good enough to set and forget, assuming that a new policy or process will hit the mark. You need to invest in buileaders'aders' skills, knowledge, and capability at all levels in what is becoming an increasingly complex environment. After all, if the future of work is about teams, you need to make sure you support the people leading them.

• Show value. Leaders want employees not only to agree with them but also to be willing to speak up about the realities and challenges in the business that need to be addressed. Be the person that speaks with facts, confidence and reasonable suggestions that produce results. This builds your boss’s trust in you.
• Offer to help. Many leaders have a full plate and sometimes will not speak up about needing help. So during conversation, ask them if they need a hand with anything.

• Provide clarity of expectations.Helping employees understand their responsibilities may seem like "management 101," but employees need more than a written job description to grasp their role fully.
• Each person has different successes and challenges both at and away from work. Know your employees as people first. Great managers accommodate their employees' uniqueness while managing.
• Celebrate milestones: Manager effectiveness requires leaders to celebrate small wins and milestones achieved by the team. According to global studies, 79% of employees who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving.
• Work with your team to co-create plans and concoct new ideas. This doesn't mean reaching consensus or decision-making by committee. Instead, foster real involvement and collaboration by involving your team in decisions or seeking employees' opinions on problems you are trying to solve.

• Identify the most critical behaviours for great managers at your organisation. While certain characteristics of manager effectiveness apply across most companies, accurate insights come from identifying the unique behaviours that best align with your organisation’s mission, culture, customer needs and strategic goals.
• Rethink how you promote your people. If managing a larger team is the only way to a promotion at your company, you may want to rethink your promotion process. Some people may be more valuable to the organisation as an individual contributor or a part of a team.
• Smart companies (and effective managers) create multiple avenues for employee success

• Stay above office politics and gossip. Whether you think you can trust coworkers or not, it’s best to never engage in gossip about your boss, nor anyone else for that matter. The word always gets out when you do, weakening your relationship with your boss and peers.
• Establish a line of open communication. If you are honest and communicate openly with your supervisor, this will help build transparency and trust in the relationship. Schedule a weekly or bi-weekly phone or in-person meeting (15 to 30 minutes).

• Lead with Empathy, Not Ego. Empathy, self-awareness, direct and respectful feedback and strong communication are some keys to keeping employees confident, comfortable and safe. Skip the passive-aggressive and manipulative behaviours. Most importantly, if you want your team to go the extra mile, you cannot bully them into getting them there. Be genuine and supportive.

• Invest in coaching and other wellness practices and teach managers to go the extra mile to showcase their care and empathy towards the employees.
• Promote strengths based leadership as a cultural norm. Assist your leadership to build a culture of recognitions and encouragement.
• Increase stability and certainty by developing easy, go-to tools for managing teams and projects - this creates consistency and diminishes negative comparisons between managers.
• Create security through easy predictable processes.
• Be mindful of the absence of agreed processes and methods where whatever the boss says on the day goes.