Executive Management Manners

Are you faced with the challenges of being a younger manager with older employees reporting to you?

Recognizing that the older employees may feel resentment, hostility or have fears of being replaced, Ms. Baldrige advises that the younger manager set his/her style of management at the first staff meeting by doing the following:

Greet and shake hands with every employee present, asking each person their name and job title.

Read carefully beforehand the employee bios, so that he can profess admiration for the impressive background and job skills of the people he or she will now manage.  One should memorize interesting tidbits about them, to prove when he meets them how well he did his homework. 

Such as, "You're the one with nine children, aren't you?  Wonderful!  I'd like to see a picture of them some day."  "You must be the one who transferred from Indianapolis.  How do you like Denver in comparison?"  "You won the company sales championship last year, didn't you?  Great!"

Explain to workers that they really need one another in order to work as a team, to bring increased profits.

Demonstrate why they are qualified to be in the new lead position. You should talk about their background and expertise, and how they expect to utilize it.

End with a vigorous affirmation of how pleased they are to be in the new job, how much they admire the team already in place, and how successful they know they will all be.

This tip was provided by the Culture and Manners Institute at http://www.cultureandmanners.com/