What Makes a Great Manager?

Everyone has a take on what makes a great manager. We take the view that part of being a great manager should be being a happy manager: someone who is focused on their own happiness and wellbeing and that of others. In this article we outline the main themes of the Happy Manager site and why we think they can help to answer the question "what makes a great manager?"

We suggest in "towards a meaning of happiness at work" that a helpful way to think of the happy manager is as a manager who combines managing with the "head", "heart" and "hand".
A Happy Manager therefore is:

Firstly someone whose knowledge is informed and insightful (Head).

Who has developed practical skills and puts ideas into action (Hand), and

Balances knowledge, skills and action with the motivation to focus on happiness and well-being (Heart).

This perhaps is a very different way to look at what it takes to be an effective manager. Many of the ideas we discuss are rooted in emerging research from areas such as positive psychology, and employee engagement, and often provide fresh insight and an opportunity to appreciate differing perspectives.

Perhaps we have allowed a mechanical, functional view of management and business to dominate too much of our thinking and we need to step back and look again at finding a better way to manage.



To do this we have structured the happy manager around six themes:

Being happy

Managing

Leading

Motivating

Developing

Producing value

Here's how we think they can help to discover what makes a great manager.

Being Happy: Happiness is not Just Good for You, it's Good for Business!

We start with happiness and well being as the core or heart of being a happy manager. We outline some of the principles for both being happier in life and in the workplace, asking some important questions about happiness and work. Starting with an exploration of what causes happiness we ask: can we get any happier or are we stuck with what nature gave us? We find some interesting answers that suggest that we can choose to be happier. But why does this matter? From a manager's perspective does being a happy person improve performance in the workplace?

If we can choose to be happier, and happiness can improve how successful people are at work, then finding ways to be happy at work becomes an important task for managers and for business. What makes a great manager? Perhaps it is the realisation that Happiness is not just good for you, it's good for business!.

In thinking about happiness we consider areas such as stress and wellbeing to build a resilient core and approach to work and life. How do you feel about work? Central to being happy at work is doing what you love, or finding ways to love what you do. In our Happy Work Cycle we explore how to do what you love, and what possibilities there are for you when you don't love what you do

Managing:
Applying Knowledge and Skills to Create a Happy and Productive Workplace

Whilst the principles of being happy underpin what we consider to be important in answering the question what makes a great manager, it is difficult to be a happy manager if you don't have the knowledge and practical skills to manage. They go hand-in-hand with being happy. A happy manager then needs to know management principles and skills from making decisions to solving problems, and crucially how knowledge and skills can be applied in a way that creates happy and productive workplaces. You can find short helpful explanations for when you are too busy to read at length in our manage in a minute series. Alternatively read some of the great articles in management tips. For example, we suggest there is one tool that no manager should be without in our article: Best Management Tool Ever: A Good Question

Leading: Contributions that Leave a Legacy

Having developed a foundation of good management great managers blend this with the need to redefine leadership within their own context and given their unique strengths. They do this so that they are better placed to help shape the workplace and the wider community they serve. Leadership is not easy to define in words, perhaps it can be more easily explained in actions, therefore one of the most powerful ways to learn about leadership is from examples; from leadership stories.

One significant way in which many of the aspects of a happy manager come together is in the development and leadership of teams. Releasing the potential of teams to perform and to create a happy workplace is an undervalued importance of a teamwork in the workplace. To address this issue we advocate an approach to team development which blends individual Strengths with Teamwork, which when together Align to produce meaningful Results: the STAR team performance model.

Motivating: Re-defining Work

An important aspect of Leadership is to be self-motivated and good at motivate others. What motivates you and your colleagues, and how can being motivated contribute to being happier in what you do? A good place to start is to explore workplace motivation, asking "how do you define your work?" In particular we introduce a model for improving motivation at work. The model helps you analyse performance at work, asking "how do you improve workplace motivation?" It leads towards a way to determine optimum performance recognizing that management is a constant balancing act.

Developing: Loving What you Do, Learning Together and Sharing What you Know

Motivation is also central to how we developing and learn as a person and as a manager and encourage others around us to do the same. We suggest a model for managers and leaders to use to gain from ideas and insights by thinking and talking through possibilities together, trying ideas and experimenting and then telling others what they have found, sharing their experience. Development and growth require goals. Begin by recognising that nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm, and then perhaps ask yourself some crucial goal setting questions to help you think about the goals you really want to achieve. Goals are also helpful to both motivate and to lead us and our organizations to produce value.

Producing Value: Contribution and Significance

The final section in the happy manager resources, and the final comment in our discussion of "what makes a great manager?", focuses on producing value. From being productive in how we use our time, to getting the most out of the projects we manage. Happiness is often experienced when we produce valuable and meaningful results, when we sense our contribution has been of importance in the pursuit of something significant. A great manager leaves a legacy: healthy, vibrant organizations, happy colleagues and customers and a wider community that is better for their stewardship of the talent and resources they manage.


What makes a great manager a happy manager?

For us a happy manager places happiness and well being at the heart of managing and leading to motivate and encourage development and growth to achieve meaningful and valued results at work and in life….. And enjoys doing it!

Perhaps this is what makes a great manager great: being a Happy Manager?

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