The Greatest Resource You Will Ever Have As A Manager
Today, managers are tasked to build and develop their resources more effectively. In fact, there is a facet of management devoted specifically to ‘resource management’.
When that term is used, what is your immediate thought? Most managers think of their resources as their people, their products, their customers, their business strategies and their economic facilities.
However, we often neglect our greatest resource, something that will make the biggest difference in the future of your career, your business’s success and your team’s abilities to keep pace with change.
The greatest resource you have and can develop is your own potential for improvement and adding value.
Have you flown on a plane recently? Have you listened to the safety instructions given before every flight? They tell you that, in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the panels above your head. You are then told to put your own mask on before helping others. Why? Because you can’t effectively help others if you are struggling for breath yourself. So you should get yourself in good order in order to assist others.
The same should be true when you are thinking about the resources you are responsible for. How can you help others in your team if you haven’t built up your own skills or knowledge?
Very often we hear of staff who have been on our workshops and returned to work with high levels of motivation, only to have their enthusiasm wither and die because of the attitude of their managers, who have not been exposed to the new ideas of management and leadership. They still think things should be done they way they did them ten or twenty years ago. The fact is that if managers don’t keep up with ideas and techniques that are constantly evolving, they will be left behind and forced to rely on old-fashioned techniques that should have been discarded a long time ago.
So, your greatest resource today is to develop your own potential. Why? Because that is the only way you can help your team develop theirs.
Here are some ideas:
1) Devote some proactive time every week to learning something new about management and leadership. It doesn’t have to be hours and hours. But you’ll see the value of getting up from bed thirty minutes early and looking at LinkedIn Influencers and what new concepts they are delivering, or downloading the latest management blog and finding out what new ideas will work for you.
2) Identify how you can improve your coaching style to assist team members to develop. This will help you get closer to them and build their awareness of how they can help themselves rather than always coming to you for advice and direction.
3) Have a plan of action that determines how you can develop in your career as a manager. When we ask many managers about their career plan, we are often met with blank looks, or some generalities about advancing within their industry. Seldom do we hear about how they plan to build their management skills or their leadership abilities. So, think about how you can build your skills as a manager and leader, and you’ll find that all other items fall into place.
If you take care of your greatest resource (you!), you’ll find that everything else will develop around you, as you progress and lay the foundation for all other aspects of your business and career to advance with you.
