The Profile of Effective Manager. Дипломная (ВКР). Английский.
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Managers work in an organization. Therefore, before we can identify
who managers are, it is important to clarify the term organization. Robbins
S.P. (1991) defines an organization as: “a systematic arrangement of people to
accomplish some specific purpose”. We can divide organizational members into
two categories [1] :
operatives or managers. Managers differ from operatives, by the fact that they
direct the activities of others.
There are two big classifications of managers [2] : the horizontal classification
only looks at the responsibilities. We can distinguish the functional manager
and the general manager. The functional manager is responsible for a whole of
similar activities, for example, financial director, commercial director… While
the general manager is responsible for different functional areas, he is often
concentrated on one business activity and acts as a product manager or a
division manager. In the vertical classification, we need to differentiate
first-line managers, middle managers, and top managers. The difference between
these three groups is based on the statute of subordinates.
Furthermore, we should pay attention to the difference between a
successful and an effective manager. As Luthans F. (1988) proved, a successful
manager is not necessary an effective manager. The former is a manager, who has
been promoted relatively quickly, while the latter has satisfied, committed
subordinates and high performing units. In general, we could say that an
effective manager is one who attains the organizational goals.
It was Henry Fayol, in the early part of this century, who was the
first to give a global view about the job of manager. He observed that managers
performed 5 management functions: they plan, organize, command, coordinate and
control. In the mid-1950s, these management functions were reduced to the basic
four known as the management process.
Figure 1 shows that the tasks of a manager consists of planning,
organizing, leading and controlling.
Source: Management , By:
Robbins, S.P., 1991, , Prentice-Hall, Inc, p. 4
The planning component encompasses defining the goals, establishing
appropriate strategies, and developing different plans to coordinate the
activities. Furthermore, managers are responsible for designing an
organization’s structure, which clarifies what must be done and by whom. As the
job of manager implies directing activities of others, the leading function is very
important. It consists of motivating subordinates, resolving conflicts and
selecting effective communication channels. Eventually, a manager has a
controlling function. He has to ensure that the assumed goals will be achieved.
Therefore the manager has to monitor the different activities. Also keep in
mind that an effective manager must be able to perform all four activities
simultaneously.
Only recently has this classical view of managers been challenged
based on the observations of five CEO’s. Mintzberg H. (1971) concluded that
the manager’s job consisted of many brief and disjointed episodes with people
inside and outside the organization. In addition to these insights, Mintzberg
provided a categorization scheme for defining what managers do based on actual
managers on the job. Mintzberg shows that managers play different but highly
interrelated roles [3] .
Formal authority gives rise to the three interpersonal roles
(figurehead, leader, and liaison), which in turn gives rise to the three
informational roles (monitor, disseminator, spokesman). These two sets of roles
enable the manager to play the four decisional roles. We should also mention
that the importance of managerial roles varies depending on the manager’s level
in the organization.
Another best known modern view of managerial work is provided by
John Kotter which is based on his observatory [4]
of 15 successful general managers. Kotter stated that managers spend most of
their time interacting with others and concluded that managers spent
considerable time in meetings getting and giving information. By obtaining
relevant and needed information from his network, the effective manager is able
to implement his or her agenda.
1.2.
Critical skills related to managerial
competence
In the ‘70s, researcher Robert Katz tried to find an answer to the
question: What are the critical skills that are related to managerial
competence? He discovered that managers should possess 4 critical management
skills. Those skills can be categorized in two big groups [5] : general skills and specific
skills. There seems to be overall agreement that effective managers must be
proficient in four general skills areas [6] :
The proportions in which those skills are necessary vary with the
manager’s level in the organization. Conceptual skills become more and more
important as we grow in the hierarchy of the organization, while technical
skills become less important. Interpersonal skills are necessary on every
level, because a manager always works with people.
Research has also identified six sets of specific skills that
explain 50% of manager effectiveness:
In ‘The General Managers” (1983), John Kotter, concluded that
effective managers have strong specialised interest, skills, knowledge and
relationships. These specialised personal assets allow them to behave in ways
that fit the demands of their specific situations. Such specialization seems to
have been central to their ability to cope with the often huge demands placed
upon them by their jobs.
