Skip to Main Content
HBS Online
  • Courses
    Open Courses Mega Menu
    • Business Essentials
      • Credential of Readiness (CORe)
      • Business Analytics
      • Economics for Managers
      • Financial Accounting
    • Leadership & Management
      • Leadership Principles
      • Management Essentials
      • Negotiation Mastery
      • Organizational Leadership
      • Strategy Execution
      • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
      • Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
      • Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
      • Dynamic Teaming
      • Transforming Customer Experiences
    • Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
    • Credential of Digital Innovation and Strategy
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
      • Entrepreneurship Essentials
      • Disruptive Strategy
      • Negotiation Mastery
      • Design Thinking and Innovation
      • Launching Tech Ventures
      • Winning with Digital Platforms
      • Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
      • Entrepreneurial Marketing
      • Transforming Customer Experiences
    • Strategy
      • Strategy Execution
      • Business Strategy
      • Economics for Managers
      • Disruptive Strategy
      • Global Business
      • Sustainable Business Strategy
    • Marketing
      • Digital Marketing Strategy
      • Creating Brand Value
      • Entrepreneurial Marketing
    • Digital Transformation
      • Winning with Digital Platforms
      • AI Essentials for Business
    • Finance & Accounting
      • Financial Accounting
      • Leading with Finance
      • Alternative Investments
      • Sustainable Investing
      • Strategic Financial Analysis
    • Business in Society
      • Sustainable Business Strategy
      • Global Business
      • Sustainable Investing
      • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
      • Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
      • Business and Climate Change
    • All Courses
  • For Organizations
    Open For Organizations Mega Menu
    • Corporate Learning
      Help your employees master essential business concepts, improve effectiveness, and expand leadership capabilities.
    • Academic Solutions
      Integrate HBS Online courses into your curriculum to support programs and create unique educational opportunities.
    • Need Help?
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Contact Us
    • Insights
      Open Insights Mega Menu
      • Business Insights Blog
        • Career Development
        • Communication
        • Decision-Making
        • Earning Your MBA
        • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
        • Finance
        • Leadership
        • Management
        • Negotiation
        • Strategy
      • All Topics
      • Learner on computer exploring HBS Online business lessons
        Sample Business Lessons and E-Books

        Gain new insights and knowledge from leading faculty and industry experts.

      • HBS Online Parlor Room podcast logo
        Podcast

        The Parlor Room: Where business concepts come to life. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform.

    • More Info
      Open More Info Mega Menu
      • Learning Experience
        Master real-world business skills with our immersive platform and engaged community.
      • Certificates, Credentials, & Credits
        Learn how completing courses can boost your resume and move your career forward.
      • Learning Tracks
        Take your career to the next level with this specialization.
      • Financing & Policies
        • Employer Reimbursement
        • Payment & Financial Aid
        • Policies
      • Connect
        • Student Stories
        • Community
      • Need Help?
        • Frequently Asked Questions
        • Request Information
        • Support Portal
      • Enroll Now
    Login
    My Courses
    Access your courses and engage with your peers
    My Account
    Manage your account, enrollment, and payments.
    HBS Home
    • About HBS
    • Academic Programs
    • Alumni
    • Faculty & Research
    • Baker Library
    • Giving
    • Harvard Business Review
    • Initiatives
    • News
    • Recruit
    • Map / Directions
    HBS Online
    • Courses
    • Business Essentials
    • Leadership & Management
    • Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
    • Credential of Digital Innovation and Strategy
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
    • Strategy
    • Marketing
    • Digital Transformation
    • Finance & Accounting
    • Business in Society
    • For Organizations
    • Insights
    • More Info
    • About
    • Support Portal
    • Media Coverage
    • Founding Donors
    • Leadership Team
    • Careers
    • My Courses
    • My Account
    • Enroll Now
    • …→
    • Harvard Business School→
    • HBS Online→
    • Business Insights→

    Business Insights

    Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

     
    Filter Results Arrow Down Arrow Up

    Topics

    Topics

    • Accounting
    • Analytics
    • Business Essentials
    • Business in Society
    • Career Development
    • Communication
    • Community
    • ConneXt
    • Decision-Making
    • Digital Transformation
    • Earning Your MBA
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
    • Finance
    • For Organizations
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Marketing
    • Negotiation
    • News & Events
    • Productivity
    • Staff Spotlight
    • Strategy
    • Student Profiles
    • Technology
    • Work-Life Balance

