The 5"E's" or Essentials for Effective People Management

Recently, as I was reflecting on all the great teams I was privileged to lead and manage over the years, I cannot but reflect on "Essentials" which enabled them to evolve into such great teams.

Humbly, my experiences with them have been that as time went, my role became more and more of that of an orchestra conductor, where I was simply enjoying the atmosphere while guiding them towards our common objectives.

I have had great teams working for me in Australia, India and Malaysia and as I ponder about the "success formula" as it were, it was easy for me to arrive at the following 5 Essentials, which I would like to share with you...

1. ENGAGE - no telling here as to how crucial this "engagement factor" is, when it comes to building rapport and bringing the team together. Actively engaging with them, both in the formal as well as in informal settings, simply puts the team at "ease" with you and fosters confidence in them to be open and willing with you. Hence, I would rate this as the foundational "Essential" as it were;
2. ENCOURAGE - nothing like genuine encouragement and compliment from your end which will rally your team around you! People need encouragement, we all do and hence when they find their manager being someone who truly appreciates and values them, they will just gyrate towards you with their committed support. You will see that they will start working for you with a smile!;
3. ENRICH - look for ways to enrich and enhance their work. There are a few obvious ways where this can be done - one such is to "ask their opinion and ideas and give weight to it", secondly is to "get them to be proactive in attempting to solve their own work related issues while providing your views before they implement anything" - here you can slowly start to help grow their self confidence towards "owning their work", thirdly is to look for ways to extend their scope of influence or responsibilities. I know some of you may say that this can create remuneration issues and can even lead to them being dissatisfied by being given more responsibilities, but then again this an opportunity to upskill and eventually promote those who are keen to grow in their work. Finally, you can get them to join you for some discussions which normally would involve others who are of a higher job level than they are. When you do this, what you are actually doing is acknowledging their contribution to the wider audience of the business.
4. EMPOWER - this is an overflow from the point # 3 which I have elaborated above. Having ENRICHED their contribution at work place, you have actually given yourself the opportunity to EMPOWER them through delegation which helps them to actually undertake more formal responsibilities. A matured management approach would welcome this instead of looking for ways and means to keep those working for them to be "kept under" without any prospects. Promotion is a deep innate NEED of every human being, hence this needs to be recognised and practiced by managers and organisations at large.
5. ENJOY - this is the "Essential" I like the most....for obvious reasons! Having applied all of the above "Essentials", the team will inevitably be led to give you JOY through their commitment, enthusiasm, creativity, energy and most of all respect.

So my message to all managers and leaders out there is ..go ahead...ENGAGE, ENCOURAGE, ENRICH, EMPOWER...and ENJOY...your teams!

(Checkout Paul's eBook on Amazon.com "Succeed As Managers & Leaders" via this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079WDHV32)