The many personal characteristics that helped contribute to good
performance were developed over the entire period of the manager’s life. In
terms of basic personality we can observe [7] :
·
Needs/motives: like power, need for achievement,
very ambitious
·
Temperament: emotionally stable and even,
optimistic
·
Cognitive orientation: above average
intelligence, moderately strong analytically, strong intuitively
·
Interpersonal orientation: personable and good
at developing relationships with people, unusual set of interest that allows
them to relate easily to a broad set of business specialist.
·
Information: very good knowledge about the
business and organization
·
Relationships: cooperative relationships with a
large number of people in the organization
Kotter concluded that in the stipulation for being an effective
manager, there should be a match between the demands of the job and the
individual characteristics. So for organizations it is a challenge to put the
right man on the right place. Depending on the role a manager has to play in
an organization, we need an individual with other characteristics. For
example, Kotter found that in jobs where the relationships were more demanding
and accomplishing things more difficult, the general manager was someone with a
strong personable style, skill at developing relationships, a liking of power,
an emotionally even temperament, an ability to relate to a diverse group of
business specialist, and extensive relationships in their organization and
industry.
In the following part we will
discuss some of the main manager’s characteristics based on the theories which
were discussed in the first part of our paper. We have summarized different
visions and found out that all theories named the following important characteristics:
·
Developing of managerial knowledge and manager’s teaching role
·
Developing trust inside the organization
We will give a description of each
characteristic including some important theories.
Mangers
are at the same time the decisions makers. It is easy to make decisions, but
making the right one is difficult. What criteria should an effective manager
have upon the decision-making aspect? Let’s start with a simple review of the
decision making process.
Decision-making
is formally defined as the process of identifying and solving problems. The
process containing 2 major stages: problem identification and problem solution.
According to the rational approach, there are 8 steps for each stage: [8]
Figure 2: Decision-making process
The
point of rational approach is that manager should try to use systematic
procedures to arrive at good decisions. Actually in practice, there are many
uncertainties when applying this model to make decisions due to the following
type of information constraints imposed up people: [9]
These,
plus other factors, have given rise to the notion that rational process
indecision is bounded. Herbert Simon, in this regard, has proposed that,
“within bounded rationality, individuals and groups often base their decisions
on satisfying the search for what is good enough in the circumstances, rather
than optimizing.” [10] Often,
managers have to face vast number of information and required to make a
decision in a short time, it is impossible for him to analysis each problem and
weigh each alternatives from the limited mental capacity. [11]
Therefore there is a limit to how rational a manager can be.
Many
models are built upon the uncertainty of the solution searching steps, while in
all actuality managers are not making the decision in a vacuum. They can use
formulas or models to aid their decision making process. Therefore, it is
important for an effective manager to pay attention to the following points
when making the decisions:
The
intuitive decision-making process always plays an important role in combination
with the rational process.
Managers build up long experience with organizational issues, which provides
them with a gut feeling or hunch about the correct response. The large
organizational decisions are not only complex, but also ambiguous. In such a
situation; previous experience and judgment are needed to incorporate
intangible elements. Most of the time, without solid proof that problems exist,
the intuition will tell the managers that there is or could be a problem that
requires him to act before he is able to sit down and analyze the problem.
An
effective manager knows how to cooperate with the internal and external
resources. Of course, as
decision-makers, the manager should not become an “autocrat”. Voice from
internal will be listened, and sharing the opinions and having joint
discussions to reach the interpretation of the goals and problems accordingly
the agreement will be easier to reach and find solutions to the problem.
External comments or reactions have great impact on decisions makers. On one
hand, managers are easily misled by the hypothesis given from the external
environment and can forget to look broader and further. On the other hand,
proactively utilizing the external resource can help managers to see better and
further; therefore, objective evaluation of those opinions will be helpful to
generate wide range of the problem solving approach.
Creativity
is vital to search for more alternatives during the crisis moment. When there are few possibilities to solve
the problem, people can easily stick to the first seeming possible solution and
start to convince themselves that there is no other better ones. Therefore they
are stuck in the corner and forget to look for the other alternative. Dynamic
thinking and radioactive mentality will help the manager to look the situation
from a different view, there fore create the new approach.
An
effective manager will not only look to the short-term profit. He sees further. He must be able to
judge where the future business will be lead to from the decision made today.
Those decisions, which bring profits today but will undermine business
tomorrow, will be dropped.
