Aspiring Managers: Learn to Behave Like an Adult

By Steve Tobak

It’s relatively easy to be a successful child. All you’ve got to do is learn how to be cute, get attention, and cry when you’re hurt or hungry. Learning how to be a teenager is much harder; I’m not sure anybody’s good at it. I certainly wasn’t. As for becoming an adult, I’ve been working on that for decades and making very, very slow progress.

Everything gets harder as you get older, and becoming a good manager is no exception.

In fact, becoming a good manager is harder than all of those other phases combined. Why? Because, it not only depends on how much of an adult you’ve become, but how adult your employees are. Not to mention all the management and leadership skills that so-called experts and gurus aren’t even sure about – they debate this stuff all the time.

So, for all you relatively new, aspiring managers, and for those supposedly seasoned veterans who are honest enough with themselves to admit that they’re still trying to figure it out, here are three relatively critical but not necessarily intuitive tips I’ve learned by trial and lots of error along the way.

Try to act like a mature adult. As I alluded to above, the best managers are those rare individuals who actually behave like mature adults. What does that mean? It means being as honest, comfortable, and empathetic with your own issues and shortcomings as you are with your strengths and skills. Only then can you do the same for others, and that’s what good managers do.

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