There are ten fundamental premises that will determine your overall management success. Before we get to the five biggest challenges facing managers I thought I would give you the ten since thet are closely related.

1. When you have an issue, problem, failure, dysfunction or whatever any - where in the organization look up the ladder for the cause and down the ladder for the solution.

2. Everything that happens in an organization is the direct or indirect result of that organizations culture, philosophy and core beliefs.

3.You get the behavior you reward.

4. Effective management is not about the latest fad or philosophy. It is about a fundament trust and respect for people and treating them accordingly.

5. Growing a business is not hard and it should be fun for everyone.

6. Integrity and ethics must be the foundation for all of your decisions and actions.

7. If you want effective and productive employees you must see employee development as an investment and not a cost

8. What employees want to be motivated and performance driven is appreciation, recognition, validation and to feel important and to feel like they belong.

9. The job of management is not to motivate employees but to create a positive motivational climate where employees take responsibility for their own motivation and performance.

10. You are responsible to your employees and not for them.

Here are the five biggest challenges today. They are;

Corporate culture. Corporate, organization and department culture all flows from the top down. The written and unwritten rules, policies and philosophy of a manager or the organization all eventually find their way into the attitudes and performance of almost everyone in the organization. One of the critical things to remember when dealing with people is: you get the behavior you reward. If the culture directly or indirectly rewards a certain type of attitude or behavior, you are, by your actions or inactions, probably reaffirming that these are acceptable. If you want to change behavior, you must first evaluate the culture that is in place that may be rewarding the type of behavior you are getting but dont necessarily want.

Communication style. Rumors, hearsay, memos, emails, meetings, individual counseling sessions and bulletin boards all have one thing in common they communicate information some more effectively and timely than others. If communication in an organization is all top-down, you can be assured that you are not in touch with the realities of your organization, the marketplace, your customers or suppliers.

Organization direction. One of the biggest challenges managers face today is effectively communicating corporate direction with clarity and consistency to all employees who have a right and need to know. Most organizations do a poor job of this at best. One way to find out what your people believe is to conduct an anonymous survey of attitudes, perceptions and opinions.

Decision making. Many managers make decisions that other employees will either have to implement or that will affect them. If these decisions are made without bottom-up feedback, you can guarantee that the outcome of the decisions will be less than desired or expected.

Feedback mechanisms. Employees want to know how they are doing whether poorly or well. Failure to give them the feedback they need is to keep them in the dark regarding the assessment of their performance and how and where they need to improve.

Are management roles changing?

There are a number of conditions that are impacting the roles of managers today. A few of them are;

- Greater cultural diversity. - Several very distinctive employee age groups. - Increased impact and use of technology. - A growing international market place. - Ethical standards that are unclear or inconsistent. - Greater stress levels among all employees. - Corporate direction and strategy is under fire by consumers. - The desire of employees for greater independence and autonomy. - Increased consumer choices for products and services. - Fewer specifically skilled employees. - Relentless and accelerating change.

Theres more, but I dont want to be responsible for ruining your day.

With all these factors, again I ask you, are the roles of managers, supervisors, executives and business owners changing today? You betcha. Here are just a few that I have observed during the past few years coaching and consulting with many of my clients in a variety of industries worldwide.

1. Many managers are responsible for increasing numbers of remote employees.

2. Some managers are finding that they are spending more time doing rather than managing.

3. Some managers are spending increased time coaching employees on personal issues.

4. All mangers are faced sooner or later with position openings that they cant fill.

5. Mangers in general have less time for their own personal development.

6. Most managers are having to learn to deal with a variety of different employees culturally, gender wise and age wise.

7. Managers in general are spending more time communicating via email than in person or by telephone.

Again, there are many more I could have included, but the essence is, that if you are still using management techniques and behaviors that you used more than five years ago I guarantee you are going to be less effective as a leader, coach and manager in todays changing world.

The fundamental roles, attitudes or responsibilities of managers have not changed and a few of them are;

1. The need to trust your employees and your employees to trust you.

2. The need to respect their uniqueness.

3. The need to communicate openly and honestly.

4. The need to give them recognition and appreciation that is deserved.

5. The need to have a clear future career path available to them.

6. The need to compensate them fairly.

If you will do just these six consistently you will go a long way in successfully addressing many of the above listed factors.