The difficult decisions are
always accompanied by the ethical issues. The best solution for the
company’s profit might not be the right ones according to the laws or
regulations. On making decisions, the ethical dilemmas cannot be neglected, and
the outcomes of unethical behavior can affect reputations, trust and career
path. Results have been as severe as loss of employment, physical harm to
individuals, corporate bankruptcy and even impacts to the economy.
The scandals of 2002, including
Enron and WorldCom, resulted in regulations having created a cultural shift
particularly in financial fields that has renewed emphasis on ethical business
behavior. What distinguishes mediocre level managers from the truly effective
managerial leader is an ethical dimension. There exists different moral stages
that guide people in their everyday decision-making. Those people in the
“principled level…make a clear effort to define moral principles apart from the
authority of the groups to which they belong or society in general” [12]
Learn
from the formal fail experience is very important. Managers are apt to stumble down the
same failure-prone path over and over again without learning. Learning is
thwarted when leaders do not tolerate mistakes. In such an environment, people
conceal bad out comes. Consequently, people in the same company, or the same
person in different period will repeat the similar mistake. A good manager will
see the mistakes as an education and correct himself constantly according to
the new situations. Generally speaking, to be an effective decision maker,
managers need to work closely with their team and “integrate their faith,
values and business practices”. [13]
In the presentation we will use the case from “Nestle Company” to show why bad
decisions had been made and what the consequences are. [14]
According to Jean Miller from TIG
(Taking It Global) “Conflict is the source of all growth and is an absolute
necessity if one is to be alive.” [15]
An effective manager must be able to manage conflict and also learn from it to
help the organization to grow and be challenged. Conflict is not always negative
but can prove to have some positive outcomes as well. The effective manager
can balance this delicate relationship and works hard to handle conflict with
care.
As further stated in the article,
conflict can be viewed as something to manage or something to resolve. John
Burton, one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of conflict resolution
commented “…resolution means terminating conflict by methods that are
analytical and that get to the root of the problem.” Miller explains that
“conflict management is a multi-disciplinary, analytical, problem-solving
approach to conflict that seeks to enable participants to work collaborately
towards its management.” [16]
Conflict is not easily avoided in
any organization; therefore, an effective manager is prepared by knowing how he
will approach certain issues before they happen. There are many books and
articles written that address this topic in great detail. An effective manager
will consult these items and use his or her own judgment in taking the advice
of these publications.
According to James Cribbin, there
are three basic kinds of conflict as follows: Approach-Approach,
Avoidance-Avoidance, and Approach-Avoidance. [17]
Approach-Approach would seem to be the most straight forward type of conflict
as there are two alternatives that are equally feasible. If an employee is not
being productive in the company this affects how the manager’s boss views that
department. The manager wants to please his boss but also stay on good terms
with his employee. In each case the manager needs to approach the other person
with open communication and deal with the situation.
The last type of conflict according
to Cribbin is Approach-Avoidance. He gives a clear example of a manager put in
a situation in which he must make a decision that will affect himself and his
family. He wants to approach the situation but also avoid it completely. He
is given a great promotion in the company but must move his family from his
nice comfortable town to a large metropolis city. Cribbin has outlined the
options he has and portrays what a difficult situation this could really be:
While this is a personal conflict
for this manager, the skills a manager uses to deal with personal conflict must
be transferable to the workplace environment involving other employees as well
as superiors. If a manager knows that there are always several options in
dealing with a situation, he will be more open to choosing one that will work
for that unique conflict.
As mentioned earlier, consistency
is an important part of an effective manager and can be applied to conflict as
well. A good manager is consistent in executing rules and regulations with
his employees. He will not let close relationships with employees cloud his
judgment and rationale for making a decision. When conflict arises, the
employees will know that each person will receive the same treatment regardless
of who they are.
According to Robbins, “Consistency
can relate to an individual’s reliability, predictability, and good judgment in
handling situations. Inconsistencies between words and actions decrease
trust. Nothing is noticed more quickly… than a discrepancy between what executives
preach and what they expect their associates to practice.” People want to be
able to “predict what you are going to do.” [19]
In order for a manager to improve
their effectiveness in a conflict situation they can also use “The Five A’s of
Improving Your Personal Effectiveness” Model from Kerns. The A’s are assess,
analyze, action plan, act, and adjust – then repeat. [20]
A good manager will always assess the situation in order to gather all of the
details. Once he has all of the information, he will analyze it and develop an
action plan. After implementation of the plan, he will be able to be flexible
with that plan if something needs to be adjusted. Effective managers use the
Five A’s constantly without even realizing it. This helps a manager approach
conflict with confidence knowing there is a steady process he can rely upon.
