Leadership lessons from The Godfather...

What does a real-life CEO have in common with the central figures of a fictitious Mafia crime family in The Godfather?

Here are five essential leadership lessons distilled for Fast Company.

1. Build a powerful community. 

Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. ~Vito Corleone

Uttered in the iconic rasp of Marlon Brando, the words of Vito Corleone illustrate how he creates a loyal community among those he has helped. Moore says, “By granting these favors and helping people with their problems, Vito Corleone is building a network of influence--relationships that may or may not deliver a specific or quantifiable return, but all which serve to strengthen his power base and which have the potential to be reciprocal in the long run.”

Moore says building strategic partnerships enables companies to work through challenging markets and fast-track overall success. “As a CEO, I see it as part of my job to be a super connector, networking with the technology and investment community without an expectation of reciprocation. Partnerships forged through time, trust, and mutual benefit--such as those Axcient has built with HP, Ingram-Micro, and a vast network of service providers and resellers--are the types of community relationships that bring about the greatest returns.”

2. Hold people accountable. 

What's the matter with you? I think your brain is going soft. ~Vito Corleone

The Godfather reminds us of the importance of being tough when necessary. “As soon as Vito Corleone allowed a few moments of weakness to be seen by his enemy, they attempted to assassinate him. And it was largely because of failures of his team,” Moore observes.

“In business, accountability isn’t achieved by a murderous rampage. But the lesson is this--to be successful in business you have to be tough, and you have to be extremely focused on hitting goals and getting results," says Moore. That doesn’t mean patience and understanding don’t have a place, he says, but ongoing tolerance of low-performing people or products just eats away at the success of the entire company. “You are ultimately responsible for all of your employees and shareholders, and that requires tough and swift decisions.

3. Don’t get emotional. 

It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business. ~Michael Corleone

“Many people don’t like to talk about the fact that in business, there are winners and losers. When Sonny Corleone reacts impulsively and emotionally, he gets taken out. In business, if you don’t take the opportunity to out-sell, out-bid, or out-market your competitor, they’ll take you out. I’m not suggesting doing anything outside the boundaries of morality or rightness--simply pointing out that when people make emotional decisions, they start making bad decisions. To lead successfully, you have to take your emotion and ego out of the equation.”

Likewise, Moore says it’s important to play to win. In business, that translates to knowing the competition and always staying at least one step ahead. “Operate your business with integrity and have respect for competition, but you also need to seize opportunities to eliminate your competition and win.”

4. Be decisive. 

Moore says that he, like most people who appreciate The Godfather, watch the movie with a combination of shock and respect. “Shock because he is so ruthless that he kills his own family member, but respect for the fact that Don Corleone knows exactly what he wants, executes decisively, and commands respect through unwavering leadership.”

While you don’t have to kill anyone to prove a point, as soon as you know what choice to make, move forward. “Know who on your team is making the right choices, and trust them to take decisive action as well. Hesitation too often leads to missed opportunities.”

5. Spend time with your family. 

Do you spend time with your family? Because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man. ~Vito Corleone 

Moore isn’t endorsing 1940s machismo, but he is decrying 100-hour workweeks that many entrepreneurs fall prey to in hot pursuit of the next big thing. Though he’s been dedicated like that in the past, Moore finds it’s not sustainable in the long run. 

“A leader can’t be successful in creative problem-solving and making excellent decisions unless that person is connected to people and passions outside of work. I find that it’s often time with family and friends that gives me the perspective I need to build the relationships and make the decisive actions required for continued success in business,” says Moore.

CREDITS : http://www.fastcompany.com/1826672/an-offer-you-cant-refuse-leadership-lessons-from-the-godfather

Transperancy is the new leadership imperative...

What kind of leaders do we need today? Steve Jobs — mysterious, charismatic, intriguing  is often cited as one of the recent greats, and there are clearly benefits to his style. A recent study showed that leaders like him — those perceived as having an almost magical aura — are seen as visionary, with employees and customers clamoring to touch the hem of their garments. But that kind of leadership also has its limitations.

