How to be the Best Manager, Trainer and Coach to Your Employees: Tips from

Well, maybe not directly from Whoopi Gold­berg, but from her char­ac­ter Sis­ter Mary Clarence in the film “Sis­ter Act.” I recently saw this movie on tele­vi­sion; and, hav­ing never seen it pre­vi­ously (it came out in the­aters in 1992), was delighted to find it ended up being sur­pris­ingly enter­tain­ing and inspir­ing. I was most inspired by a scene where Whoopi’s char­ac­ter, a woman sent into wit­ness pro­tec­tion and placed in a con­vent in dis­guise as a nun, ends up direct­ing the con­vent choir. Her lead­er­ship is mas­ter­ful, respect­ful, thought­ful and coura­geous. All char­ac­ter­is­tics we all hope our man­agers have; all char­ac­ter­is­tics we should want to reflect in our own man­age­ment style. Here is how Sis­ter Mary Clarence brings a dis­or­ga­nized, off-pitch choir together to become a vic­to­ri­ous, extra­or­di­nary chorale team:

She Han­dles Her New Man­ager Sta­tus with Style and Integrity

First, Sis­ter Mary Clarence walks to the podium ten­ta­tively, but sum­mons the con­fi­dence and tells her­self: “I can do this.” And instead of mak­ing excuses, or giv­ing a speech about her back­ground, she dives right in. In tak­ing over, Sis­ter Mary Clarence can sense some resent­ment from the pre­vi­ous choir direc­tor, Sis­ter Mary Lazarus. With­out push­ing her aside, Mary Clarence as the new leader incor­po­rates what Mary Lazarus already taught the group. She first pays a com­pli­ment: “You’re some­body who’s into hard work and dis­ci­pline, right?” By iden­ti­fy­ing with Mary Lazarus and talk­ing to her with respect and regard instead of putting out a neg­a­tive, ego­cen­tric vibe, the two choir lead­ers work together and agree that choir prac­tice should be daily if they were going to suc­ceed. Ask­ing oth­ers for their input is always a great way to moti­vate team members.

She Arranges the Team by Capabilities/Departments

Mary Clarence starts work­ing by get­ting the choir to group together by their voice range: basses, altos, and sopra­nos. Next, she instructed the choir, now in their new spots, to work together in their ranges and sing a note together. Instead of search­ing for the best singers, or hold­ing an audi­tion, Sis­ter Mary Clarence takes her team for what it is and assesses what she has to work with. No one is going to be sin­gled out for her excep­tional skill, and no one is going to be kicked out for not being very good. She is going to help them work together.

She Inspires Indi­vid­ual Contribution

With the newly assem­bled choir, Sis­ter Mary Clarence now has to work with a few flaws. Before doing so, she gives the choir gals kudos for their first attempt and then, with kind­ness and patience, reaches out to the singers who need a bit of assis­tance. She uses pos­i­tive rein­force­ment and pos­i­tive lan­guage to ask for adjustments.

She Reviews the Team’s Cur­rent Skill Level… as a Team

Another chal­lenge for Sis­ter Mary Clarence was the piano player, who has a lit­tle bit of a hear­ing prob­lem. Instead of tak­ing over for the piano player, or express­ing frus­tra­tion for hav­ing to ask twice to begin, Sis­ter Mary Clarence fig­ures out how to com­mu­ni­cate with the pianist and finds a way to use humor to encour­age her. She says, “You must lis­ten to each other, if you’re going to be a group.” That quote can be applied to any team in any envi­ron­ment, from a cus­tomer ser­vice call cen­ter to a C-level man­age­ment team. It doesn’t just take work­ing together; it takes lis­ten­ing, inter­act­ing, and engag­ing with fel­low employ­ees to be a suc­cess­ful team.

She Encour­ages Practice

Sis­ter Mary Clarence knew that the choir must prac­tice if they want to improve. Teams that prac­tice the work they’ve learned can only improve. And with all that prac­tice, at their first offi­cial per­for­mance dur­ing Mass the next Sun­day, Sis­ter Mary Clarence encour­ages smiles, con­fi­dence, and team­work. What comes out is an inspir­ing piece of music that brought peo­ple in the church who heard the singing from the streets. Great man­age­ment leads to great team­work. Great team­work leads to great suc­cess and a great following.

Get Inspired by the Most Sur­pris­ing Lead­er­ship Exam­ple: a Nun in Disguise

You can watch this inspir­ing scene here. While the video is a lengthy 13 ½ min­utes, if you skip to 3:33 you will see the man­age­ment lead­er­ship take action. (Stay for the entire video, though, because it is fun and full of energy!)