Managerial Escalator - Essay Example

? Managerial Escalator is a model that indicates the development of managerial skills. Most employees begin as specialists and end developing managerial skills. There are different responsibilities that the managers have such as overseeing over certain jobs and making decisions. They as well face a number of problems such as making decisions that are not right. Managers may make an organization successful or fail according to their decisions. There are a number of questions that the authors are trying to answer. One of the major questions is concerned with the environment and nature of management. This question is put together with the concerns of the process that different people take to become managers. Individuals usually have a type of development into management known as the escalator. They may have to combine different skills in order to become hybrid managers. For instance, they may be forced to carry out managerial responsibilities with specialist employees in the management career that would perhaps lead them to become managerial hybrids. The other question that the authors are trying to look into is how different managers may become effective (David, 2001). In order for them to be successful, they need to position the priorities of the business before their private priorities. If the managers put the interest of the business after their interests, they may end up not becoming successful in their management; this is because their personal interest may not be in line with the interests of the organization. The different causes of poor management have also been identified. There are a number of factors that may lead to a manager not being successful such as having managerial concept that are not good enough. Managers need to have well researched strategies in order for them to be successful. The models used by the authors in explaining this points is through breaking down the broad topic of management into less detailed sub topics. They explore these subtopics into details in order to explain management in detail. The authors have different point of views about management. They begin by defining management as the art of making things get done through the use of other people or a way of achieving some results through other people. Some people view management as a cycle involving identification of different objectives, setting of targets, making plans, resource organization, good communication regarding information, motivation of workers, getting feedback, control and taking actions. Some researches were done by separate people who do not agree with this. This is because it was noted that managers make decisions abruptly according to the situation at hand. They mostly do not take time to strategize their decisions (David, 2001). Individuals turn into managers through a given process. The organizational structure is defined in a way that the majority of the staffs are often engaged in given activities and the managers usually oversee some specialized activities. Most of the managers have some given specialized backgrounds. During the early stages of their careers, they were at some lower levels in different departments. They may have learned some skills through training, experience or through the combination of both. Most of the managers in top positions have passed through these stages. They begin as normal workers and improve on their skills. As they improve and gain more experience, they are promoted through the different ranks until they get to the managerial position. There are a number of responsibilities accounted to managers. They play the role of planning and allocating of work. Managers plan what is to be done in an organization. They give different employees specific works to be done or allocate them into different areas of work according to the plan. They identify what is of priority to the organization so that they may be given attention first. They review and establish different working methods and ensure that they control all the activities in an organization. The managers manage all the resources in an organization as well as ensuring that they come up with a budget and that the budget is followed (Anthony, 1991). Managers ensure a smooth operation of an organization and provide a conducive working environment for all the employees. There is a conflict between managerial and specialist activities. Management takes place in particular set of circumstances but not in a vacuum and these circumstances require knowledge that is specialized. Possession of the specialized skills is an asset and is usually quite indispensable. However, the pedigree of balance between the specialist quality and the managerial quality may lead to danger during management. An individual may have acquired specialized skills that they may not be able to use. Another may have a managerial skill and may not be able to use it effectively. This means that managers should have a balance of their managerial and specialized skills (Anthony, 2001). The dilemma that faces a specialist who has been forced into management is led by the difficulty of organizations to providing progression in an alternative career. At some point, it may be possible getting around the problem through providing an opportunity for a specialist career progression. However, dual career may be limited to a certain extent in practice since it mostly proves hart to separate specialist and managerial duties. It is hard for a person to head a specialist unit without having the management skill since they may need to interpret a number of things such working methods and interpretation of results. There are certain grounds as to why some people do not turn successful in managerial their responsibilities. Some of them fail to note the basics of management in a given job. If the overall style over concentrates on specialized activities, an imbalance may end up not being recognized by others for them to offer comments or advise that is constructive. Some people also strive to get the position due to the reward that comes along with it. Since most managers are well paid compared to the other employees, some people do their best to get to that position because of the reward and not for the interest of the organization (Timothy, 2001). There are different assumptions that are being made in the reasoning of the authors. The authors did not examine a large number of managers. The results and outcomes of the research were given from a number of managers. The authors assume that this applies to all the managers is such positions which is not so. Some managers may posses different qualities compared to those given by the authors. They also used managers from a given country. They would have done their research