Succession is made harder by a towering and mysterious personality (good luck, Tim Cook). And, even more importantly, there's no formula for becoming charismatic. You could try to model others — emulating Jobs' cool reserve, exacting standards, and mercurial temper, for instance. But the nuances are subtle; you're just as likely to come off as aloof or entitled, rather than intriguing. The harder, but more rewarding, path as a leader is to make yourself known — to your employees, your customers, and the public. Here are three reasons the new leadership imperative is all about transparency.
To know you is to love you. Well, love might be strong. But you want your employees to at least like you and understand where you're coming from because, as copious research has shown, money isn't a good motivational tool. Rather, what will make them go above and beyond is their relationship and loyalty to you and you'll never get that if you don't let them know you as a person. (Customers, being human, also like to form relationships with real people, not just faceless organizations.) Lunch meetings and feedback sessions are a great place to start, and if you're managing across continents or your workforce is simply too large, don't underestimate the power of video. Your personality and enthusiasm can come through just as clearly on YouTube. (A great example is this 2009 video featuring Best Buy Chief Marketing Officer Barry Judge, in which he explains his philosophy of marketing and how the company should interact with customers.)

Transparency is brand insurance. Paul Levy was the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, one of the nation's best. In 2006, he launched a blog, then called "Running a Hospital," which took the bold step of putting his unvarnished thoughts into the public realm, sans PR gloss. He drew accolades for his openness (posting the hospital's infection rates) and sharing personal touches, such as his passion for coaching youth soccer. Over years of dedicated blogging — with literally thousands of posts — he built up a reservoir of goodwill. (Noted Boston magazine in 2009, "Through discipline, openness to criticism and feedback, and, yes, a certain amount of golly-gee enthusiasm, Levy has taken the most self-indulgent medium of 21st-century communication and turned it into a business tool as sharp as any scalpel.") And it turned out he'd need it. The following year, Levy admitted to "lapses of judgment in a personal relationship" involving a female former employee. He kept his job but had to pony up a $50,000 fine; he resigned half a year later. It was an ignominious end to a respected nine-year tenure but thanks to his blog (where he posted an apology), the blow was softened considerably. Today, he continues to weigh in on healthcare using the very same blog - albeit with a new, self-deprecating title: "Not Running a Hospital." Transparency didn't save Paul Levy from making a thoughtless mistake that negatively impacted his career. But it did earn him a degree of understanding and a continuing platform to opine about his field and stay in the mix.

You attract like-minded talent. Blogging started out as a cry in the wilderness. (Back then, it was known as "online journaling.") Aren't there any other left-handed gay sushi chefs out there? The business case for blogging, tweeting, and the rest of social media is a lot stronger these days. But the result, in many ways, is the same by putting your voice out there, you attract others who are like-minded. If you're a company with a unique set of corporate values (think Zappos), you can broadcast your culture and draw in people who think they'd be a fit. And if you're a venture capitalist whose livelihood depends on scouting new talent and forging close ties with the best then it's especially important to show people who you are, how you think, and what you're looking for. That's what happened for Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, whose blog has been a powerful magnet, enabling him to invest in hot deals early. Each post draws at least 100 comments sometimes closer to 400 and has positioned him, 3000 miles away from Silicon Valley, as an industry thought leader.

Whether it's in person (through speeches, meetings, or one-on-one interactions) or leveraging social media, it's more essential than ever for leaders to embrace transparency. Employees, customers, and shareholders need to understand your vision, your values, and your approach. That doesn't mean putting on an aura of mystique, because if it's not coming naturally, people can see through it. Instead, the new leadership imperative is to make yourself known.

Courtesy : Harvard 

10 questions you need to ask the interviewer...

It's not about what you tell the interviewer. It's about what you ask them.
In order to prove that you'll be an asset to the company, you need to ask the right questions, says Andrew Sobel, a strategy advisor. Without these questions, you're "missing a key part of your preparation — the part that may win you the job."

“You can tell people all day long how qualified you are, how talented you are, and what a tremendous asset to the company you would be. But no statement is ever as impactful as a well-timed, well-executed question. In all situations, power questions help us connect and engage with others in meaningful ways.”
In his book Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others, Sobel recommends these 10 types of questions:

1. Credibility-building questions. “As I think back to my experience in managing large sales forces, I’ve found there are typically three barriers to breakthrough sales performance: coordination of the sales function with marketing and manufacturing, customer selection, and product quality. In your case, do you think any of these factors are holding back your sales growth? What do you believe are your own greatest opportunities for increasing sales effectiveness?”

