Jim Carlough is the author of "Six Pillars of Effective Leadership" Part 1

Many companies and departments don’t get maximum effectiveness and efficiency from their staffs because managers don’t address the issue of how people with diverse work styles and perspectives will mesh with each other. Knowing how to approach the issues of different – and in some cases, conflicting -- work styles allows a manager to understand how best to optimize staff working together as a team

Every manager faces the problem of underperforming staff members from time to time. In a recent episode, we discussed how low employee engagement can lead to low staff performance. In their studies of employee engagement, the Gallup Organization found that it was a major cause of low performance and that full employee engagement was declining to the point that only 31% -- fewer than one in three employees -- were currently fully engaged in their occupations. This is important to managers because Gallup also found that 70% of employee engagement was determined solely by the team manager. In this episode, we’ll examine some of the causes of underperformance and disengagement, and talk about the steps you can take to manage both.

The first step in hiring the best candidate for a job is the screening process. This begins with a review of the resumes of interested candidates -- either by the HR Department and/or by the hiring manager. This process removes from consideration candidates who clearly do not meet the requirements for the position, based on their resume. This is followed by a "screening conversation" between remaining candidates and the hiring manager to further reduce the number of applicants to only those worth serious consideration.

Preparation for hiring top talent has to begin even before there is an opening to fill.

Many times new, and, even experienced managers, are overly focused on how much work is being done rather than what their team actually achieves. This can sometimes get you wrapped up in some of the wrong directions. A better approach is to focus on what is actually accomplished. This requires establishing a performance-based climate that is based on strong team commitment. We’ll discuss how to do this in this episode.

Once a decision’s made on the candidate that you want to hire, it now falls to you, the hiring manager, to close the deal. Since this involves a number of skills and abilities this’ll be a challenging time for any manager, especially with candidates who may have other offers. Among the skills needed, are the need to be totally prepared, a strong people orientation, knowing how to negotiate, and the ability to resolve conflicts. And then, understanding that the recruiting process is not complete until the new hire is at work.

Dealing with intelligent but aggressive staff members, sometimes given the label “alpha” for “leader of the pack” is one of the challenges a manager often faces. On the one hand, they can provide leadership and productivity for your team but on the other hand, they can be hard to manage and disruptive to building collegial staff relationships. In this episode, we’ll discuss ways of dealing with these staff members.