Characteristics of a prospective manager

A person with special qualities with respect to reputation for loyalty, dedication and brutal honesty has the capability to become a prospective manager of an organization. The basic task of the manager is the effective management of the organization which simply means the optimum utilization of material and human resources with the view to achieve the objectives of the organization by performing the functions of planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling and problem solving (Griffin & Fleet, 2013). A prospective manager has a unique characteristic in the form of ability to deal with challenges and opportunities. Generally, four categories of people have the potential to become the prospective manager of the organization namely reluctant leaders, arrogant leaders, unknown leaders and workaholics. Prospective managers have the quality to get their tasks done through delegating the tasks to others and exercise proper administration by meting all the requirements of their department on time.

In the same way, in order to become a prospective manager, I also experienced various aspects of management development. I decided to undergo a self- organized learning framework which made it easier to analyze the current situation along with the areas where there exists a need for development (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 2008). This was done as a part of performance management process. The next step was to set goals regarding improvements in performance in the current job, acquiring new skills and knowledge, bringing changes in the current role and entering new areas of competence in order to stand first in the race of prospective managers.

The goals necessitated an action plan to be put in place with proper headings so that nothing was missed out. I included all the learning objectives, responsibility for development, the development activities and timing under the action plan. The action plan also involved observing the activities of others in order to gain further knowledge, working with a mentor, guided reading, experiencing new tasks, action learning and special assignments. Moreover, I planned to make a proper use of the available e-learning programs and internal learning resource centres the proper implementation of which will result highlighting the extraordinary skills in order to get first preference in comparison to others. After this, the action plan was transformed into reality through effective implementation.

In order to play a role of a responsible manager in future, I understood the importance of the contribution and value of team and gaining from the knowledge of the members of the team and making adjustments as per the demand of the external situation. An effective team consists of a specialist with the required specialized knowledge and resource investigators who provide external orientation from time to time (Berkeley Human Resources, 2017). Moreover, an effective team requires the recognition of the weaknesses for each role along with the requirement of shapers which will easily recognize the need for urgency that are very important high performance teams (Mind Tools, 2017). For becoming an effective manager in future, a need for thinking incrementally was felt along with the need for following all the rules and doing things in a right manner. The skill for coping with the complexities prevailing within the organization was developed with the passage of time.

Management development and the importance of self-organized learning

For becoming a manager, the most important aspect is to explore team working and the ways of properly managing it. Management by objectives (MBO) is used as an method for the purpose of coordinating the activities of planning, organizing, directing and controlling by creating a system in which the objectives are agreed upon by both the managers and staff and then the progress towards them is measured on a periodic basis. MBO plays a vital role in exercising control and determining the level of difficulty of an objective as it impact the efforts to be made for achieving it (Daft & Marcic, 2008). It involves all levels of management by linking the goals of the organization with individual performance and development. Each member of the organization is provided specific objective to be fulfilled and is involved in participative decision making with continuous review and appraisal of results. The organizational goals and objectives should fulfill SMARTO criteria i.e. specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic, time bound and ownership.

Management By Objectives firstly requires obtaining clarifications regarding the goals and objectives of the organization leading towards the review and design of the organization structure. After this, the subordinates are required to agree upon the targets and objectives set by the organization and this further leads towards the preparation of the performance plans. The performance of the subordinates is continuously monitored and reviewed along with the review of the organizational performance.  

Steps were taken for learning operative project management by the way of properly planned and systematized effort to attain a specific goal and realizing that project management is not a small task. Project management is not a continuous process and has a fixed ending point. The usage of a variety of measurement tools were learned such as Gantt Charts, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and PERT/CPM while accomplishing and tracking the project tasks along with gaining an understanding of the project landscape. The concept of project landscape helped in determining the kind of Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC) model suitable for the project. After considering the entire concept of project management, it was realized that a successful project must meet all the requirements of the customer while being under-budget and on time (Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016).

A variety of barriers were faced against successful management of a project due to the reason of disagreement, union strikes, poor management, poor communication, personality conflicts, failing in conforming with the regulations and standards and poorly defined project goals (Bender, 2009).

