03/ 08/ 2006
by Jeffrey Moses
Education, training and on-the-job study are the foundation
The desire to become a manager is usually inspired by wanting to expand one’s business skills, financial potential and career satisfaction. Moving into management is a big step because it means that day-to-day tasks change in a key way: No longer will an employee work primarily on his or her own. Instead, duties like interacting with others, working out time schedules and goals for them, conducting and attending meetings and inspiring and instructing others consume the workday.
Employees can learn the skills required for these activities just as they learn the details of a software program or how to handle a piece of equipment. Few people are born knowing how to manage. But with education, training, mentoring and on-the-job study, anyone can master the skills needed to be a good manager.
Employees can develop managerial skills through a wide variety of learning opportunities, ranging from seminars to college classes and in-house management development programs to informal on-the-job mentoring. One way or another, every person who aspires to management must learn these skills and become knowledgeable in applying them to real-life business situations.
Managerial skills include:
- Delegation
- Project staffing, planning and management
- Setting objectives for teams and individuals
- Scheduling
- Budgeting
- Evaluating individual, team and project development
- Presenting ideas to individuals and groups
- Inspiring and guiding individuals and teams
- Performance evaluation and critique
- Human relations
- Dealing with problems within operations and with individual employees
- Working within the corporate structure (i.e., working with company owners and upper management)
- Decisionmaking
- Risk management
As a whole, these skills enable an employee to manage others effectively so individual and team efforts can be successful and fully coordinate with overall company goals.
An often overlooked but extremely important psychological distinction between being “on staff” and being “a manager” is that once a person moves into management, he or she has the opportunity to truly change things within a company for the first time.
Why? Because managers represent the link between a company’s goals and the day-to-day activities that determine the success or failure of these goals. Managers stand in the middle of a company’s owners/upper management and its employees. They exert influence in both directions, and thus are instrumental in changing and developing the direction in which a company moves. To manage effectively, an employee must become skilled in all characteristics listed above.
An employee won't become a good manager in a week or even in a month. Management training is a development process that begins with small interactions and allows employees to assume greater responsibility progressively. No one starts by heading up a team of 50 people. Instead, one learns first to delegate responsibilities to one or two employees or to head up a team of three or four. As experience and training progress, a manager takes on more responsibility. This progression should be systematic, gradual and progressive. With proper instruction, examples and training, nearly every person with the desire to become a manager can ultimately assume a leadership role within a company.