on most of the parts in the world in order to get the view of most of the managers. This would give a more detailed research and outcome to make conclusions. The most fundamental conclusions include the relationship of specialized and management skills and the reasons for the failure of most managers. The authors have given the conclusion that it is better a manager who has both the managerial and specialized skills rather than one who possesses only one of the skills since their chances of being successful are increased. Most managers are not successful since they do not have the skills required to make most of the interpretations and others strive to get to that position because of the enumerations. These are the major causes of failure of managers. The managerial escalator is a concept that seeks to get an explanation of how specialists develop into managers. At the start, a specialist can get a fulltime job on one of the specialist departments. This is usually after a training that is professional such as the training of an engineer or an accountant. This person may acquire supervisory responsibilities as he or she is working. An example of this could be helping some of the customers who are new with their responsibilities (Timothy, 2001). After some time of doing this job, this may lead to the employee getting promoted into higher levels of the organization. Such promotions may involve elements of management responsibilities. An employee such as an accountant may be promoted to serve as a sales manager or a sales person. Being a team leader may lead to them acquiring some managerial responsibilities even though they may be occupying a junior position in the organization. It might lead to a more formal promotion in the organization or even outside that organization. This may be due to a certain development of the managerial skills which may lead to a more formal managerial responsibility. Such people may acquire a lot of managerial qualities and may end up becoming completely on a managerial side of the axis. Even though the specialists train to get certain jobs, the experience they get from their working place may transform them. The transformation may be gradual and the person may not notice but after sometime it will be noticed. The managerial characteristics may be improved over time and the longer one is involved with more work the more they tend to develop these managerial skills (Timothy, 2001). The first manager I interviewed was the manager of a company known as Back Bags Company. This is a business that deals with the production and distribution of bags, both for ladies and men. The manager of this company trained as an accountant. He graduated with an accountant degree and got a job as an accountant in a sales company. He worked for that company for a period of eight years. During this period, he was an accountant for the company for five years and got a promotion to sales person. He was a sales person for a period of three years and god a better job at his current company as the sales manager. He continued with his studies at the same time managing the sales and distribution of the company’s goods. After some time, he was promoted to be the assistant manager and served in this position for a period of two years. This is the point where he perfected his managerial skills since he count oversee most of the work in the company. Afterwards then the manager resigned, he was promoted to be the manager and has served for a period of four years to date. He explained that most of his managerial skills were developed as he was interacting with other employees. He would at time be left in charge of some work. This encouraged and motivated his to learn more and later let to all the promotions he got. He is now managing the whole activities of the entire company. He is responsible in making major decisions for the company. He also ensures that all the necessary materials required in the company have been provided for. His general work is to oversee the activities of the company and ensure that everything is running smoothly. He faced a number of challenges in his career as a manager. He has at times made wrong decisions that affected the company negatively. This is because he did not consider taking time to look into the details of the problem. He made an abrupt decision which affected the company. This was a lesson he learnt and he has never made a hurried decision again and this improved his management decisions. The second manager was from the Best Ladies Company. This company is privately owned. It deals with ladies products. It does not manufacture the products but rather are imported and the company distributes them to different outlets in the country. The manager of this company trained as a sales manager. She trained for a period of three years. After she completed her studies, she put up a small beauty shop for herself. She managed it from the beginning. The business was not stable at the moment but as she got experienced and there was improvement. She developed the skills at her work place and began to expand the business. This business grew over time into a very big company that it is now. She is still the general manager and has employed more than fifty employees. She imports beauty products and distributes to the beauty shops in the country. She developed her managerial skills by interacting with other business people and was able to practice this in her own business. She has the responsibilities of making the purchases of goods that the company distributes. She ensures that all the activities in the organization are running properly and there is a conducive working environment for all the employees. She faced a number of problems in her career such as making of wrong moves such as overselling or underselling of product. This affected her profits and income from the company. She learnt how to manage this with time and developed to be good manager as she is. Both managers’ experiences have followed the Managerial Escalator model. This is because, the first manger developed his skills from other employees and being assigned some work to oversee. He served in different area not only the area that he had studied. He began as a specialist but ended up into the managerial job. The second manager as well developed her managerial skills while working since she learnt some of the managerial skills from other business people. She developed this and managed her own successful business. Bibliography REES, W. D., & PORTER, C. (2001). The skills of management. London, Thomson Learning. SINGLETON, W. T. (2001). Management skills. Baltimore, University Park Press. WHETTEN, D. A., & CAMERON, K. S. (1991). Developing management skills. New York, NY, HarperCollinsPublishers. Read More