STAFF ISSUES - MANAGING PEOPLE

Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi and Drea Zigarmi, in their book - Leadership and the One Minute Manager say "In managing people it is easier to loosen up than tighten up."

In his book - The Heart of a Leader - Ken Blanchard reiterates this by saying "It's always better to oversupervise than undersupervise in the beginning."

The reason for this is pretty simple. When you hire new staff or indeed even promote someone into a new position, you have no idea how they are going to cope, in this particular position. So you need to monitor and nurture. Let's put the whole thing into some kind of perspective - a new born baby needs to be nutured and taken care of. As the baby grows into a toddler, then into a teenager, although you keep your eye on what they are up to, you don't need to give as much attention to them as you did when they were a baby. So it is with your staff.

The difference of course is that when you hire staff they are already grown up, well let's hope that they have! They need supervision, but as adults may feel that you are micro-managing or undue criticism, if you suddenly start tightening up on the way that you manage.

So, start off by being tough and as you gauge the situation and the integrity of the work that they are producing, so you can loosen up on your management style. This will indicate that you are giving them more responsibility and that your trust in their efforts has been cemented. Once they understand this, the relationship itself will be based on mutual respect.