Have you ever heard that a fleet company is only as good as its manager? There’s a lot of truth in this statement—the dedication, passion, and adaptability of a fleet manager are reflected in their company’s success. Due to the critical nature of the job, you must strive to grow as a fleet manager every day.
Considering the challenging and exciting nature of your position in the company, you will come across many learning curves and opportunities to better yourself at your job. This way, you can become indispensable to your fleet company.
So, let’s take a look at some fleet management tips that you can use to thrive as a fleet manager!
Be Empathetic toward Your Employees
If you wish to thrive in your role as a fleet manager, you will need to remember that you, too, were once an employee who was being managed by someone. Putting yourself in the shoes of your employees will help you develop empathy and compassion for them. Contrary to popular belief, these traits will help you become a better, more empowered leader.
It will help you to use everything you learned as an employee in your fleet management position. Specifically remember the things that helped you grow and everything that prevented you from working harder. This will help to boost the performance of your employees. It will also help you become more approachable. Remembering your time as an employee will also enable you to use your invaluable cumulative experiences with your leader to become better at your current job.
Find New Avenues to Grow into Your Leadership Role
As a leader, you must always be on the lookout for different, inventive opportunities to grow and come into your own. Look into classes that you can take to enhance your management style or informative books that you can read to connect with your employees. Try to attend multi-faceted seminars and trade or networking events to learn from senior management.
Studying and researching will help you amass key knowledge about your industry and how established leaders continue to lead their teams to success. It will also help you broaden your horizon and come up with inventive changes to help your company grow. You can find books, seminars, and research material on different aspects of your job and learn from them to become more polished at your job.
Listen to and Engage with Your Team
If you want to grow as a fleet manager, you will have to learn to work with other people instead of becoming a lone wolf. You can’t expect to do everything on your own. After all, it takes the collaborative effort of every single employee to make a company successful.
So, engage with the fleet drivers and technicians and always encourage them to give their honest feedback on any policy that you want to implement at the company. Hold meetings and encourage open discourse. The best way to make your employees open up to you is to let them know that you want to learn from them, and with their help, you want to become a better leader.
If you are honest with your employees about being willing students when it comes to niche-related technical stuff that they are experts in, it will help you earn their respect. Show them that you want to be a part of the team and come up with new ideas and strategies with them, instead of enforcing your way all the time.
Don’t Be Afraid of Experimentation
Another vital aspect of becoming a dynamic leader is to take calculated risks for the collective benefit of your employees and company. You can’t succeed at your job if you have doubts about your capability as a leader. You need to squash all your misgivings and focus on making research-based and practical decisions for your company.
For instance, if you hear about a department in your company excelling after implementing a policy, look into it. But don’t implement it in your department blindly. Conduct thorough research to conclude if that policy is well-suited for your employees and if it even aligns with your overall agenda.
Additionally, if you are implementing an all-new strategy and it fails to deliver the results you were expecting from it, don’t give up. Learn from the failure, document everything that worked and the things that didn’t, and start anew.
Learn to Adapt to Changing Times and Technology
The fleet industry is always implementing new technology, such as electric vehicles, telematics, and environmentally friendly operations. If you wish to grow as a fleet manager, you will need to remain well-informed about every new technology on the block and how it is impacting the bottom line of the fleets that are implementing it. Keeping a keen eye on your industry’s changing landscape will help you remain one step ahead of your competition.
You must also have the willingness to adapt to the change that is coming your way. If you are too set in your ways and reluctant to make necessary changes, you will only hinder the progress of your employees and company. You will also put your job at risk because the management will see you as too stubborn and uninventive.
Lead as a Fleet Manager
When you are in a managerial position, you need to think of ways in which you can continue to add value and remain useful to your company for the long haul. You also need to keep a healthy and honest repertoire with your employees so that they feel proud and lucky to work under you.
Following these fleet management tips will not only help you to accomplish that, but will be helping improve your team as well! Lastly, if you want to grow as a fleet manager, you will have to be brave, experimental, smart, and sincere in your pursuit of a better, brighter future for yourself, your company, and your employees!
At Summit Fleet, we’re proud to support fleet managers and businesses with affordable, reliable fleet truck rentals. No matter the location, we will deliver the right trucks for the job anywhere in the United States and Canada. Contact us today to get your rate.