    Courses

    Courses

    • AI Essentials for Business
    • Alternative Investments
    • Business Analytics
    • Business Strategy
    • Business and Climate Change
    • CLIMB
    • CORe
    • Creating Brand Value
    • Credential of Digital Innovation and Strategy
    • Design Thinking and Innovation
    • Digital Marketing Strategy
    • Disruptive Strategy
    • Dynamic Teaming
    • Economics for Managers
    • Entrepreneurial Marketing
    • Entrepreneurship Essentials
    • Financial Accounting
    • Global Business
    • Launching Tech Ventures
    • Leadership Principles
    • Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
    • Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
    • Leading with Finance
    • Management Essentials
    • Negotiation Mastery
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
    • Strategic Financial Analysis
    • Strategy Execution
    • Sustainable Business Strategy
    • Sustainable Investing
    • Transforming Customer Experiences
    • Winning with Digital Platforms
    Subscribe to the Blog
    *
    Please complete this required field.
    Email must be formatted correctly.
    Please complete all required fields.
    RSS feed

    Filters

    Topics

    Topics

    • Accounting
    • Analytics
    • Business Essentials
    • Business in Society
    • Career Development
    • Communication
    • Community
    • ConneXt
    • Decision-Making
    • Digital Transformation
    • Earning Your MBA
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
    • Finance
    • For Organizations
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Marketing
    • Negotiation
    • News & Events
    • Productivity
    • Staff Spotlight
    • Strategy
    • Student Profiles
    • Technology
    • Work-Life Balance

    Courses

    Courses

    • AI Essentials for Business
    • Alternative Investments
    • Business Analytics
    • Business Strategy
    • Business and Climate Change
    • CLIMB
    • CORe
    • Creating Brand Value
    • Credential of Digital Innovation and Strategy
    • Design Thinking and Innovation
    • Digital Marketing Strategy
    • Disruptive Strategy
    • Dynamic Teaming
    • Economics for Managers
    • Entrepreneurial Marketing
    • Entrepreneurship Essentials
    • Financial Accounting
    • Global Business
    • Launching Tech Ventures
    • Leadership Principles
    • Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
    • Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
    • Leading with Finance
    • Management Essentials
    • Negotiation Mastery
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
    • Strategic Financial Analysis
    • Strategy Execution
    • Sustainable Business Strategy
    • Sustainable Investing
    • Transforming Customer Experiences
    • Winning with Digital Platforms
    Subscribe to the Blog
    *
    Please complete this required field.
    Email must be formatted correctly.
    Please complete all required fields.
    RSS feed

    7 Effective Ways to Become a Better Manager

    Manager in meeting with team
    • 21 Feb 2019
    Matt Gavin Author Staff
    tag
    • Career Development
    • Decision-Making
    • Management
    • Management Essentials

    Being a manager can be challenging. It requires knowing how to align people and resources to achieve goals, navigating complex decisions, and giving and eliciting feedback.

    A recent Gallup survey found that 70 percent of a team’s engagement depends on the manager, highlighting why professionals should know how to guide and coordinate the actions of their colleagues to achieve results.

    If you want to take your career up a notch and reach your managerial potential, here are seven tips to help you become more confident and effective in your role.

    How to Be a Better Manager

    1. Refine Your Decision-Making

    The ability to exercise sound judgment and make decisions is paramount to being a manager. While many professionals focus on the outcomes of their choices, it’s far more important to examine the process that was followed to determine a particular course of action.

    In the online course Management Essentials, Harvard Business School Professor David Garvin notes that a good decision-making process is comprised of three elements:

    • Quality: It involves an in-depth analysis of a problem and a comparison of different options
    • Executability: It requires buy-in from your team to increase the odds that the decision will be well executed
    • Timeliness: It’s implemented at the right time—neither too early nor too late

    By using this criteria to gauge the way you handle challenges in the workplace, you can refine your approach to decision-making and develop a process for guiding your team to success.

    Related: 3 Group Decision-Making Techniques for Success

    2. Set Clear Goals and Deliverables

    Goal-setting is a foundational practice of management. According to research by Google, one of the top behaviors of great managers is having a clear vision and strategy for their teams.

    Establishing goals can not only provide a roadmap for work that needs to be done but boost motivation among staff. It’s necessary that objectives be well-defined and linked to a set of deliverables—small, actionable tasks—so that employees have a clear view of how their individual contributions are tied to larger organizational outcomes.

    Once goals and deliverables have been set, it’s imperative to reiterate them at every chance to monitor progress and ensure projects are staying on track.

    By connecting your team’s work to greater strategic pursuits, you can instill a shared sense of purpose among your employees, help them understand the “why” behind their efforts, and improve their performance.

