The leadership of your business helps to determine the direction of your business. As you fill new insurance jobs or adjust the way that you manage your insurance agency, consider the importance of management development. What does your management team need to do to be effective?
Set The Tone
More than anyone else in the agency, your management team's attitude sets the tone for your insurance company. If your management team complains about clients, the rest of your employees take that as a cue to complain as well. If your managers neglect to celebrate achievements and instead focus on negatives, then the atmosphere at your agency will be more negative than it could be. As you develop your management team, consider how they coach your employees toward a more positive working environment, and consider what kind of work environment you want to have and how your managers can help you achieve this.
Model Leadership
Show your management team how to lead instead of dictate. You've hired all of your employees because you think that they will be able to do their jobs well. Let them do those jobs with minimal micromanagement but a lot of broad oversight and support instead.
Include Diversity
There are many different people out there in the world, and as a manager, you'll need to work with a lot of them. While you want your customer service to be consistent, you don't need to have everyone behave in the exact same way at work. According to Forbes, you should "leverage the differences; they have value." Know that each of your employees brings something unique to the table. Don't try to abolish their uniqueness to achieve organizational uniformity.
Be Kind and Listen
You try to listen and support your clients; you need to do the same for your staff. People have ideas about how to solve their own problems. If there's a problem with administration, one of the best people to listen to is your administrator. Your management team needs support in active listening, and they need to know how to provide an atmosphere that encourages employees to come forward with suggestions and comments.
If It Ain't Broken, Don't Fix It
Sometimes, managers can get overzealous in their desire to implement a new process in your organization. New can be better, but you don't need to implement something new just because it's trending. It needs to add value to your organization. For instance, if the software you use to run your business is right for you, you don't necessarily need to change that, even if better products come out.
Evaluate Yourselves
Do you have ongoing conversations with your management team about how they can improve and change? Managers are focused on the employees under them and provide feedback to those employees, but they may not pause to consider what role they play and how they can improve. Take some time every few months to sit down with individuals and ask them about their jobs and how they are working to change within those jobs. Ask them what support they need to be a better manager.
At American Agents Alliance, we want to help you grow your insurance agency. As you fill your insurance jobs, we're there to help. As you build your networks, we're there too. Talk with us about our many membership benefits and see how we can help your insurance agency grow.
