When you’re not around, your managers are a scepter of your power. They speak on your behalf and they are also supposed to act on your behalf too. However, the latter is not as common as the former. Inevitably, in any business, you will run into egos and characters that you would otherwise not enjoy being around. But their professionalism is something to be admired and so, you hire people not because you like them but because they are great at what they do. Unfortunately, sometimes the issue of character does get involved in serious decision-making in things like projects, research reports, and financial control. It doesn’t mean you need to fire a manager who is doing these sorts of things but rather, prevent them from inhibiting your employees, effectively.
Keeping them on their toes
Keeping managers accountable is a tough task that only the boss can do. Middle-management is always subordinate to the boss no matter how large this body becomes. So the question is, how can you keep managers on their toes? A weekly summary of activities will keep your managers occupied with the tasks at hand. It will also be a mandatory communication task that sees the manager taking responsibility for results week after week. It's going to get pretty embarrassing and tense if a manager is giving more bad news such as delays and hiccups than positive news such as deadlines and tasks being completed in a timely manner. On occasion, call your managers into your office and ask for a daily report on how things are going. This will come as a surprise to some which is good, they will be reminded that you’re standing over their shoulders.
Handling sensitive data
Only management is privy to very sensitive data. Customer, financial and research data is a highly prized commodity that your competitors would leap at to try and confiscate. Wouldn’t you jump at the chance of knowing what’s going on inside your rival’s business? But for some projects, sensitive data is required to be spread out through your workforce. Everyone needs to understand why a product or marketing campaign is being formed in a specific way, and showing them sensitive customer data is paramount. You should only give access to your most trusted managers, so installing a privileged access management software is highly advisable. Consider these PAM solutions, such as behavior analytics, secret servers, and a management tool. Automatically analyzing suspicious behavior, this solution will let you know when managers or otherwise are stealing or copying data they shouldn’t be.
Proper delegation
The invisible hammer that stamps down on productivity is uneven workload distribution. Managers need to be watched carefully, so they’re giving each employee the right tasks pertaining to their skill level. Giving too much to do to one person, will result in the team being dragged down as tasks will not complete at the same time or close to. Be mindful that managers are not being careless with proper delegation of responsibilities.
Managers are some of your finest employees but they’re not without their faults. Keeping a close eye on their day to day management skills will keep your business flowing smoothly.