2. “Why?” questions. “Why did you close down your parts business rather than try to find a buyer for it?” or “Why did you decide to move from a functional to a product-based organization structure?”

3. Personal understanding questions.  “I understand you joined the organization five years ago. With all the growth you’ve had, how do you find the experience of working here now compared to when you started?”

4. Passion questions. “What do you love most about working here?”

5. Value-added advice questions. “Have you considered creating an online platform for your top account executives, so that they can share success stories and collaborate better around key client opportunities? We implemented such a concept a year ago, and it’s been very successful.”

6. Future-oriented questions. “You’ve achieved large increases in productivity over the last three years. Where do you believe future operational improvements will come from?”

7. Aspiration questions. “As you look ahead to the next couple of years, what are the potential growth areas that people are most excited about in the company?”

8. Organizational culture questions. “What are the most common reasons why new hires don’t work out here?” or “What kinds of people really thrive in your organization?”

9. Decision-making questions. “If you were to arrive at two final candidates with equal experience and skills, how would you choose one over the other?”

10. Company strengths-and-weaknesses questions. “Why do people come to work for you rather than a competitor? And why do you think they stay?”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-types-of-questions-you-need-to-ask-the-interviewer-to-get-the-job-2012-3#ixzz1rlVcSQBo

How to be indispensible to your employer...

In order to protect yourself from the next round of layoffs, you need to convince your employers that you're valuable and that your existence alone benefits the company.
"Today's business environment doesn't allow for satisfaction with the status quo. It requires constant growth and change," writes Mark Samuel in his book Making Yourself Indispensable: The Power of Personal Accountability.

"Being indispensable means that you are adaptable, learning and growing with your organization as it changes and evolves...at the end of the day, you are either working to make yourself indispensable or working to make yourself obsolete."

Samuel provides seven tips to help you become the most valuable person to your employers:

1. Never take the shortcut. Have you known many highly-successful people to be lazy? In order to be truly irreplaceable, you have to work hard. You can't take shortcuts and still expect tremendous respect.

2. Be adaptable, not rigid. Samuel says that being rigid is the fastest way to losing your job. In an age where technology, workplace environment and strategy techniques are constantly changing, the most pernicious thing you can do for your career is to cling on to something from the past and refuse to change.
"The good news about rigidity is that it gives you a sense of control — it is predictable. You understand it, know it, can explain it, and can even teach it to others," he says. "The bad news is that the sense of control is often a false one or temporary at best."
"You can always tell when someone isn't adaptable to change. They demonstrate their paralysis through resistance, advocating for the old way, talking about the "good ol' days," or undermining current change efforts through their lack of cooperation and cynicism."

3. Being a perfectionist will be your downfall. Most people think that being a perfectionist is what they need for success, but, in actuality, it prevents it.
"Perfectionism fosters inaction — waiting until we we can guarantee success before we take action. And this negates accountability and prevents success. We wait for the perfect plan, the perfect decision, and the perfect action that won't fail."

4. Be of service to others without expecting anything in return. Most of us only do things for other people if we get something in return, but a truly irreplaceable employee is someone who makes decisions and solves problems for the good of their team and other departments in the organization.
The more you become "we-centered" rather than "me-centered" the more indispensable you become. Samuel quotes Stephen M. R. Covey's book The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything:
"Trust grows when our motives are straightforward and based on mutual benefits — in other words, when we genuinely care not only for ourselves, but also for the people we interact with, lead, or serve."

5. Be purpose-driven, not goal-driven. At work, you will have goals to achieve, but Samuel says that these goals are often "established without a clear sense of purpose." And since most people are often too busy to go above and beyond their daily tasks, they're not making an effort to produce actual changes. Samuel quotes Daniel H. Pink in his own book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us:
"Substantial evidence demonstrates that in addition to motivating constructive effort, goal setting can induce some unethical behavior."
So don't stress out about finishing every single step you've written down on your checklist or it'll become a never-ending cycle.

