Competencies of a Good Manager in Comparison with My Personal Learning Process of these Competencies - Essay Example

?Effective Manager An effective manager who is able to provide strong leadership is critical for any organization to be successful and to progress towards the mission. Even though the role of manager has changed considerably with rapid changes in the buisness environment, an effective manager is someone who proves to be a good leader and not just a good boss (Jago, 1982). An effective manager has a number of traits that one aspires to achieve over a period. This paper is a reflective report on the competencies of a good manager in comparison with my personal learning process of these competencies. An effective manager is a good team builder and strives to get all the members of the team on the same page (Bass and Avolio 1993). As this competency to negotiate and motivate people is a very key attribute in a manager (Fowler, 2000), I have been working hard to contribute as a team player and to get everyone to work as one cohesive unit. For this, I have been volunteering to take up different opportunities that help me enhance my skills to build a strong team such as leading a group of people to accomplish a given task. This has taught me how to motivate the team to function in one particular direction. According to Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe (2003), flexibility is an attribute that an effective manger must possess. In the past, I have noticed that I am often rigid when it comes to getting my plans executed. I look at it as a challenge and I have been working on this aspect. I have tried to expand my horizon to look at broader situations where flexibility is required rather than just focussing on my core role. This has helped me improve my flexibility and has helped me understand how it is crucial for managers to demonstrate flexibility while leading a team. As per the research done by Antonioni, D. (1994), an efficient manager should be able to resolve conflicts in the working scenario. Conflict management comes in very useful in a competitive environment where the pressure to perform to the optimum is high. It takes high emotional quotient by the managers to remain in authority and yet resolve issues amicabily (Goleman, 1999). During many situations, I have faced the challenge of conflict management among peers and I found the process very tough because there are many aspects that need to be focussed upon while managing a conflicting scenario. For example, I found it difficult to resolve the situation because two candidates felt equally passionate about one particular task. Even though I awarded the task to the one who was more equipped to handle the responsibility, I found it challenging to convince the other employee as to why the task was not assigned to him. To learn the art of conflict management, I have been observing the scenarios in which managers have been resolving conflict effectively keeping the interest of the entire team as well as the mission and objective in mind. Davis et al (1989) state that an effective manager should be able to efficiently manage self and others. For example, good managers always have the goal or objective in front of them and work towards the goal effectively keeping the development of the team as well as their own development in mind (Honey, 2004). During the past, I have exclusively focussed on my core job and hence, expanding my vision to look at the development of the team was not a priority. After understanding that it is very important in the managerial domain, I have tried to align my priorities with the mission of the team so that I am better able to improve my work along with the rest of the team. This has helped me understand a lot about the various nuances of how encouragement and motivation proves to be critical in a team environment. I have observed how managers are able to take active interest in the development of others while keeping the mission in mind. They do it by developing a deep understanding of the psychology and thought process of the individuals and how that would fit in with the common goal. I have also tried to improve my understanding of how I would be able to contribute to my peers. An effective manager always has the competency to anticipate and has good foresight (Kinder and Robertson, 1994). I have seen in numerous occasions that good managers are able to anticipate the changing goals and priorities in a dynamic environment. I have found it challenging to cope up with understanding how to develop a foresight and prepare myself and the team for any events that may occur in the near future. From the observation that I made, I noticed that mangers have a keen understanding of the industry in which they work in and hence, they anticipate the trends in the industry as well as the organization to plan effectively for future. With this understanding, I too have tried to find out the ways in which the industry is trending and the direction of the organization. Prioritizing the responsibilities in the right manner is essential to make sure that all the responsibilities are dealt with at the right time in the right manner (Bums, 1978). A successful manager has the necessary skills of prioritization and displays a good understanding about the most critical tasks that need to be finished keeping in mind the objective and the mission. I have found prioritization to be a challenge because in many situations I have found it difficult to multi-task effectively. The tough part for me was to analyze which work is more important and which needs to be prioritized. To overcome this challenge, I have started looking at my list of tasks from a broader perspective to get a good understanding of what is the most important thing to be accomplished at that particular moment. Hence, I have been able to improve my prioritization skills. A manger that is well appreciated for his or her management skill is always able to build trust and respect (Grayson, & Baldwin 2007). My observation has proven to me that they achieve this by listening with a open mind, by not being judgemental, by keeping the commitment they made, communicating effectively and by striving to remove any possible obstacles from the path of their team. Having been good at listening without any bias, I have also been able to earn respect from my peers as they look up to me for genuine suggestions. This is one competency that I have which will help me on my way to become an effective manager. I have also understood that it is not easy to earn respect as a slight unpleasant incident can make the employees judgemental as well as biased. According to Northouse, (2007) , effective communication is one of the key requisites to make a great manager. The level of communication should be excellent in both oral as well as written domains. The manager should be able to convey the ideas in a very clear, concise and persuasive. I have been very good at communication but I noticed that management related communication requires a special skill because the manager has to communicate effectively to a wide variety of individuals and groups. For each of them, he or she has a separate style of communication to relate to them in the most efficient manner. What I found out through my observation is that it comes through a deep understanding of the psychology of the set of employees (Mischel, 1968). Hence, a great manger should also be able to gauge the thought process of the set of employees that he or she is handling to communicate with them in the most effective manner. Resource allocation is another aspect that brings out the effectiveness of a particular manager (Criswell & Campbell 2008). I have often observed that in some functions, employees are over worked and some others are underutilized. This gives rise to an imbalance. A good manager is always able to allocate the resources in the most efficient manner to ensure that there is a right balance among the employees. In the modern scenario, the pressure is high to show more results with limited resources at hand. In order to fulfil this tough task, the manager has to ensure that the workload is handled well by managing different aspects such as personnel or employees, materials, equipments, trainings and so on. During some scenarios in the past, I have found myself to be struggling with resource allocation because of the inability to prioritize well as well as to channelize the resources effectively. To improve this competency, I have worked hard to figure out different types of models that would help in the best possible resource allocation. Instead of random method, I have tried to put reasoning and logic when I have to perform resource allocation for smaller tasks within the team. Overall, in my opinion, I have learnt considerably from observing the way in which the work environment is structured and how managers operate in high-pressure scenarios. My understanding of the management concept along with the observation has helped me understand the various competencies that are essential in defining a great manager. References Antonioni, D. (1994). Managerial roles for effective team leadership. Supervisory Management, 39(5), 3. Alimo-Metcalfe, B. and Alban-Metcalfe, J. (2003) Under the influence, People Management, March 6th, 32-35 Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B. J. (1993) Transformational leadership and organisational culture, Public Administration Quarterly, 17, 112-122 Bums, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row. Criswell, Corey & Campbell, David. (2008) Building an Authentic Leadership Image. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership. Davis, B. L., Hellervik, L. W., & Sheard, J. L. (Eds.). (1989). Successful manager’s handbook. Minneapolis, MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc. Fowler, A. (2000). Negotiating, Persuading and Influencing. India: Orient Longman Goleman, D. (1999). Working With Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Honey, P.(2004). Improve your People Skills. India: Vmp Publishers and Distributors Grayson, C. and Baldwin, D. (2007) Leadership Networking: Connect, Collaborate, Create. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership. Jago, A. G. (1982). Leadership: Perspectives in theory and research. 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