How Organizations Can Transform Their Managers to Leaders
Leaders play a very important role in shaping every organization. The quality of leadership an organization has will determine the quality of results the organization will achieve.
Leaders give a sense of direction to the organization, they ensure that the activities of the organization are aligned with its vision and core philosophies. From history, a lot of the problems faced by any organization can be traced to its leaders.
For organizations to grow in the midst of competition, they must help their managers refocus their attention from administrative to more strategic functions, they must help managers see the need to be leaders and see beyond their title of ‘manager’.
In this article, I would be sharing my thoughts on how organizations can bring out the leadership abilities in their managers. These points if properly implemented can change the overall performance of the organization.
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Organization can turn their managers to leaders by:
Encouraging creativity
If managers are encouraged to be creative, to come up with new ideas that will be supported, there would be a transformation in their thinking pattern. Creativity is one quality that should be encouraged and supported in every organization, it is the quality that makes a lot of organizations outsmart their competitors.
To successfully transform managers to leaders, managers must be encouraged to embrace change and be the change agents themselves. They must be able to come up with smart ideas that can drive the organization forward. Organizations that hinder creativity are slowly destroying their manager’s leadership abilities.
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Supporting autonomy
For managers to develop the mindset of a leader, they need some form of autonomy. That freedom to think and act out their thoughts is very important in this mind transformation process. Managers who are confined by certain workplace practices will not be able to act as leaders.
Organizations must allow their managers think and make certain decisions by themselves, errors due to wrong decisions made should be handled properly. The more trust you have in your managers, the more confident they are in themselves and this is important for effective leadership development.
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Investing in developmental activities
Managers cannot perform beyond their level of knowledge and skills, the more knowledgeable and skillful they are the better results they will produce. If you really want to turn your managers to leaders, you must be ready to invest in their development. They must be involved in trainings and other developmental activities that help to broaden their minds.
Transformation comes from exposure to new ideas, knowledge, patterns, designs and whatever is applicable to your organization. The development of managers should not be left to chance, deliberate steps must be taken to ensure that this process in alive in the organization.
In conclusion, organizations have to make leadership development top priority, they must be willing to invest in this as well. Managers must be trained to refocus their attention from doing things right to doing the right things.
About the Author
Obaro Aziza is an HR professional with specialties in Learning and Development, Training Facilitation, Talent Acquisition, Business Partnering, Performance Management, Talent Management, HR and Business Consulting, Business Development, Strategy, Business Analysis, Business writing.
You can reach him on LinkedIn here.
