It is not enough to be just a good manager for establishing effective work within the team and with clients. The key to a successful leader is to be, among other things, a good psychologist, to know the psycho types of people, methods, etc., says Euhenii Myroniuk, Managing Partner for Strategy of the Brain Tank Group.

Operators

A business leader should understand the basics of psychology. It allows you to predict the result of management on its carriers — the team.

After all, understanding the human psyche is, by definition, knowledge of the laws governing the functioning of human thought processes. Knowing how team members think, you can more confidently assume how they will solve particular problems.

I am one of the leaders' types who first began to lead and then learned this craft. Today, there is an abundance of sources of knowledge and practice on the topic of team management psychology. You can get a specialized education and take office, being grounded at least theoretically. When I started, management in the country was synonymous with hype "witchcraft" with a touch of discipline. Therefore, as the military allegorize, "we had to get the first weapon already in battle." The traces of mastering leadership skills and organizing the activities of companies remained right on my face: from gray hair to deep wrinkles.

Then and now, the most crucial predictor of correct leadership is the number of surprises that arise within the team: the fewer they are, the more correctly the process is organized. This practically does not apply to external business factors, although a certain relationship can also be established if desired.

The team is like a crane

I am sure that each leader has experienced in practice how an unfavorable emotional climate in a team can affect the implementation of a business strategy. There are no universal answers — everything has to be calibrated with practice.

How can psychological problems be detected? All the processes are slo-o-o-o-wing down. To prevent such a development of events, you need to stop thinking that the leader and the team are something different. It is easier to understand this through a metaphor. Imagine that the team is a crane, and the leader is its winch mechanism. Not the crane operator, not an external entity that is separate and controlled through levers, but a part of the machine itself.

When a company "splits up" into different mechanisms, there is no longer any question of any strategy. The planning horizon is shifting to the point "when will the company cease to exist."

The assertiveness of business communication

Today the key characteristic of my business communication is assertiveness. What do I mean by this concept? First of all, de-emotionality is the suppression of the rolling first desire to evaluate something with feelings, not with the mind. Secondly, personal responsibility for the activities of your team. If something goes wrong, then I blundered somewhere. And, making these claims to myself, I can honestly understand the source of the imbalance and neutralize it in the future.

In my management, I rely on group role models of behavior and not on individual psycho types. There are two reasons for this: individual — I am awful at recognizing socionic types — and functional. Role models are more predictively valuable because they "roll" on people immediately with the behavior itself. That is, a person sees and takes on a role that he/she has spied on / likes / is shown — and becomes an actor in this role. Role models have their origins in the writings of Eric Berne. The same one who wrote Games People Play. This book is definitely worth reading for your boss.

If we talk about valuable books, it is evident that at different stages of the evolution of a leader, other "pills" are recommended to him. For example, in the 17th year of managing my businesses, I have a close look at some processes through the prism of others accompanying them. My reference book now is "The Price of Destruction. The Creation and Fall of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tuz.

Communication building techniques

Communication is the constant synchronization with the outside world. Its secret formula is continuity.

I have a faultless methodology that is guaranteed to set up for communication with different people within the working framework. Before the dialogue, I turn to myself the question of the ironic Sergiy Dovlatov:

"A person is used to ask himself: who am I?
A scientist, an American, a chauffeur, a Jewish, an immigrant…
And you should ask yourself all the time: am I not a shit? "

And if (and this happens, I am also just a man) I hesitate to answer, then I don't start a dialogue. The trick is that consciousness itself throws up the answer to this question, depending on your current context. If the mood for conversation is not constructive, then that very slight hesitation is felt…

It is useless to dissect the experience of Brain Tank about how knowledge of psychology helped the leader establish the atmosphere in the team. Not because of the lack of history, but because of the fundamental impossibility of using someone else's experience. As Igor Didkovsky, widely known in narrow circles, once said: "Someone else's experience is a religion for fools."

After all, no one has yet learned from the mistakes of others, although popular rumor says the opposite. If you focus only on others, then you will not acquire precious grains of experience, which, as you know, is the "son of difficult mistakes." The main thing my story teaches is not to be afraid to gain your own experience.

In general, knowledge of psychology is undoubtedly a must-have. It can improve the emotional climate in the team and the relationship with customers, and therefore contributes to increasing brand loyalty and business prosperity.