How do you choose the best person to occupy a middle management position?

Supervising, coordinating and leading the team are his main functions, so often promoting an internal person with leadership skills, who has a good relationship with the team and knows in detail the daily management is usually a good choice. Middle managers are usually 50% managers and 50% leaders, but what are the essential qualities to do a good job?

• Be an inspiring leader. How can we influence others so that the team follows the same strategy? The middle manager should have leadership skills, be proactive and adapt to any situation. A person who inspires workers, for their values and way of acting with others. And all this from the emotional intelligence and always putting himself in the place of the people who are part of his team. This is the only way to achieve the best results.
• Have a critical capacity. The performance of this professional is not only to transmit the strategic lines to follow, but he must have analytical capacity to understand the moment that the company is facing and how it can improve its operation. And what is necessary for it? To have initiative. Providing ideas to improve and increase the well-being of the team will help the organization grow.
• Always think about people’s well-being. Trust is a key element for human relations, but it is something that must be cultivated and that is achieved with the behavior demonstrated on a daily basis. Leadership focused on people and how we can increase their well-being is the key to developing the talent of each employee and enhancing what makes them unique.
• Have the ability to adapt to any situation. How do you deal with setbacks? What about change management? To be a good middle management you must know how to adapt to any situation and innovate with the solutions that best fit new challenges. The intermediate positions know in detail how the company operates and must know how to identify the best option to solve any incident.
• Be responsible and have the skills to organize work. How is the organization of tasks in a team? Strategic planning of the operation is essential to obtain good results. That is why the middle manager must be very aware of the company’s strategy, but always adapting it to the day-to-day management.

Leadership, proactivity, versatility… what do you consider essential in the perfect candidate for an intermediate position? These are just some of the qualities a middle manager should have to inspire their team.

People first | A project by Eurofirms

People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.

La entrada 5 essential qualities in a middle manager aparece primero en People first.

A project or a group of well-led people have the easiest way to achieve their goals, and they can enjoy it too. Healthy leadership depends on the leader’s skills and on applying the right style to the work or team of people to be led. This choice is the key, why?

The organizational style of the company, the training of the workers and their relationship with the company and the products or services that are created will require one or another form of management, or even combining different forms in different teams.

How leaders do it will depend on how well they achieve their objectives and a good level of productivity for the company or high levels of stress, absenteeism and no capacity for innovation. Adaptive leadership is more important than ever in order to compete.

The company must be very clear that the same group, led in a different way, changes its work dynamics and its level of commitment. What is better: constantly changing employees or teaching managers to detect and adapt to the characteristics of their team?

Leadership styles

Delegative leadership

When the team is already very experienced, highly skilled or highly motivated with what they do, control and supervision tasks do not become so necessary. In these cases, a style of delegated leadership can be applied, in which the team trusts the work process and intervenes when needed or to provide resources.

When is it appropriate? It could be used with very autonomous people and external collaborators, who prefer to work on their own and with whom we only intervene when presenting results. You have to be careful, however, of not wanting to apply it to have a good working environment, at the price of lowering productivity or the quality of what you have done. Supervision is always necessary, but always showing confidence in the work of the team.

Autocratic leadership

When employees’ work style is more passive, they need instructions and help in solving problems, or they prefer to be directed, leadership can be more autocratic. This type of leader sets the guidelines that must be obeyed, watches the dedication to the work and is prepared to make quick decisions. With this style of leadership, effectiveness is achieved, but no affective commitment to the company.

Participatory leadership

It is precisely commitment that a participatory leader who relies on the team when making decisions does achieve. Under this format, issues are discussed and all points of view are heard. The leader must know how to lead these meetings with a left hand and good manners, and take the final decisions.

Transactional Leadership

It is most common in commercial teams to focus on the rewards to be given for meeting objectives. The main ability of this leadership is to give instructions and clear measurement values.

Transformational Leadership

When it is necessary to adapt to new challenges, however, it is necessary to apply another type of more transformational leadership, which encourages these workers to canalise their great experience towards new ideas. And how is this achieved? By creating meetings open to sharing cases, observations, encouraging observation, letting ideas flow… focusing on change.

Personalized leadership

A more personalised type of leadership can also take place, aimed at bringing each of the workers to their potential and grouping them together according to their complementarity.

Whatever applies, every leader should also be charismatic. This means that he should have a personal aura that attracts sympathy, generates enthusiasm and a desire to get involved in what is being done, facilitating commitment. And this can be achieved with good preparation. And you, what kind of leader are you?

People first | A project by Eurofirms

People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.

La entrada 6 types of leadership aparece primero en People first.