Team working and the skills required to manage an effective team

Decision making is one of the most important functions to be performed by the managers (Towler & Keast, 2009). The deeper analysis of the concepts resulted in the knowledge of the fact that decision making and problem solving are interrelated processes and have three different views i.e. descriptive, prescriptive and normative. Descriptive approach describes what individuals actually do while resolving problems and making decisions including the ways through which the decisions made by them go wrong. On the other hand, prescriptive and normative approaches appear to be similar but are actually not same. Prescriptive approach provides recommendations regarding what should be done by people while the normative approach provides what ought to be done.

The problem solving and decision making process firstly involves identifying the problem and then accordingly gathering the relevant information and ideas in order to solve it (Delaney, Pattinson, McCarthy & Beecham, 2017). The ideas gathered are then prioritize with the view to save time and energy on the analysis of every idea (Chelst & Canbolat, 2011). After narrowing the list, the remaining ideas are analyzed with the help of variety of methods with the view to identify the problems and strong points of every idea and its effect on the initial problem. This further leads to collection of data in the form of finding more information from the experts outside the team. After this, alternatives of the solution are developed so that the final decision can be easily made by making the choice of most effective solution.

Further, the decision can even be analyzed prior to implementation with the help of De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats by looking at the problem from six different viewpoints namely rational, positive, negative, emotional, intuitive or creative. The ‘hats’ are considered as the classifications of behavior and their motive is to provide a direction to thinking (Bono, 2017).

Taking into consideration the ‘Chinese Whispers’ activity, the concept of information distortion is interpreted which simply means that the information transferred along the communication channel does not reach in the same form at the end of the channel (Dyer, 2013).  Also, the skills for appropriately managing the meetings were acquired by gaining proper knowledge regarding the need and process for managing the meetings (Brian Tracy International, 2017). The management of meetings helped in gaining knowledge regarding agenda, which is a formal plan regarding the structure of the meeting including the topics and areas identified for being discussed in the meeting. The preparation of agenda requires no formal layout and is prepared as per the requirement of the organization. The agenda have the name of the organization/department, purpose of the meeting with time and location along with list of action items (Healthfield, 2016).

Project management and the use of MBO

The minutes of the meeting are also prepared in the written form with the view to inform the attendees and non- attendees regarding the happening during the meeting. A ‘paper trail’ is allowed which make it easy to audit all the areas covered during the meeting. It include every single detail of the meeting including the names of all the participants, the items of agenda covered, the judgements made by the participants and other discussions which are worth documenting such that it becomes easier for review in the future.

To become a prospective manager, I also developed the skills to deal with the most common problem i.e. procrastination. It is the general habit of putting things off because a person doesn’t do all the things needed to be done immediately. This further result in leaving very little time for an individual to complete the task as required by the boss or manager and then ultimately the quality and grade of the work suffers. Procrastination is experienced when the individuals don’t like the task to be performed or when there is an inner feeling that they are incapable of properly performing the given task. Whenever procrastination is witnessed among the subordinates, the job is to develop the skill among them to take every task sportingly by enjoying them and taking the required time for the purpose of analyzing the kind of skills required to meet the obligations of the task. This can be done by encouraging them to develop ideas, initiating proper planning, conducting researches and writing it done before completing the tasks.

I also learned the skill of managing and organizing own time and the time of the subordinates by taking into consideration time for relaxation and leisure, time for unforeseen events and some tasks that may take longer time then usually expected (Skills You Need, 2017). Also, the need to set priorities for the day, week and year is important because there are always more things to be done in comparison with the available time to complete them. This can be effectively managed with the help of creating a to- do list and identifying the most urgent task among them, the order of completing the tasks and the time required to be spend on each of the tasks leading to optimum utilization of time of every subordinate.  

The problems to be faced as a manager in future can be resolved with the help of business and management research which is a formal search and analysis process and easily provide the answers to the problems through a deliberate and structured effort (Rojas, 2017). Moreover, as a manager the various problems to be faced include the question regarding the type of information required, the place of its availability, the procedure to collect and analyze it and the manner of combining the available facts with subjective judgement and experience for the purpose of arriving at a decision. It also involves decision making regarding whether qualitative data or quantitative data would serve the purpose of the research. Quantitative data would relate to numbers or quantity while the qualitative data would relate to distinctions based on qualities.

