4 Skills of Highly Successful Multiunit Leaders (And How to Apply Them)

What do successful supermarket chains, fast food restaurant franchises, and chain hotels have in common?

Each one has a winning multiunit leader (MUL): a manager who provides leadership to multiple units within a larger organization or brand. While the head of each individual store, restaurant, or hotel handles its day-to-day management, a multiunit leader is responsible for aligning all units around the brand’s high-level vision and ensuring the organization’s strategy is implemented accurately. Ultimately, it’s the MUL’s responsibility to deliver a good customer experience that strengthens the brand and increases revenue.

If you don’t lead multiple units but you do manage a lot of employees, it can be useful to take a page from a multiunit leader’s playbook to take your management skills to the next level. Keep the following tips in mind:

• Prioritize strategy. A multiunit leader can’t afford to get slowed down by the details. Similarly, as a manager, you need to take a high-level approach to reaching your department’s goals. Create a strategy that clearly outlines your plan, and assign personal objectives to each employee. Then share this plan with your people, and explain how their individual objectives contribute to the overall goal. After that, monitor your team’s progress and if necessary, intervene with direction and support.
• Delegating is key. The most effective MULs know how to delegate. This involves assessing which tasks you can hand off and determining which team members can handle them without becoming overburdened.
• Trust your employees. Tell your employees what you want them to achieve, but don’t tell them how to achieve it. You should be confident you’ve hired the right people—that way, you can rely on their ability to meet their responsibilities.
• Actively develop your employees. As Michael Patrick shares in his Mohr Retail article titled “4 Qualities of Successful Retail Multi-Unit Managers,” it’s critical to invest in your team member’s strengths. This not only enhances their individual capabilities and that of the team as a whole, but also helps keep them engaged.

By taking a closer look at how you interact with your team and keeping the above pointers in mind, you’ll be able to achieve a leadership style that instills better brand awareness amongst all of your employees. And when team members take ownership of the customer experience, you can rest assured your company’s bottom line will strengthen as well.    

Source:

http://mohrretail.com/4-qualities-successful-retail-multi-unit-managers/