1-3 Reflective Blog Assessment

Wow one module is over and I have to be honest, after being out of school for a number of years this is working my brain harder than it has in awhile. I was going to write this post last night but realised I was still a little unsure what traits I thought were important to be a good manager and leader.  I spent the day looking at the managers in my organization to find the traits I liked and disliked about them. I started with my front line manager and his role of fleet coordinator. The first trait I felt was important in this role is work ethic. He is the one who sets the example for the rest of us in the shop and as the leader if you allow your work ethic to slip then you know your employees will as well. Another trait I believe is important as a front line manager is respect, not playing favourites and treating everyone equal. As a mechanic, let me tell you, there are a lot of jobs on vehicles and equipment that are not enjoyable to do and by not enjoyable, I mean I hate them. If one person was always getting the tough jobs there is going to be some animosity amongst employees. A third trait I recognised was clarity, tell me how you want the job done and when, even if it is giving me free reign of the project, make sure that detail is known to me.

After looking at my front line manager I went to the next level, middle manager or in our organization, team leader. The trait of communication stood out to me as she is the one that brings our directors ideas and goals to us and in return takes our ideas to them. Having employees engaged in their work is imperative to achieving your organizations goals, so having a manager with the ability to keep employees engaged by challenging them will keep the organization moving forward.  A couple of days ago I received recognition from my team leader for a task I had completed, it was amazing how a ten dollar gift card felt like so much more when the support was genuine. I think you have to have a supportive trait as a manager to help employees enjoy their jobs and gain confidence in their work.

Finally, I went all the way to the top and reviewed the traits of our city manager.  Although there are only a hand full of times when I have had direct interaction with him, it was not hard to identify some of his traits because they are evident in all our policies and organizational goals.  The integrity he shows is obvious in the way he owns the decisions and direction of the organization while still maintaining a work life balance commitment to employees. I strongly believe you could not be at the top of an organization without focus, you need focus to have a strong sense of where your going and to lead your people to that spot. Finally to be a great leader I think you need passion, whatever the direction is, you need to go for it all in. This was recently displayed to me when our city was bidding for the Alberta summer games, our city manager gave every employee the opportunity to take time away from their jobs, participate in the events and he was the first one there waving the flag.