Good management can be the difference between a company outperforming competitors and failing. So what differentiates the good from the best?

1. Create the right environment: Be sure to be a leader and not just an authority that gives orders. You want to encourage a leadership environment where employees will step up, make decisions, and take action in the absence of orders.

2. Everyone should feel safe: Trust and loyalty are extremely important to any team. Staying calm under pressure, having good communication, and providing necessary resources for your employees will make them comfortable and able to perform their jobs.

3. Actively manage through change: Change in business is inevitable, so it is important to know how to handle it. Employees need to know what is changing and why it is important. Each individual employee must be aware of how this will affect their role specifically. Be sure to over-communicate in times of change and get as much feedback as possible on what is (or isn’t) working.

4.Embrace servant leadership: Don’t ask your employees to do anything you haven’t already done, or aren’t willing to do yourself. Although being the leader means you cannot always be working side by side with your employees, it’s important to do so now and then.

5. Let your team take the wheel: Give employees an opportunity to demonstrate their individual skills. If you have someone who is great with statistics, let them lead a meeting on performance metrics. This will allow each person on the team to have their own identity within the team.