One of the primary jobs of a manager is to find a way to use our manager skills to get the members of their team to become engaged with the work that they are doing. If we can accomplish this, then productivity can  go up, teamwork will increase, and everyone should be happy. 

However, as  with all such things in life, it turns out that there is a downside to doing this.  

Team members can become too engaged in what they are working on and  this is going to create a different set of problems for a manager.

It does not happen all the time. 

However, sometimes a manager will be successful.  Something that we attempt will happen the way that we wanted it to or  we might just get lucky and a success will drop into our laps. However,  the problem with being successful is that sometimes this can be a big problem in helping us to grow and develop.  What managers need to do is to find ways to use their manager skills  learn from their success. 

How should managers deal with success?

We would all like to use our manager  skills to be better managers. 

The  big question that all of us deal with each and every day is just exactly what kind of manager training do we need to make this happen.  It turns out that if we keep doing the things that we are doing right  now, nothing is going to change. We will never become better. What we  need to learn how to do is to change things up and do things  differently. One of the most powerful tools that a manager has is the questions that we ask the members of our team.  However, if we keep asking them the same questions, then we’ll just get  the same answers. 

In order to become a better manager, we need to learn  how to ask better questions.

When someone on your team does good work, what do you do? 

I’m hoping  that the answer is that you take time out of your day and use your  manager skills to praise them. If you can figure out how to do this the right way, then your praise can get them to work harder, work smarter, encourage them to try new things, and to take risks. 

However, you’ll only be able to achieve this if you know how to praise them in the right way.

As a manager, what is your legacy going to be? 

Do you want to be  remembered as being a good manager or as a bad manager? The best  managers are remembered for what they did for their team,  the bad ones are remembered for what they did to their team. Using your  manager skills to be remembered as a good manager is a tricky thing to  do. It’s tricky because, as a manager, it’s easy to focus solely on  tending to the business and your career, forgetting that tending to your  team first will take care of both. 

Here are the five most powerful  things you can do for your team today in order to do right by your team.

So just exactly how much change is there in your life right now? 

If you  are like most of us you’d probably say that there is a lot of change  going on. What this means is that there is probably a lot of change  going on for your team also. What managers need to understand is that we all tend to deal with change differently.  The members of your team will be a great example of this. Some will  take to new things like a duck takes to water – they’ll dive in and  learn all about it. However, others will push back and won’t want to change. 

When this happens, you are going to have to use your manager skills and get them to accept the change.

One of the biggest challenges that we face as managers is finding ways  to use our manager skills to keep the members of our team satisfied with  their job and not looking to jump ship and go work for someone else. 

One of the simplest ways that we can make this happen is by identifying training and development programs that offer advantages for team members and managers alike. 

They provide means for team members who are looking to keep their skills sharp, and help managers address skills gaps, while improving employee engagement and desire to stay with the company.

An interesting question that many of us may not have spent a lot of time thinking about is what does it take to be a good manager?  

All too often in today’s fast paced world of business, many people find  themselves in management positions with little to no manager training  and no manager skills. Additionally, they have no idea how to deal with  direct reports. All too often companies no longer offer any training to  those people that they are placing in management roles and they are  making people managers when they are younger and they are doing it  without any training. 

What is it going to take to make sure that we  become good managers?

So let’s face it – firing a team member is never an easy thing for a manager to do.  

You hired this person, you’ve worked with them, and you’ve attempted to  correct anything that they were doing wrong, but now it’s reached the  so-called “end of the road” and you find yourself in a position where you need use your manager skills to let them go.  No manager comes into work early on days like this. However, in our  current day and age the newspapers are full of articles about fired  workers turning violent or causing conflict. 

What’s the right way to let  someone go?

One of the least desirable parts of being a manager is the number of  meetings that we find ourselves attending. 

In fact, there seem to be  some days that are just back-to-back meetings that never seem to end. While we are in these meetings it’s pretty common for a manager to wish that they were just about any other place. It turns out that meetings are important ways for information to get  shared within a company. However, it sure seems that a lot of the  meetings that we find ourselves attending despite our manager skills are  a complete waste of our time. 

Isn’t there a better way to do these things?