You may not have taken a Management 101 course in school, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to know and apply many of the basic principles of superior supervision.
We’ve amassed three of the most critical management tips that you can use right now to:
a) gain more control of your team;
b) feel less stressed when it comes to achieving goals; and
c) make your office a better place to work.
Management Tip #1: Don’t Let Problems Go Unaddressed
Margie’s late… again. But why rock the boat, right? So you say nothing and stew about her unprofessionalism. Meanwhile, the insurance paperwork is still being turned in with sloppy errors; however, you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by pointing it out. So you fix it yourself.
Stop!
It’s easy to avoid conflict and just let problems slide, but that only makes more work (and stress!) for you. It also ensures that, should you ever need to address the problems in the future, your employee will immediately respond with a defensive: “You never mentioned this before!”
Address issues in a calm manner as soon as they arise. “You were late today. Please make sure it doesn’t happen again or I will have to take disciplinary measures.” “The same mistakes are being made on paperwork over and over. Let me walk you through the process.”
Management Tip #2: Lead by Example
If you constantly gossip, treat your job lightly or spend time texting when you should be doing other things, you cannot expect those under your charge to want to “toe the line”.
Starting today, you must make an effort to lead by example, which could involve significantly changing your behaviors, habits and attitude. Before you make a snarky comment about a patient, ask yourself what message it will send to those around you. Before you say to yourself, “Hey… I’ll just take an extra 15 minutes for lunch,” think how that could affect the conduct – and morale – of your staff members.
Doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest path to take, but it’s always the wisest.
Management Tip #3: Be the Manager
Sure, you like the people on your team (or most of them, anyway), but don’t allow a wonderful sense of camaraderie to allow you to slip into a powerless position.
If your title is “manager”, then you have to take charge. There’s really no other way to get better at what you do. This may mean distancing yourself slightly from personnel when on the job, but if that’s what must be done to get the work accomplished, so be it.
At the end of the day, you’re the “go to” person; that means you have to act like it.
YOUR TURN!
What management tips would you like to share with other practice managers? Leave a comment and let us know what has worked for you!
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3 Responses to “Three Critical Management Tips for Practice Managers”
Nicholas Harris says:
2010/06/02 at 12:20 am
I just dicovered your blog. Very nice! Keep up the good work.
ultrasound technician says:
2010/06/02 at 8:55 am
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
pharmacy tech says:
2010/06/03 at 10:46 am
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
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