6. Be assertive. Life is a game, so play big or go home. Take charge, stand apart and don't be afraid to speak up during meetings for fear of sounding unintelligent or being wrong.

7. Forgive others quickly. "The measure of accountability is based more on how you handle mistakes, mishaps, and breakdowns than on getting everything right all the time," Samuel says. "It's about how fast you can pick yourself up when you fall; how quickly you correct a mistake that you made; that little or no harm comes to your customer, family member, or friend."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/7-ways-to-prove-youre-irreplaceable-in-the-office-2012-3#ixzz1rlRutBim

Criticism at work place...

It isn't easy to deal with criticism but it hurts a lot more when it catches you off guard. What's important, though, is how you react, for it can have a serious impact on your career. Learn how you can take criticism in your stride, and make it work for you.

Don't React

Hold your words, and never try to guess what the other person is thinking. "Nobody likes feedback but one should refrain from reacting immediately. Reacting in an emotional way may have unwanted repercussions. When one reacts, the critic starts emphasizing his point further, which leads to even more criticism," says Pravin Subba, head, human resources, Greenply Industries.

Hear Them Out

Try to see the critic's point. When you don't acknowledge what the other person is saying, the conversation is sure to take a negative turn. Ask the person who is criticizing you for the specific instance and nature of your mistake. "I usually encourage employees to ask me questions while I am giving feedback. Once people know what they are being criticized for, they start relating to it. The whole process after that becomes smooth," says Subba.

Ask for Feedback

The person who is criticizing you has his or her reasons and might even have a solution to offer. It is safe to ask them him how you can do better. "When my seniors criticize my work, I regularly ask them for feedback. This way I make sure I don't miss out on anything and with their perspective in my mind, it's much easier to rework a copy", says Nivedita Agashe, copywriter, Taproot India.

Be Confident

At times, you might realize that the person criticizing you is wrong. Then too, you must wait for the right time, making sure he or she is ready to listen. "Make your point in a confident and detailed manner. Assess what you are saying in your head before you actually say it. If the other person is still not ready to listen, approach someone higher up and explain the situation. But use this only as a last resort," says Subba.

CREDITS - http://www.hozpitalityplus.com/profile/sebinsebastian

To do & not to do in an interview...

5 Things You Should Never Say in a Job Interview

With the economic recovery in full swing, there are an ever increasing number of opportunities to move on to your dream job. If you've got your resume in top form, you might have progressed to the interview stage.

Are you ready to wow your hiring manager? I've got a short list of things to keep in mind when you step into the interview environment -- this could make the difference between getting or losing a new career opportunity. 

Recently, MSN Careers discussed the 8 worst things to say in an interview. It's a good list of gotchas to avoid. Here are 5 of the biggest blunders -- check out the MSN article for all 8.

1. "I hated my last boss." It doesn't matter how bad your last boss was -- don't cite it as a reason for leaving your job. Nor should you complain about your boss's management skills. This kind of trash talking will make your potential new boss think your interpersonal skills are weak and you're not a team player. Follow the advice your mom gave you: If you can't say anything nice about someone, explain that your last role was not a good fit for you, or you are looking for new ways to grow.

2. "I don't know anything about this company." Do your research. Know something about the company you're interviewing for, and be able to articulate how your skills will complement the business. If you're a Web designer, for example, at the very least study the company's Web site and explain what you like and what you would change, given the chance.

3. "No questions, thanks." When it's your turn to ask questions about the company and the role, have something to talk about. If you don't, it looks like your lack of inquisitiveness means you aren't genuinely interested in a career, but just a paycheck. Did the interviewer already answer everything you wanted to know? At least rephrase something you already talked about in a new way.

4. "What church do you go to?" Small talk can be great. I've already described how I leveraged my love of music and my friendship with a known rock star into an interview hotspot. But know where the line is and don't cross it -- don't ask or talk about stuff that's inappropriately personal.

5. "And another thing..." Avoid rats and bitterness. It's great to have strong opinions, but be careful that you don't come across sounding like you are angry or so opinionated that you'll be difficult to work with. No one wants to work with a serial complainer.

