How to Tell If Someone’s Actually Ready to Lead

Not everyone wants to be a manager. And not everyone should be.

In this episode, we explore how to assess whether someone on your team is truly ready for a leadership role or whether you’re trying to promote someone into a position they’ll struggle in.

We also share what to do when no one’s quite ready (yet), and how to nurture the people who are showing signs of leadership.

You’ll learn:

• Why self-management is the first (and non-negotiable) sign of leadership potential
• The natural behaviors that show someone’s ready to step up
• What it means to enable people and how that changes everything
• How to develop your future managers through coaching and trust
• Why asking your team member what they want is the simplest and smartest move

If you’re building a team or trying to scale without promoting the wrong person, this episode will help you spot the signs, set them up for success, and grow your leadership bench with clarity.

And if you want to fully step into the visionary leader you are meant to be, check out our Empower360 Leadership Coaching and book a call with us.

“Enablement is the secret to scaling leadership without burning out your team or yourself.” – Jores Minasvand

Transcipt for “Is Your Team Member Ready for Management?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:06
Hello and welcome to another episode of More Than Just Task Management, your favourite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business. I’m Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant and I have Joris Mina’s friend with me, my co-host who is also a business consultant. Hey Joris, happy Wednesday.

Jores Minasvand   0:27
Anna, happy Wednesday. Beautiful, beautiful August, Wednesday. And what is our beautiful topic today?

Anna Angelova   0:36
I think it’s a perfect topic for for today because as we’re recording this, you had an interesting conversation earlier throughout the day. So the topic for today is how to assess if a-team member is ready for management to to move to a management position, become a manager.
And before we dive into like how you assess this, I do want to say something and I truly believe this. Like I remember one of the books that I read with first break all the rules. I think this is this was the title like they were giving examples of what the great managers do differently.
And one of the things like they were saying how you know that saying we have treat everyone the way you want to be treated. They break this and they treat everyone the way that they want to be treated. Like you treat every person the way he or she wants to be treated.
Not the way you want in that situation. But anyway, so one of the things there, and I truly believe in this, it was that that especially in the corporate world, that corporate ladder we have that at some point after working like 5 or 10 years with the corporation, you automatically become.
The next in line to to be the manager and then senior manager and director and VP and and all these kind of things. The thing is that not every person is supposed to become a manager. Not every person should be.
Managing people and not every person wants to be. There are people who are perfectly happy where they are. And I remember there were so many examples in the book where they were talking how I think one of the examples was a maid in a hotel. She was earning more than her manager like she was getting compensated. Her salary was.
Hire than the salary of her manager. But the way that she treated her work, the way that she would like, I think one of the examples was the clean the fan, the cleaning like she would she would does the fan because she her thinking was going that oh the first thing that a tired.
Customer comes to the hotel and the first thing they do is turn the A/C on the the fan on and it doesn’t matter that there is no speck of dust on on the desk when the fan is dusty.
And then there were other examples of what you do when kids were staying, like how she would arrange the toys in in certain ways, like always go beyond, above and beyond. And the thing is that not every single person is supposed to be a manager and as we’re having.
This conversation, yes, it’s about identifying people who are ready to step up and and lead others, manage others. But for the ones that are actually great at what they do, and they’re not meant to step up and manage others, find ways to compensate them for what they’re great at. Don’t push them to become managers.
Compensate them, and it doesn’t have to be financial compensation. People respond to other types of compensations as well, like increased vacations, other types of gifts and recognitions.
So I just wanted to mention this as a caveat and now I want to open the floor for you, Joris, because you were discussing in a way this topic this morning.

