How would your employees rate your people-management skills?

Here is an interesting find from a recent Hackett Group survey of 200 global organizations (source: HR Professional, Aug/Sept. 2008) when asked to discuss talent management practices:

More that 75% of participants rated people-management skills as very important.

I bet that you are not surprised. Me either. The fact is almost everyone, whether employee, employer, entrepreneur or customer can see the benefits of good people-management.

So here is the next part of the survey results:

Only 19% of senior managers, 10% of mid-level managers and 8% of supervisors were rated highly effective at managing people!

WOW.

Why is there such a discrepancy between what we know we want and the actual results of managers in the workplace? This leads to many questions that you can ask yourself when self-evaluating.

1 – Am I as a manager trained in people-management skills, or advanced communication skills? What is available to continuously improve?

2 – Do I have a way to find out what my employees really think of my management skills or the other manager’s skills? Can an anonymous survey be done?

3 – What do my employees really want? How do they define people-management?

4 – Do my employees feel comfortable coming to me to discuss their needs without feeling intimidated or out of line?

The topic of people-management deals with issues like communication, interpersonal skills, leadership, assertiveness, conflict and many others. If you know of a highly effective manager maybe you can find an opportunity to sit down and pick their brains on how they developed their style. Ask them what books or courses they would recommend, or to tell stories of managers that influenced them. No matter what position we are in at work, we are all in pursuit of excellent management skills.