    How to Become a More Effective Leader | Access Your Free E-Book | Download Now

    3. Delegate Tasks to the Right Team Members

    At its core, management is about getting things done with and through others. The immense work that goes into implementing projects and plans shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of a single person. As a manager, it’s your job to assign tasks to team members that enable them to capitalize on their strengths.

    “One of the leadership challenges is to set direction, to set that aspiration, and to recognize that you don't have the answers yourself,” says HBS Professor Amy Edmondson in an interview for Management Essentials. “You have to empower and delegate to others the actual work of figuring out how to get things done and getting them done, and then they can come back to you and ask for help.”

    Handing off tasks to the right people is key. Ensure that those you delegate to have the necessary resources, skill set, and bandwidth to complete the assigned work, and be available to answer questions and provide support along the way.

    While it can be tempting to handle every aspect of a project yourself, becoming a better manager involves resisting the urge to micromanage, developing a sense of trust in your team, and determining how to use each individual’s talents to deliver work on time and on budget.

    Related: How to Delegate Effectively: 7 Tips For Managers

    4. Keep Your Employees Engaged

    Employee engagement is crucial for the long-term success and profitability of any business. Effective managers are able to successfully engage and motivate their employees, ultimately boosting employee satisfaction and positively impacting productivity levels.

    Highly engaged business units experience 21 percent greater profitability, but, according to a Gallup survey, only 15 percent of employees worldwide are engaged in their jobs. This presents a major obstacle for managers who rely on highly-motivated employees to work toward organizational goals.

    To foster employee engagement, it’s important that you let their voices be heard. Ask members of your team for their input regarding any important decisions that you’re making.

    Involving your team members in the decision-making process can help them contribute more directly to organizational success and empower them to make positive contributions in the future.

    Related: How to Foster Employee Engagement When Your Team Is Remote

    5. Give and Receive Feedback

    Many professionals shy away from being honest and critical in conversations out of fear that they’ll hurt someone’s feelings or damage a working relationship. But knowing how to effectively get and give feedback is crucial to your team’s development and your own.

    Make it a habit to provide regular, informal feedback to your employees instead of waiting for formal review periods. When giving feedback, make sure your comments are specific and actionable. Simply telling direct reports they did a good job isn’t enough—you need to note the areas where they excelled, and where they fell short, to help them grow.

    In addition to giving feedback to your team members, you should be open to hearing opinions about your own performance. Find a trusted colleague who will be direct with you about your strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to listen to their ideas with an open mind and ask them to note specific cases where you showed good and bad managerial behavior. With those insights, you can develop a personal action plan for improvement.

    Through consistently providing and receiving feedback, you and your team members can help each other grow and forge a deeper working relationship.

    Related: 10 Tips to Help You Boost Team Performance

    6. Allow Time for Reflection

    Learning from past experiences is an essential part of becoming a capable manager. While many valuable lessons can be learned in real time, it’s through conscious reflection that successes and failures can be more deeply examined.

    “You have to take the time to reflect on what you just experienced,” says Colonel Paul Reese, who’s featured in Management Essentials and is the former director of the Center for Army Lessons Learned. “If you don't, and you continue to run from one event to the next event, you don't necessarily have an opportunity to think about what went right and what went wrong.”

    Reflection can be implemented at both the personal and organizational levels. To consider your own performance, schedule a weekly time to look back on the goals you set out to achieve over the previous week and analyze your progress. This process of self-review can help you determine where you made mistakes and see how certain decisions led to business wins, helping you map a game plan for the immediate future.

    When examining team efforts, set aside time for reflection shortly after a task or initiative and encourage candor and polite debate. Don’t limit the conversation to certain people—encourage all members of your team to participate and identify practices that should either be continued or adjusted for upcoming projects.

    Through instituting regular periods of reflection and review, you and your team can learn how to take corrective action and operate more efficiently.

    Management Essentials | Get the job done | Learn More

    7. Invest in a Management Training Program

    Whether you’ve been a manager for two days or twenty years, a management training course can provide you with the hands-on training you need to become the best manager you can be.

    A management training course can equip you with an understanding of leadership frameworks and improve your communication and decision-making skills. It can also help you become a more data-driven manager who uses business analytics to guide your strategy.

    Management training programs come in a variety of formats, including convenient online options for busy professionals. One example is Management Essentials, which is fully online and allows you to complete coursework on your own time over an eight-week period. Throughout the course, you’ll learn management concepts and techniques by examining real-world business challenges faced by seasoned executives.

    Related: How Management Training Programs Can Help You Advance

    Elevating Your Managerial Approach

    Becoming a better manager is an exercise in personal and professional growth. Through learning how to shape organizational processes to your advantage, you can develop the tools needed to bring out the best in yourself and others, and help your company thrive.

