Don’t wait for the future to hone your management skills — start now, and make use of the time that you’ve been given as a manager to really mold your leadership abilities. You’ll benefit from better professional development, and your company and co-workers will thank you as well. True leadership means constantly trying to improve, and looking deep within yourself to match the strengths and positive momentum of the people who you work with, and the company you work for.

Look at Your Overall Management Style

To start trying to identify your leadership strengths and weaknesses, figure out what type of manager you are. Are you a more technical or innovation-based manager looking mostly at technical solutions? Are you a unifying manager who drives people forward together? Are you a stabilizer who adds structure and organizational value to a business? Is your style people-based or task-based?

Identify Your Blind Spots

When you start mapping out your managerial focus in this way, you can look at any blind spots that you have. If you are more technical, you may be not be putting enough focus on some of the social aspects of your business. If you’re extremely proactive but not very diplomatic at work, you may be susceptible to what some call a “pitchfork” style of management that can create a lot of pressure in the workplace. When you make a list of your strengths and weaknesses, you have those identified as you start crafting a better role for yourself within a company.

Look at the Hardest Tasks on Your Plate

Here’s another interesting and effective way to improve your leadership skills. Look at the hardest things that you have to do every month.

Here’s an example – suppose you’re on top of everything but the schedule. Look at that scheduling task, and see why that is. Do you have a hard time getting the teams to work together? Is it hard for you to maintain flexibility and versatility to make the schedule work?

Or maybe the schedule is fine, but you struggle with technical or task-based presentations. In some ways, this is good news, because it means you are excelling at the “people” part of your business, at cooperation and stabilization. But it means you have a little bit of work to do in terms of researching the company’s products and services — getting a little better at knowing that side of the business.

Look at Problematic People Situations

One other way to develop your leadership style as a manager is to look at the biggest people problems that you have in your office. These may directly affect you, or they may not. But looking at the biggest conflicts forces you to come up with innovative and unique ways to address problems. When you really apply some concentration here, you should find that it helps you to climb to the next level of problem-solving and gives you the tools you need to improve as a leader.

About Full Steam Staffing

Full Steam Staffing is a full-service staffing agency focused on providing clerical and light industrial staffing solutions to manufacturers, distribution centers and other organizations that need qualified, reliable workers. If you are currently looking to hire and grow your workforce, contact our team of skilled recruiters today!