The profile of an effective manager
The manager
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.
1. Manager’s job
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.
Figure 1: Management Functions
[pic]
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.
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]:
. Conceptual skills: the ability to analyse complex situations and to
provide the necessary knowledge to facilitate the decision-making.
. Interpersonal skill: as a manager you should be able to direct others,
so motivation, communication and delegation skills are absolutely
needed.
. Technical skills: the ability to apply specialized knowledge or
expertise
. Political skills: the ability to build the right relationships with
the right persons. Those connections result in higher chances of
getting additional resources and power.
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:
. Controlling the organization’s environment and its resources
. Organizing and coordinating
. Handling information
. Providing for growth and development
. Motivating employees and handling conflicts
. Strategic problem solving
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.
1. The main characteristics of the effective manager
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:
. Decision making skills
. Conflict Management skills
. Flexibility and creativity
. Developing of managerial knowledge and manager’s teaching role
. Motivation of employees
. Communication skills
. Developing trust inside the organization
We will give a description of each characteristic including some important
theories.
1. Decision Making Skills
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
[pic]
The point of rational approach is that manager should try to use systematic
procedures to arrive at good decisions. Actually in practice, there are