Jores Minasvand   4:13
Yeah, yeah, very interesting topic and very well put. Now a couple of points. What is a manager? If you look at a really, not even manager, VP, I’m the chief, whatever officer.
I’m the self appointed this. If you actually look at these, they are spots. If it’s a public company, there are spots in the in the work chart that have to be filled and there are certain job descriptions and they fall into a certain category of.
Compensation. But if you put all of these together and you apply to 90% of the people, including all the sea suits, at least in North America.
Almost 99% of that 90% don’t fit because like you said, oh, you’re next. Oh, you’re the owner’s niece. Oh, you’re the oh, you’re the owner’s nephew. You’re now our VP of IT or I was like, what?
So.
Management ability to manage people, manage projects, manage customers, manage things around you is very organic and it takes time and starts with managing yourself. If you cannot manage yourself and they appoint you.
To manage even one person, they put yourself, that other person and the rest of the company in danger in a in a position of failure.
There are people that are so disorganized that they work until 11:00 PM and the first thing that comes out of their mouth is if you don’t work until 11:00 PM, you’re not part of my team.
And and and I I worked with companies where the CEO had a mandate called No Meeting Friday. Everybody looked at that mandate and said, oh, such a great CEO, but he was one of the toughest CEOs because if you really understand the meaning of no Friday meeting, that means you have.
Have to be so organized. You have to manage yourself, your tasks, your people and their tasks and their people and their people and their tasks so well that your entire Friday is free. You have to be so management is organic.
And how do you identify people who can manage? It’s very simple. First, look at those who manage themselves. Look at how they manage themselves, who look how they manage their own tasks, somebody that has a 50%.
Free time and is your most productive person is ready for management. It’s very simple.
They are so organized. They’re so well organized. They manage their work, automated, whatever they did, they have 50% time left. So that’s number one, #2.
Put them in front of a customer, because managing yourself, your task, managing your peers is one thing. But as soon as you’re put in front of the customer, external, outside of your company or the supplier or whatever that is, it’s a whole new ball game.
A lot of people I’ve seen that are good at the former, but not they fail at the latter where they crumble in front of the tough customer. So then identify the people that are organized, start bringing them into calls with you.
With the customer and then throw them into the conversation, pull them into the conversation, see how they handle themselves, then they leave them, then gradually you leave them off and then gradually start expanding them. I have the conversation I had this morning.
I have a very fantastic young lady that she was just a developer. Now she manages a team of four. She manages a.
The customer expectations, but I think what has happened is she has reached her limit.
She cannot go beyond this. She did. And the reason I said it, this is organic is because you have to manage over time and learn on how to handle, how to handle. Like you said, do you treat people the way you want to be treated or do you treat people the way you want they want to be treated or you to treat people?
People, the way they want to be treated is you have to connect to your people. You have to know your people. So it becomes. That doesn’t mean you put an Excel spreadsheet, you put tasks that were assigned to people. Now you’re managing them. No, you need to manage your expectations. You need to manage, understand what they’re looking for.
So.
Management is a very organic thing. It comes with time and I would say.
I’ve been in IT for the last since 1995. I’ve had two, I think 2 true IT managers.
In the last 30 plus years to truly to cut the world of management where they knew how to manage.
People, tasks, customers, external expectations and work life balance, everything. Because it’s not just one thing, it’s a big thing to to manage.

Anna Angelova   9:54
And what I want to add in again, everything you said is again absolutely spot on. In addition to what you were saying, like when someone, how can you manage others if you can’t manage yourself? Absolutely.
And what you start seeing naturally, people who naturally are good at stepping up to the next level and becoming managers, becoming leaders, what you see is that like they also have that.
Connection with others like naturally they mentor. Naturally they start mentoring others. Naturally they start helping others. Naturally they take on more responsibility. They they volunteer for for for things. They even ask give me something more. Give me. I want more like I.
Can do more. So this is another thing that happens because again, as I mentioned in the beginning, not everyone is supposed to be a manager and someone who is organized, very organized and manages for you to be able to manage yourself. Yes, this is necessary, but it’s not enough.
Because people who are great at what they do, they can manage themselves, but it doesn’t mean that they are really ready for the next step. Like really for the next step, like you will see that the people who are capable of becoming managers and and I know that we use the right now we’re using the words manage and lead.
Both of them, but they’re different. Of course. Management comes with a lot of bureaucracy and day-to-day things like day-to-day, like making sure that the things are done and operationally and performance reviews and all these kind of things as well. So like all the.
I mean stuff that comes as you become a manager. So it’s as I was saying that it’s important to to look at also the way that the person interacts with others. Like are they naturally mentoring? Are they naturally stepping in to help others?
And those leadership skills, in a way, and management skills, they show up, they show up. Another one to look for is.
EQ right. Emotional intelligence like being able to connect like Joris, you already mentioned building relationships and connecting with people and knowing how to handle situations like even even tough conversations and things like this. And yes, some things like you can’t until you put someone.
Into the position like you, you don’t know how they’ll handle certain situations, but like you can definitely test, you can definitely test these things. And yeah, so I this is, I think this is the biggest thing I wanted to mention like because like you already covered the other parts. So this is the biggest thing that I want to mention that naturally you will see.
These people already stepping up and helping without even being asked, without even saying, oh, let me try this without asking for permission. Naturally they will step up.

