Self-Management

in

Organization

By: Michele Shauf

Preface:

Developing a work environment and supervisory culture that promotes self-management helps employees meet new challenges and take responsibility for their professional development. Self-managing employees also provide benefits for managers:

• The need for disciplinary intervention is minimized, so human resources professionals have more time for coaching and relationship-building.
• Managers have more time to focus on strategic planning and execution.

What are some traits of self-managing  employees 

Self-managing employees are employees who can:

• Seek out guidance as needed.
• Set personal goals and monitor their own progress.
• Solve problems creatively.
• Develop new skills on their own.
• Tackle increasingly complex tasks. 

Self-management vs. micromanagement

Unfortunately, not only do many organizations fail to cultivate self-managing employees, but they also fall into the micromanagement trap. From a human resources perspective, the result is a staff that comprises dependent employees who defer to management for even minor decisions and wait for explicit instructions before undertaking new tasks. From a strategic standpoint, the outcome can be devastating: an organization so weighed down by procedures that it stagnates.

Organizations that value self-management, by contrast, intelligently their own human capital for innovation, leadership, and growth.

Change supervisors" attitudes

The first step in creating a self-management culture within your organization requires a shift in the attitudes of supervisors. To create an organizational culture in which self-management can thrive, supervisors in your organization should view their role as one of coaching rather than directing.

Directing:

Too often, supervisors perceive their primary job function as one of issuing directives rather than coaching supportively. The impact on employee relations is almost always negative, because this attitude communicates mistrust or, worse, disrespect.

Coaching:

The reality is that most people want to excel at their work, and they can, if they"re given opportunities to make decisions, exercise judgment, and build on experience with the help of an encouraging coach.

Unlike a traditional manager, a coach views employees as the ultimate sources of knowledge about their own roles. After all, the person who works daily on a project tends to be intimately acquainted with the details of the work. It makes sense that the employee"s perspective and insight should be valued and consulted. At the same time, the employee"s supervisor has more experience and expertise, which is also valuable, and should be available to the employee as a resource.