    Do you want to become a more effective leader and manager? Download our free leadership and management e-book to find out how. Also, explore our online courses Leadership Principles and Management Essentials to learn how you can take charge of your professional development and accelerate your career.

    This post was updated on October 2, 2020. It was originally published on February 21, 2019.

    About the Author

    Matt Gavin is a member of the marketing team at Harvard Business School Online. Prior to returning to his home state of Massachusetts and joining HBS Online, he lived in North Carolina, where he held roles in news and content marketing. He has a background in video production and previously worked on several documentary films for Boston’s PBS station, WGBH. In his spare time, he enjoys running, exploring New England, and spending time with his family.
     
    All FAQs

    Top FAQs

    How are HBS Online courses delivered?

    +–

    We offer self-paced programs (with weekly deadlines) on the HBS Online course platform.

    Our platform features short, highly produced videos of HBS faculty and guest business experts, interactive graphs and exercises, cold calls to keep you engaged, and opportunities to contribute to a vibrant online community.

    Are HBS Online programs available in languages other than English?

    +–

    We expect to offer our courses in additional languages in the future but, at this time, HBS Online can only be provided in English.

    All course content is delivered in written English. Closed captioning in English is available for all videos. There are no live interactions during the course that requires the learner to speak English. Coursework must be completed in English.

    Do I need to come to campus to participate in HBS Online programs?

    +–

    No, all of our programs are 100 percent online, and available to participants regardless of their location.

    How do I enroll in a course?

    +–

    Certificate Programs

    HBS Online welcomes committed learners wherever they are—in the world and their careers—irrespective of their professional experience or academic background. To extend the reach of HBS Online, we no longer require an application for our certificate programs. (Applications are still required for our credential programs: CORe and CLIMB.) You can now immediately enroll and start taking the next step in your career.

    All programs require the completion of a brief online enrollment form before payment. If you are new to HBS Online, you will be required to set up an account before enrolling in the program of your choice.

    Our easy online enrollment form is free, and no special documentation is required. All participants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.

    Updates to your enrollment status will be shown on your account page. HBS Online does not use race, gender, ethnicity, or any protected class as criteria for enrollment for any HBS Online program.

    Credential Programs

    HBS Online's CORe and CLIMB programs require the completion of a brief application. The applications vary slightly, but all ask for some personal background information. You can apply for and enroll in programs here. If you are new to HBS Online, you will be required to set up an account before starting an application for the program of your choice.

    Our easy online application is free, and no special documentation is required. All participants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.

    Updates to your application and enrollment status will be shown on your account page. We confirm enrollment eligibility within one week of your application for CORe and three weeks for CLIMB. HBS Online does not use race, gender, ethnicity, or any protected class as criteria for admissions for any HBS Online program.

    Does Harvard Business School Online offer an online MBA?

    +–

    No, Harvard Business School Online offers business certificate programs.

    What are my payment options?

    +–

    HBS Online offers a variety of payment methods to provide flexibility, including:

    • Credit and debit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and AMEX)
    • PayPal
    • Wire transfers
    • Western Union
    • Bank loans (When available)

    You may split your payment across two credit card transactions or send a payment link to another individual to complete payment on your behalf. A minimum payment of $350 is required for the first transaction.

    Some learners may also qualify for scholarships or financial aid, which will be credited against the program fee once eligibility is determined. Please refer to the Payment & Financial Aid page for more information.

    What are the policies for refunds and deferrals?

    +–

    After enrolling in a program, you may request a withdrawal with refund (minus a $100 nonrefundable enrollment fee) up until 24 hours after the start of your program. Please review the Program Policies page for more details on refunds and deferrals. If your employer has contracted with HBS Online for participation in a program, or if you elect to enroll in the undergraduate credit option of the Credential of Readiness (CORe) program, note that policies for these options may differ.

     

    Sign up for News & Announcements


    • • Please complete this required field.
    • • Email must be formatted correctly.
    • • Please complete all required fields.

    Subject Areas

    • Business Essentials
    • Leadership & Management
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
    • Strategy
    • Marketing
    • Finance & Accounting
    • Business & Society
    • Digital Transformation

    Quick Links

    • FAQs
    • Contact Us
    • Request Info
    • Enroll Now
    • Support Portal

    About

    • About Us
    • Media Coverage
    • Founding Donors
    • Leadership Team
    • Careers @ HBS Online

    Legal

    • Legal
    • Policies
    Harvard Business School
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College
    • Site Map
    • Trademark Notice
    • Digital Accessibility