The Manager's Field Guide: Intro

I am a passionate advocate for middle-tier managers, from frontline supervisors to director level and beyond. When properly prepared, they are invaluable to the organization’s success. When not, they cause poor employee engagement, discrimination and harassment claims, higher level of turnover, reduction in productivity, and headaches all around.

In 2019, Gallup (Jim Clifton and Jim Harter) published a book called “It’s the Manager.” I can tell you exactly where I was when I read it, 30,000 feet in the air flying between Philadelphia, Pa, and Nashville, Tennessee. As I read it, I silently shouted yes as I read words that confirmed what I had been saying to anyone who would listen for the past ten years.

-????????Subject matter experts don’t necessarily make good managers. ?

-????????Seventy Percent of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.

-????????Improving a manager’s performance directly impacts the profitability of a company.

So how do we properly prepare managers to be influential leaders in the workplace?

In “It’s the Manager,” they describe the two non-negotiable traits for managers, the ability to bring teams together (influence) and to make great decisions. ?For me, the critical component of a manager’s performance is the ability to make the right behavioral decisions in the moment.

As Marshall Goldsmith said, “It’s simple, but it ain’t easy.”

The ability to make the right behavioral decisions in the moment is a skill that is developed over time and relies upon four considerations: knowledge (technical and contextual), the systems in place, available resources, and proper guidance. And underlying these four considerations is the capacity for self-awareness. When we understand who we are, our performance is better.

In this newsletter, I will share what I have learned in my twenty-odd years of managing people and will tap into a variety of experts so we can learn together.

With that in mind, I wanted to share with you this quote from It’s The Manager.

“The ‘best life imaginable’ doesn’t happen unless you have a great job with a living wage and a manager who encourages your development. . . A ‘great job’ is where the employees are engaged in meaningful and fulfilling work and feel they are experiencing real individual growth and development in the workplace.”

?As you start the rest of your workday, ask yourself what are you doing for your team to give them the best life imaginable? What are you doing to help your team have a great job?

John Thalheimer

John Thalheimer is an award-winning management consultant, sought-out workshop facilitator, and author who has helped hundreds of businesses and thousands of professionals transform their potential into extraordinary performance. He is the founder and CEO of True Star Leadership, a business consulting firm focused on workplace performance. John has a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and a bachelor’s in communication. He is the author of The Truth About Selling, a small business guide to marketing.

With over twenty-five years of multi-industry experience focused on the small business sector, John understands what is necessary to deliver exceptional performance while grounding it in your organization’s day-to-day operations. His life-long pursuit is to help middle-tier managers be better leaders for their organizations.

Chat with John at https://calendly.com/johnthalheimer/networking

Contact information: [email protected]