5 Danger Signs Your Job Interview Is In Trouble

Do you know how to "read" an interview?

Bob Dylan told us that it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Likewise, it doesn't take a career planning expert to tell you when your job interview is on life support. Here are some clues to tell you that you might be in trouble:

You're not absolutely sure how to get there. This can torpedo your interview before it even starts. How are you getting to the interview? GPS? Google Maps? Directions the hiring manager sent you? Be sure you verify the directions with a "second source" and add lots of buffer time so you don't arrive late. Are you there really early? Sit in the car if you have to, but don't show up an hour early and become a nuisance to the recruiter or hiring manager

You take a call on your cell phone during the interview. Really? You worked this hard to get an interview, and you take a call for any reason other than your mom is in the delivery room having another baby? Even looking at a ringng cell phone is an automatic deal killer for most any hiring manager.

Your interviewer takes a call. Run, don't walk, to the nearest exit. There's something horrifically out of whack with this company's priorities. Nothing is worth this job, trust me.

You bad-mouth your last boss or company. Be prepared for "why did you leave your last job," questions and have a better answer prepared than a tirade about how poor your last manager was. Even if it's true, this is a serious danger flag to a potential employer, because it paints you as someone who has poor inter-personal skills and doesn't work well with others.

The interview feels more like a questionnaire than a conversation. Is the interviewer running down a list of questions without taking any time to explore the answers you're giving? It's probably too late, so don't invest a lot of emotional energy in this opportunity. The interviewer has probably already decided not to hire you, and is simply completing the minimum necessary work to demonstrate the interview was completed. On the other hand, it's theoretically possible to turn the interview around by really hitting one out of the park, but you'll have to try hard.

4 Tips to Help Ace Your Next Interview

Having a great resume might get you in the door, but eventually, you're going to have to pass an interview in order to get offered a job. Do you know how to "work a room" on the interview circuit?

Unless you're independently wealthy or a committed freelancer, you might want to check out these four tips designed to help you seal the deal and get an offer at the end of the interview.

These 4 tips to acing an interview come courtesy of Wisebread. If you've been through enough interviews, most of these might strike you as second nature. If you're still learning your way around the interview loop, though, some of these tips might prove invaluable.

1. Be unique. I recommend some caution here. Yes, it's important to stand out from the crowd. You want to give your interviewers a reason to remember you (in a good way). Some dude recently made his resume out of Google Maps, for example. But it's a fine line. Don't go too far -- a resume that's just plain weird will earn you a spot in the trash. On my last successful interview, I discussed something relevant -- my writing background -- but worked in a story about an encounter with a famous rock star. The interviewers enjoyed the tale. I didn't get the job onlybecause I could tell a personal story about Bob Mould, but I certainly made my interview memorable, which helped separate me from the pack.

2. Emphasize your awesomeness. Let me be clear about something here -- Wisebread suggests "honing your b.s. skills." I disagree. Sure, Wiseberead recommends staying on the truthy side of the truth/fiction fenceline, but even so, any advice that recommends b.s.'ing your way through life is seriously flawed. I've recommended many times that you emphasize your accomplishments, not your responsibilities, and it definitely applies here as well. Tell folks what you actually did, and you'll rise above the crowd of mouth breathers who can't articulate how their previous duties actually contributed to the business goals and success of the company they worked for.

3. Never say "can't." Employers are looking for people with positive, can-do attitudes. Try to avoid directly saying "no, I have no idea how to do that." Isn't there some analog, some similar tool or process you can compare it to? Surely there's some way to spin a question about some skill you don't have into talking about how you expertly can do something not entirely unlike this thing. Another example from my interview experiences: XML? Can barely spell it. But I have done an awful lot of HTML in my life. That's what I emphasized, and then suggested I could ramp up to XML pretty easily.

4. Look them in the eye. Be confident, be assertive, and push through your nervousness and insecurity to meet their gaze. Smile, laugh, pay attention when they're talking, and push yourself to return their eye contact when you answer questions. That sort of thing can take practice, but as someone who has sat on the hiring side of the table, I can confirm that energetic, animated, enthusiastic candidates get higher marks than visibly nervous, subdued, apparent introverts.

