How to be a Great Manager

By Lori Weyuker

The Stepping Stone, July 2021

How to be a great manager is a topic near and dear to my heart, rarely discussed in actuarial circles. You might ask first, “why does being a great manager matter?” but I’m going to assume you agree with me that this is important.

I hope you have had the experience of working for a great manager. Among other reasons, this is significant because:

• If you had a great manager at some point in your career, you know what it looks and feels like;
• you might be able to infer some of what makes a manager great; and
• you might think it’s worth trying to imitate, since it was such a positive experience for you.

Experiential observations aside, much highly accessible research on this subject has been put in the public domain. While this research is valuable, the realized value comes in the application of these learnings to real life. Here are some of the most impactful traits of great managers.

1. Clearly communicate with the team, and with each team member.

   Transparently communicate the company vision. Regularly explain how a given project or task directly connects to the company vision. It’s important to connect the dots on this so that team members can see and feel that their work is a significant part of the company success—that their work matters.

   Provide realistic, clear tasks and timelines. Make expectations clear. Meet once a week with each employee in a one-on-one meeting, creating a safe space to communicate bidirectionally. Make these meetings a conducive atmosphere for the employee to ask questions and discuss their concerns.

2. Create a positive work environment.

   Praise each employee, in one-on-one meetings as well as in group meetings according to what is appropriate. In presentations that contain work done by your team members, be sure to publicly mention the name of each person who did part of the work. Better yet, have the employee who did the work present their own work. This lets the employee know that they get to take credit for their own work, which is a great feeling.

3. Empower your employees.

   Most likely, your staff will be actuarial students, new actuaries, mid-level actuaries or other technical staff. These types of individuals especially need to be challenged on an on-going basis.

   You hired (or inherited) smart team members. Empower them to use their significant brain power to do problem solving. Let them use their power of thought as well as creativity to problem-solve. This creates a very positive work environment as well as makes a great work product. It often yields surprisingly spectacular results.

4. Provide timely, regular feedback to team members.

   Be sure to provide regular feedback to each team member. Don’t wait until the annual review. Be sure to provide feedback in each one-on-one meeting. This gives employees the opportunity to continually be in sync with the work at hand as well as with expectations.

5. Show and express appreciation.

   Be sure to do this on a regular basis, but be sincere.

6. Share openly (according to what is appropriate) what is going on at the top of the company: sales performance, profit performance, changes coming up in the organization, and more.

   Have regular periodic meetings with your team in which the team members can freely ask you questions regarding how the company is doing. Be as transparent as you are “allowed” to be. Don’t keep employees in the dark regarding what’s going on, especially during a time of changes, mergers, and layoffs.

7. Develop your staff.

   It’s very important to create individually-designed “growth” plans for each team member, which may include taking and passing actuarial exams if relevant. Provide ongoing opportunities for training that will help each team member to grow in multiple areas.

   Some team members might be quite assertive regarding their career. Make a plan with each employee that contains well-defined steps to help them achieve their career goals. Be open to thinking outside of the box in this. The development plans for each employee should be reviewed (and possibly altered) every six months in order to keep up with the rapid pace of change.

8. Be a strong decision maker.

   After taking into account input from relevant team members, make clear decisions. This gives your team the knowledge and respect that you are doing what is expected of a competent manager.

9. Be supportive of your team.

   Have an “open door” policy as much as possible. Be accessible. Hear what your employees have to say. Encourage them to express their professional opinions regarding work projects or any observations about how the company is run.

10. Be composed in all situations.

11. Be fair. This is self-evident.

12. Share experiences that led to your success. Your employees will be very curious to hear how you got to where you are.

13. Have fun.

    All work and no play can lead to burn out. Interjecting some fun can help make the work environment a much better “place” to be.

    Celebrate successes. When someone passes an actuarial exam, go out as a team and celebrate. Go out to lunch together as a team (when in-person work is happening) from time to time.

14. Get to know your employees individually.

    Learn their individual talents. Find out each team member’s favorite types of work and projects. Learn their least favorite types of work and understand why they like or dislike certain work activities.

If you adopt these traits, you are well on your way to becoming a great manager. But above all else, you need to truly care about the welfare of each team member. This is absolutely vital.

Lori Weyuker, ASA, MAAA, is an independent consultant with expertise in health insurance, employee benefits and pet health insurance. She is currently on the SOA’s Leadership & Development Section Council. She can be reached at InnovationLW@gmail.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-w-5276603/