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The new year is a time for reflection, so as you prepare for the holidays and the new year, take some time to look back and appreciate the past years success and opportunities.
As a manager it is important to reflect on your own performance and that of your team. Reflecting on your work is important because it will help you identify areas where you can grow as a manager and make improvements in your coaching and communication skills.
Managers should reflect on themselves as well as the overall performance of their team
As a manager, it’s important to review the performance of your team in order to have an accurate picture of the state of your department or company. You will want to consider how you can improve your own performance as well as that of your employees. Reviewing how well each member has been doing is valuable so that you can help them reach their potential and see results in their work.
When reviewing both your own and your team’s accomplishments, it’s important not only to look at what has happened but also why it happened—what factors influenced this result? What steps could be taken next time so that they don’t wind up in the same situation? What processes were put into place by management that created issues down below? How do these processes need changing?
Review your own performance and personal development
It’s not just the technical skills that make a good manager but it’s also the non-technical skills. Take time to reflect on your own performance and personal development. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses as a manager. You can improve as a manager by reviewing how you are perceived by others, what kind of feedback you received, how you used your communication style, and how effective were you at solving conflicts with team members? Think about these aspects while reflecting.
The following are some questions that you can ask yourself in order to reflect on how well you performed as a manager and how to improve your performance going into the new year.
- What were my strengths as a manager?
- What were my weaknesses as a manager?
- Did I help my team grow and improve their performance throughout the year? If not, why not and what steps could I take to make sure that happens next year?
- How did my team perform?
- Did we meet our goals or were there areas that we could improve on?
- What were the main challenges that we faced and how did I help my team overcome them?
- Did I delegate tasks and coach my team effectively so they could learn how to perform on their own?
Reviewing your team’s strengths and weaknesses
If you’re like most leaders, you probably want to be more effective at communicating with your team. That means knowing how they communicate (and what they need), being open and honest, being clear about your expectations, providing feedback when necessary—and even asking for help if you need it!
Understanding your team’s strengths and weaknesses allow you to better communicate and coach your team for success. As you reflect on your teams past year, ask yourself:
- What is the best way for you to gauge their performance?
- What are your team’s strengths?
- What are their weaknesses?
- How can you help them to improve?
- What are the things you can do to help them grow and develop as a professional?
Plan ahead for leadership development
In addition to reviewing the past year and your team’s performance, it is important that you plan ahead for leadership development. In fact, even if you do not have a lot of resources at your disposal and need to improvise, planning ahead will still be valuable. Your plan could include:
- Setting goals for yourself and your team
- Scheduling time for self-reflection to help inform those goals
- Identifying which skills you want to improve on or acquire
- Finding out what type of training programs would be useful in achieving these goals
- Scheduling and confirming those training programs
Taking time to recharge to Improve Leadership
Taking time to recharge is important for you and your team. It will help you stay energized and focused, which can lead to better results. To make sure that you are not distracted while you try to recharge, make sure that neither you nor your team have any urgent issues on their plates at the time. If they do have urgent issues, put those off until after your recharge period. If possible, discuss these problems with them ahead of time so they know what they need to plan around while you’re recharging.
How to reflect on the goals and how to move forward
A great way to look back on the year is to review your goals. Even if you’ve been in the same position for a while, it’s still important to go back and look at what you set out to achieve and ask yourself: did I meet my own expectations? What went well, what didn’t go well, and why? By reflecting on these things, we can learn from our past so that we can do better next time.
It’s also important to understand why certain things didn’t work out as planned—for example, maybe there was some unforeseen circumstance that came up unexpectedly. Sometimes this is unavoidable (the weather), but sometimes these things happen because of our own actions or due diligence (we didn’t check all of our options). This information will help us avoid repeating mistakes when setting new goals for next year’s iteration!
Conclusion
You can learn a lot from the past year. Reviewing your own performance is also helpful for looking at how well you are managing your team, as well as what needs improvement in terms of improving their performance and creating an environment that allows them to succeed.
Reflect on yourself and your team going into the new year. It’s important to be honest with yourself about where you think you need improvement and make an effort to work on those areas in order to improve in for this coming year.