5 body language moves that will ruin an interview

 (MoneyWatch) Much of the information that we communicate happens non-verbally via subtle signals we put out with our posture, gestures and attitude. It's no surprise, then, that your success in a job interview depends quite a bit on almost everything except what you actually say. Recently, WiseBread explained the most common body language mistakes people make in interviews -- and how to avoid them. Here are the highlights:

Your handshake makes a critical first impression. Your dad probably taught you how to shake hands and his lesson was more important than you know. Make it firm -- not body-builder-aggressive and certainly not feeble like a dead fish. Also, be sure your hand is dry, so if you're perspiring, wipe it off before you meet your interviewer.

Don't touch your face. People touch their faces instinctively and without conscious thought. But if you want to make a good first impression, you'll need to be very conscious of where your hands are for the duration of the interview. Keep them well away from your nose and mouth, which can be a turn-off to germophobes. And for everyone else, touching your face is sometimes interpreted as a sign of dishonesty.

Don't cross your arms. Even if you only know one or two ways to read body language, you probably know this one -- crossing your arms is a sign of defensiveness and passive aggressiveness. That's not the impression you want to convey, so put your hands on the table where they can't cause you any trouble.

Don't stare. You probably know that making eye contact is a good thing, right? Well, there's a difference between positive eye contact and just plain staring. This is one of those things that should be natural, but if you think too hard about it, it is challenging to do in a natural way. The bottom line is that you want to maintain eye contact in moderation, without letting it devolve into uncomfortable staring. At the same time, don't let your eyes wander around the room as if you're bored.

Avoid nodding too much. You might think it's a good idea to nod a lot, either to appear to agree with your interviewer or to imply you're paying close attention, but the reality is that this can make you come across as sycophantic or spineless. Like eye contact, nod in moderation, and only when it's clearly appropriate. 

CREDITS : http://www.bullhornreach.com/article/view/23995

Promotion & Pay rise...

Becoming a top candidate for promotion doesn’t happen overnight. You have to build a track record of proven performance and demonstrate the skills required for the job. Consider the following strategies to propel yourself to the top of the list:

• Gather information. Find out which factors the decision makers consider when judging an employee for promotion and see how you measure up.
• Use your job to demonstrate skills. Make sure you can display the necessary capabilities in your current position. If not, work with your boss to develop a needed skill and make sure senior leaders notice.
• Get feedback on your presence. Ability to project confidence is a key factor in promotion decisions. Seek candid feedback to understand how others perceive you.

Are you a bad manager?

If you’re a manager, you’ve probably experienced the sensation of people not liking you but does that mean you're a poor manager? Not necessarily.

Your goal, after all, is to implement the company’s vision on the front-lines of the battle. If you’re going to be, as one famous manager once quipped, “The Decider,” people will resent you, no doubt. But you also have to do your job, and we all know that sometimes means doing things your subordinates don’t like.

So let us help you out. Here are 13 ways of knowing whether you’re a poor manager:

1. People are afraid of you. In some workplaces, managers are feared even by employees who don’t know them — because their reputations precede them. If this is you, there’s a high probability that you aren't good: no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

2. You micro-manage. Good managers manage, bad managers micro-manage. If you’re not able to persuade or convince people of a vision and instead regularly have to crack a whip to achieve results, either the team is rotten to the core or you have failed to properly motivate (these ideas are not necessarily mutually-exclusive).

True discipline, as the saying goes, must come through liberty. If you fear your team doesn’t function without you looking over their shoulder, the problem may not be them: maybe it’s you.

3. Stress controls you; you don’t control stress. There is some truth to the saying that there are no stressful situations, only stressful reactions to situations. Nevertheless, it’s normal for all of us to react somehow to stress and for our emotions to manifest themselves.

The difference between a good manager and a bad manager, however, is that a bad manager sends signals that the stressful circumstances are controlling him or her and not the inverse. This isn’t to say that a good manager need exude the emotional output of a Scandinavian Fisherman; instead, good managers maintain control and don’t allow stress to dictate their behavior. Bad managers do the opposite.

