5 Management Skills You Need to Master
Being a manager requires bringing the best out of people, and one of those people whom should always be at their best is you. You set the example for your employees and they will be looking up to you for guidance, following you and doing your bidding. No one is perfect, we’re always learning, improving and enhancing ourselves. Below are 5 of the most important management skills for a restaurant manager to possess; ones we should always be working on.
Organization
Organization is one of the biggest parts of being a manager. You must organize your employees, keep your accounting organized, keep your time organized and keep almost every aspect of your restaurant organized. All of these facets of your venue need you to help keep them all organized, and the whole thing pointing and moving in one direction.
Because time is such a crucial factor in everything we do in our venues learning to organize and -specifically- prioritize well will do you and everyone else a great amount of good by relieving some of the stress the constant lack of time creates.
Empathy
Telling your employees you understand them is one thing but actually being empathic and displaying that you care is what really matters. Your employees do have lives outside of your job and remembering this and helping them to enjoy those lives is crucial to their happiness and your restaurants success. Many a manager gets so absorbed in their own venue and their own work that they forget their own and their employees lives outside of it. Don’t get this tunnel vision.
Leadership
You’re the one that people are going to look to when everything is turning sour and you need to be able to lead your troops out of it. Expereince helps in the heat of the moment but leadership isn’t only required when the going gets tough. You are the leader in your restaurant and therefore you always need to be leading your employees. This involves innovating, making decisions, training, motivating, explaining, and, most of all, listening. Good leaders have a presence and command well but the best leaders don’t take all of the spotlight themselves. They let others turn their ear and make sure they’re thankful and vocal about appreciating other peoples help and contributions.
Problem Solving
Things happen quickly and time is of the essence when we’re on the floor and problems most be solved even quicker than they happen. Your experience will help you know what to do when a problem arrises on the floor of your restaurant however there a huge other variety of problems that can occur in a restaurants. These can be delivery related, employee related, the lack of a necessary product and many other things. Being able to solve these problems, properly, efficiently and in the best way possible inside of any constraints you have is key to the successful management of a restaurant.
Teamwork
Although you are the leader you are still a part of the team, yet this is one point that many managers come to forget after a while in the job. Not only should you continue to be a part of your team socially but you must also still be willing to get down and dirty and help them when they need it; be it bussing tables, running food, hosting or even dish washing. This will display your commitment to your employees and your restaurant and once you show them this then they’ll be much more willing to be a team player alongside you rather than feeling like a pawn on your chessboard.
All of these skills require, and are learnt through, experience, and being a manager begins with experience. It is your expereince that got you here. Now you must grow from that and develop yourself into a formidable and world class manager. This happens through the experiences of trial and error. Keep working on the above skills and you’ll find that everyone, including yourself, enjoys working for you and with you more and more.
