Here is the latest in our blog series: The A-Z Manager Recipe Book.
The Disciplined Manager
The Disciplined Manager is not someone who punishes individuals or tries to gain control through lots of rules and high levels of obedience but is instead a positive role model for high standards. He/she acts as a personal role model for others to emulate.
A disciplined manager is focused on making “disciples” (the root of the word) of the standards so that these can be followed in consistent ways, creating a sense of both stability and accountability. This disciplined manager must therefore sometimes speak up when it is important to do so.
The following ingredients should be added, blended well and left to mature over time:
Challenging mediocrity is about a manager challenging him or herself and others on the team to do the best work possible and not to accept lackluster performance, or results.
Target focused is about setting clear objectives creating long term plans with well-described milestones and ensuring that effective measurement systems are in place to track progress.
Alert to shortfalls involves setting up as many performance shortfall “early warning systems” as necessary to ensure that individuals can be encouraged or coached before gaps widen.
Straight-talking is the ability to be frank and use clear communication rather than technical language, avoiding indirect or abstract communication to ensure that people understand standards or what needs to be done.
Fair-minded is about weighing the information received in an even-handed and balanced way or trying to see the actual strengths and weaknesses of any reasoning that is presented with as little bias and/or prejudice as possible.
Consistent means being reliable, coherent, congruous and uniform in your general approach to people and standards so that individuals can expect reasonable treatment and balance related to workplace issues.
Let us know if this fits you or any experiences you have had with a disciplined style manager.
