Be an Example

“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other”, said Edmund Burke.

It is the truth of this statement which makes good management such an exacting discipline. We all achieve most of our learning from experience, but especially from the actions of those above us.

Following are some of BAD HABITS your subordinates could be learning from you:

1. Poor time-keeping, long lunches, or ‘missing’ for long periods when no one knows where you are or when you will be back. 
2. Delegating unpleasant tasks to others, e.g. informing unsuccessful job interviewees, handling the regular ‘pain in the neck’ client, carrying out an evening or weekend assignment, or doing duty over the holiday period. 
3. Fiddling’ expenses, misusing company equipment or supplies, and making personal calls on the office telephone. 
4. Sending staff out in office time to do personal household tasks for you. 
5. Keeping junior staff waiting when you have arranged to see them, and then letting anyone and everyone interrupt when they are talking to you. 
6. Making disrespectful comments about your boss, or your boss’s boss-even in jest. We all know that reveals the greatest truths.
7. The way you treat customers, clients or patients, but most of all what you say about them afterwards, including non-verbal communications- it takes only one gesture to make a lasting impact.
8. Interrupting your subordinates’ work unnecessarily, and not meeting your own deadlines.
9. Accepting mediocrity rather than striving for excellence.

Few effective tools to use socialization as a POSITIVE FORCE:

1. Share your own development and learning with your staff tell them what went well and what didn't, how you might handle it next time, and what you have learned from your experience. When possible, let them observe you at work.
2. Talk about what you rate as successes; relate the myths of ‘greatest’ in the oganisation, and your staff will learn what is valued and emulate it.
3. Treat your subordinates as you would like your boss to treat you, and they will treat their own staff the same way.
4. Share your mistakes (or some of them), and demonstrate how to learn and develop from them.
5. Keep staff informed on what you are doing, especially on things which relate to their work.
6. Be enthusiastic about your work and theirs, and about what you are all there to achieve – it is second only to self –interest as a source of influence!
7. Respect people, time and the company’s goods, and be seen to do so.
8. Maintain high personal standards of honesty and truthfulness, but if it is necessary to be ‘economical with the truth’, do it yourself, don’t delegate it.