Thanks to an executive I’m coaching, I read a fascinating article on ways to create better managers – and the results aren’t intuitive at all!

Look at the New York Times, Sunday edition (3/13/11): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html?_r=1
entitled: “The Quest to Build a Better Boss.”

Using data from the Google organization itself, Google studied how the people at Google rate their own managers. They found eight “good behaviors.” But as it noted in the article, the show stopper wasn’t the list, it’s the order of importance of the good behaviors. And in particular for a technology company (where you’d think that technology smarts make you the king of the hill), the most valued, #1, was being a good coach.

Here’s the full list (in order of decreasing importance but still the top eight):

1. Be a good coach.
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage.
3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being.
4. Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.
5. Be a good communicator.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.
8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team.

Here are the three pitfalls of managers:

1. Have trouble making a transition to the team.
2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development.
3. Spend too little time managing and communicating.

So I’m asking you all (roughly 100 people now regularly follow this blog) – what do you think of this list? How does it compare with what you value as a leader and manager? I’m very interested in your comments.