4. You create real and perceived distance between yourself and your team. Humans detest hierarchies and those at the bottom resent being reminded of their place within them. The best managers sit with their teams in a symbolic gesture of solidarity and their behavior demonstrates genuine solidarity. The worst managers sit in solitary offices, usually with doors closed, and behave accordingly.

5. You’re unavailable. A celebrated CEO once told me, “A good manager does his work at home. (S)he should never bring his/her work to the office.” What he was getting at was that good managers are available to their reports at a moment’s notice. If you’re unavailable and inaccessible to your reports then you're not very good, regardless of how much you are appreciated by your superiors.

6. You don’t know your reports. A good proxy question to ask yourself about a report is, “if he/she could have any job in the world, what would it be?” Knowing this answer means you understand the person’s passions, dreams, and ambitions. If you can’t answer that, in England they’d call you a “hoover.”

7. You have no investment in your reports’ futures. Even if your report isn’t working out and you have to remove him/her from the position, your primary concern should be for the person’s well being.  If someone is unhappy, it’s usually bad for the team and bad for the individual; letting the individual go is likely in his or her best interest.

If you find yourself simply wishing someone off your team because they’re an obstacle to achieve your goals, you should probably question whether or not what the problem is a result of a skill-set mismatch, personality conflict or proper motivation. Only two of those three are solve-able.

8. You manage down more than you manage up. Front-line managers often have the unfortunate task of mediating the tension between senior management’s wishes and the demands of the front-line employees. Senior level managers operate on the assumption that they know better because they have access to more information. Front-line employees often feel they know better because they deal with the products and clients on a regular basis and receive feedback in real-time.

Average managers simply take what’s passed down to them and implement at all cost. Good managers collect data, build arguments and attempt to influence the decision makers. In addition, good managers find clever means by which to represent their team’s interests as the best interests of the senior managers. If you find yourself as a facilitator of one-way communication, it may be that you’re not stepping up to the challenge.

9. You don’t deliver tough messages. One way to avoid management traps is to try to be loved, but being loved is not the same as being respected. Good managers deliver tough messages — but they do so within the context of a relationship built on trust.

Without trust, tough messages are in the worst case misinterpreted as open hostility and in the best case, simply ignored. When delivered with trust, tough messages have a higher likelihood of hitting the mark.

10. You throw others under the bus. If you’re a manager, the buck must stop with you. Whether you’re explaining why your sales team didn’t hit its targets, or you’re justifying a decision by upper-management to change an incentive plan, the best managers accept responsibility for what happens on their watch.

In the short term, it may bring relief to blame people or circumstances for your short-comings,  but in the long run, avoiding responsibility will hurt your credibility on both ends of the totem poll. If the idea of accepting responsibility terrifies you, remember that how you react to a crisis is often more telling than the fact that the crisis occurred. Reacting to mishaps is the good manager’s chance to shine.

11. You don’t read about management. Your MBA is not a black-belt, and your education is never finished. Good management is an art where a teacher never stops being a student. No matter how long you’ve been in the game, your skill set still needs to be constantly refined and your assumptions need to be questioned.

12. You genuinely seek feedback. And you create a culture where giving that feedback to you is acceptable, even encouraged. A senior Google executive once said, “Feedback is a gift: sometimes it is a gift we’re fortunate to give, and other times it’s a gift we’re fortunate to receive.”

13. You eschew vulnerability. Managers send signals about how willing they are to connect, and they are most open when they allow themselves to be vulnerable. Vulnerability, it should be noted, does not equate self-doubt or a lack of confidence. Instead, vulnerability is exposing the most basic elements of the human condition.

If you’re not allowing yourself to be vulnerable, then you’re preventing the formation of connections with those who work closest to you. Bad managers abhor vulnerability for fear of appearing weak, while good managers use vulnerability as a tool to build trust and meaningful relationships.

Managing a sales team is not the same as managing a boiler room; good management is necessarily context dependent. Nevertheless, one final truism is that bad managers (enforcers) have reports who work for them, while good managers (enablers) work for their reports. 

Now the real question is, "What type of a manager are you?"

Courtesy : www.businessinsider.com