Jores Minasvand   13:03
Productivity.

Anna Angelova   13:05
Yeah, yeah.

Jores Minasvand   13:05
Product. Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned about the some of the tasks of a manager, it’s admin PPRS and time sheets and all that. To me, that’s 10%.
90% of the time a manager should engage with their team.
And learn how to, and I say this word, you hear me all the time, enable.
People, because if you’re a manager and you are assigning tasks right, you can manage up to maybe 1020 people before you’re you’re working 100 hours a week. But if you enable people to manage themselves.
Then you can grow to managing 60 to 100 people without even 50% effort a day. So part of what you need to understand your team is our data type that you can enable.
And there is a way to do it. Again, trial and error, trust them, pull them back, jump in when needed. Even now, I jump in twice a week, at least three times a week. One of my best leads that manages 40 of my people. He needs help. I jump in.
I step in.
But the rest of it, what I also trust him is with knowing when to ask for help and not going and **** the bed and then come back and for me to clean up. He knows when to ask for help.
That’s also so when you say enabled, you enable your people to manage themselves, to do their own tasks, manage others and ask for help, work, life, balance, passion, what? So that’s part of the enablement.
And like I said, there are good managers who do this. There are managers who don’t even understand what the meaning of these words are or haven’t haven’t ever heard of it.
So enablement, enable because if you enable other people, the more people you enable, the less you have to do. That means you can go get more business as a leader or a manager as a small business owner.
Or as a manager, and the more you get, the more you can delegate. And it’s just such a positive cycle, right? But if you’re stuck with people you cannot trust.
Then you chose wrong and and they’re not easy to find, by the way. A lot of people, especially these days, they just want to say, they just, they want to say, tell you what to do, I’ll go do it and then I want to go home at 5:00.
I don’t want to take responsibility. I don’t want to, you know, be part of this, but some of them.

Anna Angelova   15:48
I want to take.

Jores Minasvand   15:55
So yeah, I think enablement is the most important part.

Anna Angelova   16:00
Oh yeah, absolutely agree that it’s not easy to find these people and chances are that you might not have anyone in your team who is ready and that’s why you will go out and and hire someone to to fill that position to become the manager.
And fortunate, unfortunate this is this is how things work. I did want to mention something as you were talking about enablement and all these things as well that one of the other things is we usually even even when you go through some of the management program.
Even if you go through this, like some of the trainings and programs, traditional programs are also probably outdated I would say. But The thing is that one of the 90% of people don’t don’t get any kind of training on on how to be managers, on how to be leaders.
So this is a big thing like as you were saying it like one of the things once you identify someone who is actually ready or who looks like that this person is ready, one of the best things you can do is invest in them, invest in them and and help them step up to that this new level with more confidence, with with more skills and knowledge.
And there are a lot of ways you can invest in them, including coaching, including coaching. And our Leadership Empower 360 leadership coaching is actually a great option.
For you as a business owner, but also people who are stepping up to be more managers in your team as well, because it covers quite a few things like we already mentioned productivity, it covers relationships, emotional intelligence.
It covers a lot of things, critical problem solving, critical thinking, all these kind of things. So definitely take a look at it, check it out for yourself or for the person you are thinking of promoting and if not ours, the coaching and solution like there are other.
Programs that help people become managers and I would highly recommend investing in yourself first, actually, and invest in your in your people as well. Because without growth, like without us becoming, someone might be ready for a manager, but.
Chances are that this person is already doing a lot of self development on their own. Chances are that he or she is already reading the books, listening to podcasts, taking courses on on her or her own time. So really think about.
You as a business owner, how can you enable this? I love the word enable, by the way, Joris, like it’s such a powerful word. So once you find someone, give them a chance, train them, train them, mentor them, coach them, you as as the leader, as the business owner, as there are many.
Manager ultimately and getting outside help as well. It works and and is really valuable and can do wonders for someone who already has the skills like the seeds are already there, already there. It’s just about watering it and and letting it bloom.
What?

