The Promotion to Manager

Have you wondered how being a manager is decided? Did you complete the work you were meant to do, do you excel at the craft you pursue? What took your boss’s breath away that they thought you were meant to lead others? Being a manager of others takes a lot more skill than just being good at your job. You need to have communication skills, leadership qualities, and the ability to cope with stressful situations because they will come up during your role as a manager.

“Managers who use a combination of face-to-face, phone, and electronic communication are the most successful in engaging employees” Lipman says.  Communication is key, I personally believe it to be the biggest contributor to your future as a manager. To be a manager is to manage different kinds of people and if you can’t find the balance between talking to them, delegating things, and being distant you need to think about what could be done better.  Art, my former manager at Walmart, was the best kind of manager due to his level of care and communication he had with us unloaders. We never had the opportunity to have our voice heard more like we were ignored. So having Art as a speaker gave us a voice and that felt really good. Other people in the company really liked Art due to his ability to communicate and relate to his workers.

Reynolds says, “Great leaders encourage their employees to reach their full potential and help their organizations surpass their goals, terrible dictators discourage workers to the point they want to jump ship.” I agree with this statement 100%. If you would look how the workplace and choice of leadership has progressed throughout the Walmart I worked at  you would see that it has declined. Supervisors are being hired just for their availability and the length of time they were there. Having a system where there is no careful choices really ruins the chances of others getting that position along with there being a bad leader. If I would have never gone to school I probably would have made my way up the ladder and that just was not something I wanted to do at the time. Even with my bad experiences with management the experience I built as an employee prepared me to go further if that is the path I would have chosen. I could communicate my workflow and manage other employees well. Some days when both supervisors were gone I would manage the workload and communicate to the support managers the work that was going on and this prepared me to deal with that kind of job if I were to ever get it.

“Remember that excessive stress can interfere with your employees’ productivity and performance and can also impact their physical and emotional health. This will then eventually affect relationships among colleagues and home life too” (Clarke).  Managing workplace stress is a huge part to bond with your workers and colleagues. If there is a stressful workplace it can create problems not only at work but in your social life as well. Some ways to help is to be organized, have a bit more freedom in the workplace, take exercise breaks, and just talk about the problems going on.

Being a manager can be a fun experience, it can also offer you a skillset that some don’t ever get to be apart of. Taking part in team building exercises benefits not only your social skills but provides a valuable asset to the company you may work for. So remember that communication, being a leader, and offering a stress free workplace can provide you a happier work environment.