The capabilities managers need to lead, manage and develop people effectively are clearly defined and understood
Evidence 1. Top managers can describe the knowledge, skills and behaviours managers need to lead, manage and develop people effectively, and the plans they have in place to make sure managers have these capabilities. 2. Managers can describe the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to lead, manage and develop people effectively. 3. People can describe what their manager should be doing to lead, manage and develop them effectively.
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| What this means in practice To meet this indicator, your managers will know what is expected of them. People will recognise that managers are good at leading, managing and developing people, and they will be very clear about the ways in which managers can and do manage people well. For new and existing managers in your organisation, learning and development support will be available (again both formally and informally) to enable managers to grow and improve. This support should be available to managers when they join the organisation and following any one-to-one reviews, where, for example, it's felt that learning and development would be appropriate. It is up to you to decide how your organisation defines and communicates the required knowledge, skills and behaviours. The important issue is that managers and their people understand what is expected of them and, in turn, they are able to clearly describe their understanding of the desired management capabilities. The expected management capabilities ought to reflect the culture and values of your organisation and be in line with the expectations of the people they manage. People will clearly recognise what an effective manager of people looks like, what they should know, what they do and how they go about it. This is as important for current managers as it is for any people who may wish to develop towards becoming a manager in your organisation in the future. |
Examples of good practice in leadership and management
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Issue |
Good Practice |
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Lack of guidance or communication about what is expected of managers and leaders |
Guidance and information can be provided in a number of ways, including memoranda, notices, training sessions, one-to-one meetings, team or management meetings, competency dictionaries, conferences. As with much corporate communication, the keys to success are choosing methods to suit the audience, presenting the information in engaging ways, and not relying on single methods or occasions but reinforcing key messages over time. |
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Failure to apply or reinforce organisational processes intended to clarify expectations (e.g. competency frameworks, management standards) |
Defined management standards or capabilities can rarely stand alone. To be effective, they need to be integrated with mainstream processes such as appraisal, or selection. Some specific ways to do this include: • Making assessment of management capabilities part of the assessment process for managers • Providing induction support for newly appointed managers, with development geared to defined capabilities • Designing application forms which ask applicants to assess themselves against required capabilities
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Lack of involvement among middle and first line managers in agreeing corporate definitions of expected management capabilities
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In general, when designing or reviewing definitions of management or leadership capability, consultation around the organisation will improve the effectiveness of communication and the degree of ownership felt for the resulting standards. |
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Tension between aspiration (e.g. as stated in competency frameworks or values statements) and “real” requirements (e.g. performance targets) |
This is another design issue, and a crucial one. At the design stage, it is critical to look for and eliminate where possible any contradictions between stated policy and normal practice. For instance if assessment of managers’ performance (and related rewards) do not depend on them displaying the required management capabilities, they will have little incentive to do so. This is a strong argument for making sure expectations of leaders and managers are realistic in the first place. |
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Over-complicated ways of defining and measuring management capability – for instance, a sophisticated competency framework can often be a real turn-off for a hard-pressed managers with a demanding set of targets to hit. |
Most of the time simplicity is the best policy. However, where there is a genuine need for a detailed and comprehensive definition of expectations (such as a competency framework), it is important that support is provided to help managers make sense of them. This might include: • Workshops • Coaching from senior managers • Focus in communicating the expectations, on the specific benefits for line managers • Summary documents • Providing specific examples of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour
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Failure of senior managers to model expected behaviours.
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Unless there are very robust reasons to the contrary, senior managers should be subject to the same set of expectations and the same performance review mechanisms as more junior managers
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