Decision making and the problem-solving process

The next step requires focus on the questionnaires which decides exactly what is required to be figured out.  The questionnaire may include open- ended questions with the view to capture narrative responses as these are mostly used for the purpose of exploratory research (Farell, 2016). The open- ended questions can be easily qualitatively analyzed and converted into appropriate form of quantitative analysis. On the other hand, closed – ended questions are a little difficult to design but play an important role when the research is required to be made from among a large group of people. These are designed in a manner so as to acquire the pre- specified responses which are even easy for the respondent to answer. While preparing a questionnaire, simple questions are placed first followed by the complex questions. It is important to provide clear instructions for the respondent and adequate space is required to be provided between questions for clarity.

A manager has a variety of duties to be performed which cannot be done all alone and therefore requires the skill of effective delegation. Delegation makes it easier to focus on policy issues of the organization by delegating the less important ones to the subordinates (Management Study Guide, 2017). In simple words, delegation is the act of empowering to act for another. A manager also has a responsibility to develop the confidence, skills and development of the members of the team and this can be effectively managed through delegation. The concept of delegation provides the authority but still retains the accountability with the manager (Rees & Porter, 2015).  As a prospective manager, delegation was the most important skill to be learned as it involves a reduction in the control over the outcomes due to placement of high degree of trust on the person who is authorized to carry on the task. Poor delegation skills can often result in demotivation and frustration and cause confusion among people and can ultimately result in the failure of the task or purpose.  

As a manager, the main task would be to work for the organization growth and finally developing a successor therefore, delegation plays a crucial role in serving that purpose and leadership succession. The role of ‘giver of the delegated tasks’ is played by a manager and therefore, it must be continuously ensured that the delegation take place properly. The recipient of the delegated tasks must also be provides with the opportunity to manage upward and recommend improvements in the process of delegation.

Communication skills and managing meetings

 I decided to make the use of SMARTER variants namely specific, measurable, agreed, realistic, time-bound, ethical and recorded (Spiru Haret University, 2017). It provided a blueprint for all the responsibilities and objectives including delegation which are required to be considered for oneself and while assenting with the tasks and projects with others.

The next stage in developing as a manager required gaining knowledge regarding the concept of negotiation which occurs when some goal are common among two parties while some goals are conflicting. These conflicts are required to be resolved by the way of getting together and sorting out the differences. Two possible situations are there in a negotiation i.e. win-lose and win-win position.  With the view to become a successful negotiator, I acquired the characteristics of becoming ambitious, commanding power and possessing effective negotiation skills while being emotionally intelligent which means possessing the ability to easily recognize, use, and manage emotions.  The key negotiation principle involves Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), Bargaining Zone, Reservation Price and Aspiration level (Sebenius, 2017). Therefore, I worked on achieving a higher social credit rating which will signify the level of respect and trust commanded and also indicates the competence and cooperation. I experienced that negotiation is a very difficult skill to be mastered due to the presence of complex power dynamics within the organization.  The negotiation must take place by avoiding the common mistake of holding personal biasness as it prevents from negotiating objectively and rationally.

Developing as a manager required taking the theories of career development, personal development planning, management development and group work seriously (Godener & Fornerino, 2017).  Management also requires self- development and personal development to be kept in consideration through proper career exploration, goal setting, strategies and action planning and with proper career feedback. Moreover, an attempt must always be made in order to improve the managerial effectiveness with the help of an effective learning process as those who are at a higher position in the organizational ladder are likely to have more knowledge (Tankersley, 2015). It is important to continuously undergo management development as it enhances the skills and enables learning from the experiences for the benefit of the organization and for own self.

Training has also been acquired for the purpose of helping the individuals as a manager with personal development planning by providing them with proper guidance and encouragement which will help them to develop themselves.

Dealing with procrastination

The whole experience of developing as a prospective manager of the organization was a little complex but ultimately resulted in gaining lots of knowledge regarding various concepts, procedures and in gaining skills for handling various situations. These special skills acquired during the management development process will definitely reflect my standing higher in comparison with others.

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