True leaders and great managers in today’s workplace must instill a high performance mindset and at the same time create a culture whose foundation promotes teamwork and competitiveness for the advancement of the whole organization. They must earn the trust of their colleagues and inspire team unity. Best managers are always proactive and motivate each member of their team.

Anyone desiring to be such a leader will find it difficult to get anywhere without some basic people management skills. He needs to provide great inspiration to his people so that he is loved by his staff and at the same time also get the job done and improve the company’s bottom line. Though a lot is required to be a highly effective manager but 3 most indispensable qualities required are: his clarity of goals, sense of genuinely praising others to motivate and a way to reprimand without hurting anyone.

1. Clarity of Goals

Clarity of goals is one of the most important qualities. Clarity for the manager as well as clarity for the staff. Remember you need to come to final goals after a lot of brainstorming. One method is to analyze all your goals yourself first and then from this big list of goals select final goals keeping in mind the time tested principle of 80-20. Remember 20% of your goals when completed will give you 80% of results, so be very sure about your “20%.”

Next step would be to pass on these goals to your team and ensure everybody agrees on these goals. Make your goals very clear, and for that to be possible it is required that there should be only limited number of goals (those which fall in 20% category). Try to limit this list to only 3-4 goals for the sake of clarity and focus.

Make sure every body writes down their goals, because an unwritten goal is a sure recipe for failure. Also encourage your people to think about the right work behavior for achieving these goals. Ask your staff to write these goals in a diary or a pad which they could see daily or even better many times during the day, so that clarity of goal will act like a gyroscope that won’t allow them to be distracted from their final goal. Encourage your people to review their performance regularly with the help of these written goals and analyze whether their behavior matches the goals.

This policy works because ‘the number one motivator of people is feedback on results.’ We like to know how we are doing and if we are doing well, we feel good.

2. Genuinely Praising

Praising is also one of the most important roles of an effective manager that help people reach their full potential by telling them what they are doing right. It is a known fact that a motivated person and one who feels good about himself produces good results. Tell people immediately about what they have done right. Try to give specific positive feedback. Tell them how their work makes you feel good and how it helps the organization and other team members. Give some pause during the praising so they can themselves feel how good you feel. In those moments encourage and motivate them to do more and make them aware of their potential if they follow on the same path of focus and dedication. Remember to give your praising process a more personal touch by shaking hands with them in a very warm and firm manner. This will go a long way in getting better personal rapport with your people.

Remember that nobody knows how to do everything well from day one and only encouragement works with people who are not secure in what they are doing. Praise is the fuel which can drive the whole enterprise.

3. Art of Reprimand

Reprimand is also a very necessary requirement for an effective manager.You need to tell your people beforehand, what you expect of them, that you are going to let them know how they are doing in no uncertain terms. Reprimand them immediately but take care to convey your message that you are reprimanding the behavior and not the person. Show them how what they did was wrong. Again be specific and show them how their behavior does not match goals. Tell them how you feel and how their work is not in sync with the organization goals. Stop for some uncomfortable silence during the reprimand so they can themselves feel how you feel. Again shake hands or give a personal touch and make them realize that you are on their side and part of the team and what you have said is honest view of their efforts and not about them as a person. Tell them how valuable they are for the organization. In the end realize yourself once the reprimand is over, it’s over and no bitterness should last.

These practices are very simple but highly effective. Following these principles, an effective manager can have his own “kicks and hugs” style of management, which was given only according to strictly outlined and previously mapped goals and do not create a climate of fear.

Further these ideas are not just for work places, they can easily be applied to other areas of personal relations too.