“ Managers exist in a
state of steady uncertainly and their success rests upon constant exploration
of uncharted waters.”
President of Federated
Development Company
Today
changes in the business environment become more rapid and more complex and of
course each manager must solve more problems in a limited period of time. As Dr. Abraham Zaleznik of Harvard University mentioned: "No matter
how much you plan, when you get to the work place there are unanticipated
problems: And the added constant challenge is that most of these problems
cannot be solved effectively in old, familiar, or straightforward manners.
Hence the quality most necessary for business and career success these days,
and increasingly so in the future, is flexibility.” [21] But our group consider also
creativity to be important today. These two aspects help manager not to be lost
and not to lose in the modern business world and of course to be effective.
According to the
dictionary flexibility is “the ability to change or to be changed easily to
suit a different situation” [22] .
What factors made this aspect so important? Thirst of all the growing volumes
of information a manager should deal with. Second, environment and technologies
which changed quicker and quicker every year and the third point will be
internationalization. According to these three situations we can determine the
following characteristics of the flexible manager:
Some authors also
associated flexibility with personal openness of the manager [25] . They pointed out that if
managers are open then they can be influenced by what is happening around them
and as a result they react more flexible to all the changes around them. The
one thing is obvious that flexibility is a key feature of personal growth and
an indispensable condition for being an effective manager.
Let’s now go back
to the second aspect – creativity, and let’s see what it means: “Creativity –
producing or using new and effective ideas, results, etc” [26] . When we think about
creativity, we imagine people who are gifted, talented, and different from
others, whose ideas, decisions, and actions are situated out of the every day’s
life borders. In culture, creativity is associated with such a people like
Bach, Van Gogh, and Einstein; in business with Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple
Computers), Jack Welch (General Electric), and Anita Rodick (The Body Shop). [27] Today creativity is a way of
thinking, the way to integrate you visions and ideas into relationships and
business. This process can be presented as following:
Free association, etc.
Source: Becoming a Master Manager , By:Robert E.Qiunn,Sue
R.Faerman,Michel P. Thomson, Michael R. McGrath; USA,2003
The use of
creativity in the decision making process or in problem solving allows manager
to increase the effectiveness and encourage creative thinking among employees.
An effective manager will use creativity as a tool of motivation. When
employees are encouraged to use creativity in their problem solving and in
everyday work, they are more likely to feel unique, valued and important for
their organization [28] .
In this way a manager can not only develop effectiveness but also create a
group of like-minded employees.
For an effective
manager of the future creativity or creative thinking should become the natural
way to think. But to reach this ideal situation each manager should avoid the
following barriers:
Although it is very difficult sometimes to change the society’s
cultural barriers and to change the image of creativity, each manager should
try to overcome pragmatic influences and think individually.
2.4. Developing
of managerial knowledge and manager’s teaching role
Every manager must be sure that he or she will develop the competence
and knowledge of those they supervise. Every employee has a potential for
personal and professional development, and a good manager should discover and
develop this potential. We will start with the idea that each person wants to
know more. When a young employee comes to the company he has a lot of
theoretical knowledge, personal ideas and visions. He has read a lot of books
and articles, but he is still asking himself a lot of different questions. In
that moment he needs someone to teach him how to become successful.
When
you are a small child your parents teach you how to walk, and when you make
your first steps in your career you also need a “parent” to teach, to give
support, to empower and whatever else necessary. The effective manager is always
ready to become such a “parent”. He is always open to his employees and
colleagues, he shares his knowledge, and he inspires others with his own
experience and example. During the process of teaching he always remains
patient and supports everyone in every step of the way. And of course leaders take
the time to thank employees for a job well done.
But
teaching doesn’t mean only sharing manager’s knowledge with someone; it also
means that the manager takes a role of mentor. The
term "mentor" has been used quite often in recent years. Jacqueline
D. Heads, academic advisor for the Rutgers University College of Pharmacy in
New Jersey defines this term as the following “A true mentor motivates you and
impels you to move to the next level, mobilizes you by advising you on how to
get there, and finally, like a guide, a mentor informally monitors your
progress to make sure you are moving in the right direction," [30]
But why should we pay so much attention to teaching role of
manager or his mentoring role? The answer is obvious: teaching is a core
competency the effective manger should have. The idea of effectiveness changed
the vision of teaching and today more authors speak not only about teaching or
mentoring but about a developmental manager . [31] That means that instead of
taskmasters and evaluators, managers are most effective as coaches, motivators,
symphony conductors and employee developers” [32]
We will pay more attention to this idea.
