Responsibility of an Effective Manager, Management, Manager vs. Leader, Manager as a Leader, Why Manager as a Leader Fail, Ravichander Rao
Leadership is required to inspire and to give direction to the followers in order to achieve what seems impossible. But that should not negate the roles of managers in a company. Ever since the penchant for leadership has increased, manager has become an antonym for leadership. Yet, most of the companies have official titles of managers and not of leaders.
Most of the managers, in their aspiration to be seen as a leader, use empowerment and challenge as a facade to delegate the work, when the work should not be delegated. As a result, the friction between employee and manager increases and the effectiveness of the manager in that position reduces. Purpose of a manager in a company is to make profit for the company by deploying the right resources, or empowering the resources by providing the training to meet the skills requirement, and , by staying within the framework of the company values and processes to deliver the commitments. If all the managers start to act like a leader on every occasion and start disrupting the processes or empower employees to make decisions where they do not have right experience, then there will be a chaos and company will fail to make profit. This is foolhardines and it needs to be stopped! What is the required of the managers is that they understand when to be a leader, when to be a manager and when to be a follower. If everyone in the company becomes leader for the same work, then who follows through? So there has to be only one leader per task or critical project and the rest need to follow.
Your role in a company as a leader or manager depends on the task that needs to be accomplished. If you are an expert or experienced at a task, it is required that you step and lead the team in the right direction regardless of whether you are a manager or not. If you are a manager of the task, then you are expected to deliver the commitments within in the agreed time frame with the agreed quality. You need to step up as a leader at certain times when things are going wrong and you need to make tough decisions including disrupting current practices, taking risks, inspiring the team to go beyond the commitments, etc. This is the time when manager needs to act like a leader. But most of the time, you need to focus on the management - standard processes, reduce conflicts, reduce risks, enforce plans, etc. so that there is a clear visibility and follow through.
Problem with the constant leadership mode is that, the managers are always in the empowerment mode - every task gets delegated, your employees need to do these - stretch goals or is good for their motivation, etc. However the organizations are matrix structured today, because of which the employee the at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid suffer broken morale with such as an overdose of empowerment from different managers.
Responsibilities of an effective manager:
Leadership is required to inspire and to give direction to the followers in order to achieve what seems impossible. But that should not negate the roles of managers in a company. Ever since the penchant for leadership has increased, manager has become an antonym for leadership. Yet, most of the companies have official titles of managers and not of leaders.
Most of the managers, in their aspiration to be seen as a leader, use empowerment and challenge as a facade to delegate the work, when the work should not be delegated. As a result, the friction between employee and manager increases and the effectiveness of the manager in that position reduces. Purpose of a manager in a company is to make profit for the company by deploying the right resources, or empowering the resources by providing the training to meet the skills requirement, and , by staying within the framework of the company values and processes to deliver the commitments. If all the managers start to act like a leader on every occasion and start disrupting the processes or empower employees to make decisions where they do not have right experience, then there will be a chaos and company will fail to make profit. This is foolhardines and it needs to be stopped! What is the required of the managers is that they understand when to be a leader, when to be a manager and when to be a follower. If everyone in the company becomes leader for the same work, then who follows through? So there has to be only one leader per task or critical project and the rest need to follow.
Your role in a company as a leader or manager depends on the task that needs to be accomplished. If you are an expert or experienced at a task, it is required that you step and lead the team in the right direction regardless of whether you are a manager or not. If you are a manager of the task, then you are expected to deliver the commitments within in the agreed time frame with the agreed quality. You need to step up as a leader at certain times when things are going wrong and you need to make tough decisions including disrupting current practices, taking risks, inspiring the team to go beyond the commitments, etc. This is the time when manager needs to act like a leader. But most of the time, you need to focus on the management - standard processes, reduce conflicts, reduce risks, enforce plans, etc. so that there is a clear visibility and follow through.
Problem with the constant leadership mode is that, the managers are always in the empowerment mode - every task gets delegated, your employees need to do these - stretch goals or is good for their motivation, etc. However the organizations are matrix structured today, because of which the employee the at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid suffer broken morale with such as an overdose of empowerment from different managers.
Responsibilities of an effective manager:
- focus on productivity and efficiency
- do not create work to keep your employees busy. Give some free time to the employees so that they can explore new ideas and learn new thing
- do not ask your employee to justify why the need to do a certain task that you assigned them. It was you in the first place who assigned it.
- use project management skills while planning and deploying your resources. A poor management skill on your part would lead to missed deadlines or employees compensating for your lack of management skills.
- empower only when the employee has skills to deliver. Otherwise, train the employee first.
- your job is not only to attend meetings and assign resources but also to assess, prioritize, say No, decide the timelines, assess resource requirements, gaps, etc. Any one can get into a meeting say Yes to all the commitments, and pass the buck forward.
- give feedback that is constructive. It should not be based on the recency effect. If you cannot find anything to say on the improvements, do not say anything.
- understand strengths of your employees and use where they can fit the best
- hire for ethics, attitude, train-ability and future potential
- facilitate your employees. An employee may be working on mutiple things, so you as a project / team manager need to make sure when a new employee moves in, the employee is able to deliver effectively and efficiently.
- if you are putting together a new team, do not focus on putting together mini-mes. Diversity is a strength the team and decision making.
- focus of providing a work-life balance. If someone is over-working, find out the reason.
- provide recognition and promote employees.
- your team should recognize and value your original contribution without you having to say.
- do not send more than 3 emails to get an answer to 1 question. Call the person up.
- your employees should know your authority, but you should use it only when it is needed. The rest of the time, your team should perform because they like what they do and they want to be a part of your team.
- set up process so that your team produces quality work that others use as a benchmark
- you need to make decision, specially those that are difficult to make. Employees look up to you for direction. Remember, you need to lead as well!
- communicate clearly and straight-forward, and do not be a sugar candy.
- do not be an agent for grapevine. Your responsibility is to keep the secrets as well.
- do not hide information unnecessarily. Employees need to know the direction and what management is thinking.
- protect and groom your team.
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