Jores Minasvand   19:25
I agree get outside help, but 99% of the management courses out there are to are the reason that 99% of the managers out there are not true managers because all they do are oh, you have to play group activity games and show me.
Your name or tell me what’s your some so much important for you. It’s like literally source of aneurysm for me when I hear these things in some of our meetings. I think the best thing that you mentioned was get coaching.
Get advice on how to do these things. These courses are absolute corporate waste of money. Corporations. For corporations, it’s tax deductibles. They don’t care. They pay these companies to come in and do this ridiculous. I’ve had these in the 90s, early 2000s.
Early 2010 and there’s still the same ridiculous BS that are that are. So I I suggest, I would suggest, unless you really know like word of mouth, these courses are good or you’ve taken them. And if you really want to send your team for coaching, go take it yourself first.
Like at least the first one, see what the value is, but absolutely get help, get coaching, get advice. Coaching I think is is amazing because it’s one-on-one, it’s to the point and it’s catered to you.
Fantastic session, Anna. I love it.

Anna Angelova   20:57
Oh, you shared so much, Joris. And yeah, so ultimately, yes, chances are that no one in your team is there and unfortunately a lot of people are not. But then who knows, you might see people in your as you’re listening to us today, you might be like, oh, wait a minute, I’m thinking.
Of one person or another person. All right, so monitor them, see what’s going on. And the other thing that I wanted to mention before, the last thing I wanted to mention before we wrap things up is ultimately ask them. This is like the simplest thing. Sometimes we forget about the simplest thing and the simplest thing is.
Like ask them, have a conversation. I see you take responsibility. I see you how well you’re doing. I see you connecting well with others. Are you up for becoming a manager? No, no, like no pressure. No, it’s mandatory. You can still grow with the company like you can if you decide to stay in this position.
Like, you’re great at what you do. Fantastic. But just ask them. This is one of the simplest things, because there might be people who will be like, Oh yes, I would love to. And there might be people who are like, not really. I don’t feel like it. Like it’s not. It’s not like, I love what I’m doing. I don’t. Management is not for me.
I don’t want to manage people. And like from the MBA program, actually, like one of my classmates, she she doesn’t want to get into management. She doesn’t want to manage people. So one of the simplest things we forget sometimes is just to ask.

Jores Minasvand   22:35
100% love it. Thank you, Anna.

Anna Angelova   22:38
Well, thanks, Joris. So yeah, this is it for today. And I’m actually curious if you do see some of these signs in someone in your team, share like share what signs you see like why? And if you have actually promoted someone and it has been successful, what else did you notice? Like maybe, maybe there’s something that we didn’t cover today?
Say in the 20 minutes, 25 minutes we’ve been talking, so share it in the comments. Let let others see what else is out there, what they can look for when they assess where some whether someone is ready for management position.
And tomorrow, if you are, especially if you’re starting your business or starting something new in your business where you’re wondering whether to have a fixed package price or to have custom pricing, tomorrow is the episode for you. So come back, join us tomorrow, Thursday.

Jores Minasvand   23:46
I mean.