Developing
happened not at home but mostly at the work place during the work itself or
during the special classes. That is why it will be useful for each manager to
create and to follow a development plan to avoid pointless talks and wasting of
time. The idea of “A+ employees takes A+ managers” [33] seems to our group to be a very
interesting and future oriented idea of cooperation between manager and
employees. According to this idea you should follow these rules while
developing people:
·
Appreciate
uniqueness of the people
·
Assess
capability of their team members
·
Anticipate
the future (leads others in the future)
·
Align
aspirations (create win/win partnerships built on trust and loyalty)
But
in practice the theory is always confronted with reality. One of the main
problems of teaching or developing people is that a lot of managers are afraid
of teaching other people. The main reason for such an attitude is idea, that if
you as a manager will teach someone everything you know and after that he may
become better and smarter then you, and take your place. Of course it can
happen. But then manager should turn back to his main values and decide what is
most important to him: his own career or his company’s success.
At the same time, if you are going to share your knowledge with
someone, to teach, to develop and to become a mentor you must broaden your own
knowledge. The individual becomes a manager because he
was chosen to get results and to use his knowledge, not because he won a
popularity contest. Employees are not going to listen to a person who
has no knowledge in what he is talking about or gives out false information.
People need to believe that a manager has the proper skills and abilities to
carry out what he claims to be experienced in. Only then a manager will earn a
respect and employees will become his like-minded team. How will you be able to
do this?
Some authors [34]
say that as a manager and especially as an executive manager you are
responsible for all fields of business in your company: for marketing and
sales, for finance, for information technology etc. You should understand how
things works (the IKEA-case and Kamprad’s attention to all details can
illustrate this statement) and also how employees work whose knowledge in one
particular field are deeper then yours. These are two main corner stones of
success. How to reach them? The best solution can be continuous replacing
inside organization. As a result manager receives
variety of experiences and knowledge in different functions, business units,
companies, and even countries. The positive effect of such a “moving” results
in understanding, how the whole business operates; of the impact of managerial
decisions on the rest of the organization. Managers can also transfer best
practices to new areas while moving; he learns how to lead in a variety of
situations and he develops strong networks inside and outside the organization [35] .
Some other authors [36] , especially from
the business world, used to think that an effective manager must not be
satisfied with his education degree and training, but must always be ready to
catch advanced education opportunities. The advanced degree is MBA-program; if
this level was reached then never avoid additional seminars, courses and
workshops. In contrast to the thirst group of authors who are speaking about
continuous replacement, these theories accept the idea of receiving deep
knowledge in one particular area.
These two approaches and also all theories about
teaching show us how important is for every manager to develop himself and his
employees. Continuous self-development, learning and teaching are the best ways
to success and effectiveness.
-
Theory X and Theory Y (D. McGregor)
These theories all depart from the thought that to motivate your
employees, you have to satisfy certain needs. Maslow’s hierarchical model, a
classical one, says that you first have to satisfy physiological needs
(i.e. hunger, thirst, …), then you have to offer them safety (from
physical and emotional harm), consequently you must satisfy them socially
(affection, acceptance, …), after that you can motivate them by
satisfying their esteem (internal as well as external), and only then, when all
the previous needs are satisfied, you can motivate them by letting your
employees actualize themselves through their work (i.e. self-fulfilment). So if
you want to motivate someone, according to Maslow, you need to understand what
level of hierarchy that person is currently on and focus on satisfying those
needs at or above that level.
Maslow’s theory has received wide recognition, but unfortunately
research does not validate the theory. A theory that contests Maslow’s theory
is Alderfer’s ERG Theory, where E stands for existence (cfr. the
physiological and safety needs), R for relatedness (cfr. the social
needs and the external component of the esteem need) and G for growth
needs (cfr. the internal esteem component and the self-actualization need).
This theory differs from Maslow’s in that (1) more than one need may be
operative at the same time and (2), if the gratification of a higher level need
is stifled, the desire to satisfy a lower-le
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