Scott Clark explains how trust, feedback and self-awareness help the best managers stand apart.
Some managers seem able to earn trust quickly, build stronger teams and bring people with them through periods of change. Others may have similar technical knowledge and experience but struggle to create the same relationships or results.
The difference is often found in the way a manager listens, invites feedback and reflects on their own performance. It also lies in recognising that authority alone will not secure the loyalty and respect of the people around them.
Scott Clark has spent more than 30 years in the golf industry and around 27 years in general management. Now Managing Director at Woking Golf Club, he has led a wide range of commercial and private members’ clubs, managed multi-facility operations and served as a mentor to other managers.
He has also helped shape the Advanced Management Programme, giving him a close understanding of the skills managers need as their responsibilities grow.
Ahead of the relaunch of the Advanced Management Programme Leadership Award, Leading and Managing People, Scott considers what separates the most effective managers from the rest.
Learning from the people around you
Scott’s own introduction to management was unusually abrupt. Having begun his career as a PGA Professional and moved into golf operations, he was offered the chance to manage his first club at the age of 25.
“I was literally thrown the keys,” he said. “Within 24 hours, I went from being a golf professional to a general manager.
“I didn’t have a mentor, so I had to learn on the floor. I worked alongside a lot of my department heads to understand the mechanics of what they did, how they did it, the challenges they faced and how they got around them.
“That has equipped me over the years to be able to talk at a level with those department heads because I’ve done it. I know the ins and outs and I know the pitfalls.”
Scott subsequently spent the best part of 18 years working for a commercial operator, managing sites that combined golf courses with facilities including hotels, health and fitness operations and driving ranges. He later moved into private members’ clubs to add experience of a different form of governance.
“That was probably the biggest string to my bow that was missing,” he said. “I wanted to understand the governance piece, working with boards of directors and understanding the philosophies and nuances of working with a board, as opposed to answering to a chief operating officer or chief executive in a commercial operation.
“I would say my experience is wide. I have been in club operations for more than 30 years, so there is probably not a lot I haven’t experienced along the way.”
The absence of a mentor during his early career has informed Scott’s own approach to supporting other managers. He does not see mentoring as an opportunity to prescribe answers.
“The trick to being a mentor is not to provide people with all the answers yourself,” he said. “It is to help them find the answers for themselves.
“You can’t template talent. There isn’t a template as such. You can identify different traits in different individuals through their ambition, the way they are with members, how they handle themselves and how they manage other people.”
Scott believes empathy and the ability to understand individuals can elevate a manager’s performance.
“It is about being able to manage people individually by understanding their strengths and weaknesses, how they like to be managed and what they react best to,” he said.
Trust has to be earned
Managers stepping into a new position may be keen to establish their authority and secure the immediate confidence of those around them. Scott believes trust and respect develop through a manager’s actions over time.
“Every club I have ever walked into, I have approached in exactly the same way,” he said. “You can’t command trust and respect; you have to earn it. That comes over a period of time.
“A good general manager is judged on the team around them because they are only as successful as the team they have behind them.
“From a leadership perspective, it is not a case of dragging people in the right direction. It is standing with them on the line and nurturing them in the right direction.”
That requires employees to understand the club’s plans and see themselves as part of delivering them.
“It has to be our direction, rather than my direction of travel,” Scott said. “The team then buys into the ethos much more.
“I have always tried to earn the loyalty, respect and trust of the team by providing them with the vision, helping them understand what that vision is, how we are going to deliver it and ensuring we achieve it collectively.”
Communication must then extend across the operation, allowing employees to understand how their work affects colleagues in other departments.
“Your communication channels in the club have to be wide open, so everybody knows what everybody else is doing,” he said.
“Everybody should be aware of other people’s responsibilities and the impact they have on another individual within the business.
“There isn’t any secret to success, but a general manager is only as successful as the team they have invested in behind them.”
Creating an environment for feedback
Managers are accustomed to assessing the performance of employees, but their own effectiveness may depend on whether people feel able to offer feedback in return.
Scott believes a manager must establish an environment in which employees can question a decision without fearing a defensive response.
“If somebody disagrees with something, you want them to feel they can come to you and say, ‘Scott, I disagree with that decision,’ and then you can have a healthy discussion,” he said.
“You can ask why they disagree, explain the reasons why you made the decision and look at what might come from doing it one way or another.
“Half of it is listening. If you listen to people in the early stages, they then feel they can approach you properly. If you are in a more dictatorial or regimented environment, people will not open up.”
Inviting opinions does not remove the manager’s responsibility to reach a decision. It gives them more information on which to base it.
“There are key decisions I will make, but I will either go to an individual and ask, ‘What do you think about this?’ or sit with the team and say, ‘This is the situation. What are your thoughts?'” Scott said.
“I will gather those thoughts and then make an informed decision rather than a rash one.
“It is about creating an environment where you are inviting people to provide their opinion and they feel comfortable enough to say they disagree.
“If you don’t create that environment, everyone clams up. You get a separation where the team aren’t following the general manager and the general manager is isolated on their own.”
Owning uncomfortable feedback
The value of feedback may become particularly clear when it exposes a difference between a manager’s intentions and the way their behaviour is perceived by others.
Scott said the first step in that situation is to accept what has been raised and examine how it has arisen.
“You have to own it, and then you have to look at how you got yourself into that situation,” he said. “It is important to spend time self-reflecting.
“Could I have handled a situation differently? Did I ask the right questions? If a situation does not go how you hoped it would, you need to consider what you could have done differently.”
Receiving unexpected criticism may also require a manager to display a degree of vulnerability.
“If your team are giving you feedback that comes from left field, you have to take stock and address it very openly,” Scott said.
“Sometimes, as managers, we have to be vulnerable. We have to ask questions such as, ‘Are you getting what you need?’ or, ‘Do you think that was the right decision?’
“You have to be careful because you don’t want to undermine yourself, but there are points where you have to be vulnerable and take on board the feedback you are getting.”
Rather than dismissing a challenging comment, Scott would seek to understand the reasoning behind it.
“If a staff member said, ‘I think you handled that really badly,’ I would sit down with them and say, ‘Talk me through that. Where do you feel it went wrong? How could it have gone better?'” he said.
“I would probably also speak to my Operations Manager and say, ‘I’ve had this feedback. What is the general consensus here? What are people feeling?’
“It might be that you don’t invite opinion or you are not asking for people’s feedback. I would have to take that on board because, if you haven’t got your team, you’re not going anywhere.”
Get involved…
The GCMA has refreshed the Advanced Management Programme Leadership Award – introducing an updated programme providing Golf Club Managers with a high-quality immersive learning and personal development experience.
Designed and delivered by specialist training provider Progrezo, the three-day residential programme brought together under the Leading and Managing People banner sees delegates examine a range of topics including leadership styles, performance management, coaching and feedback, emotional intelligence, difficult conversations and stakeholder influence, while also developing a personalised plan for professional growth.
The next course is hosted at Moor Park Golf Club, from October 6 to 8. Click here to learn more or download the full Leading and Managing People brochure.
