How to Succeed as a Manager
Bob Jordan, PE
May 30, 2004
Managers can be made. You can be a manager. But heaven help you if you are a manager and you don’t possess the following skills and attributes. Don’t be a manger if you don’t resonate with these items. You’ll be frustrated and so will those around you. You may be a great engineer, but may not have the goods, temperament, skill set, desire, or ability to manage. Skills can be learned... if you want to. If you don't, then add value and prosper as an individual contributor, not as a manager.
Definition of success: To always possess management skills sets useful to an organization and be paid well to be one of their managers.
Definition of failure: To get blind-sided and lazy and lose the confidence of either those above you, or those you are managing, all because you dropped the ball on the fundamentals. To lose a position because you didn't know the "rules."
These 18 categories have worked for me and I believe they will work for you to be successful as a manager.
Target – Be willing to take a hit for your team. The buck stops with you.
Love Others – Relate well with others and genuinely have a concern for others.
Gatherer – You should already be a “gatherer” of other people if you want to be a manager.
Leadership – Take on leadership roles in your private life to succeed in business life.
Expectations – Know what they are of you as well as articulate them to your staff.
Communicate – With your staff and with your superiors, do it OFTEN.
Organized – Managers manage so be organized, systematic, and orderly.
Credibility – Have accomplishments in your profession that others can look to.
Learner – Model learning with your staff; be a reader and be a listener.
Transition – Be ready to leave behind your comfort zone as a worker to move on to mgt.
Vision – Be able to establish it for your department and to cast it to your staff.
Trustworthy – Have integrity to those “above” you and those “below” you.
Systems – Have innovative system ideas that propel and prosper the business.
Consistent – Leave no doubts about your expectations and carry out reqd. consequences.
Builder – Be a builder of people, processes, intellectual property, prosperity. Edify others.
Hands-On – Get out of the “swivel chair” and get down where the action is… OFTEN.
Businessperson – Understand financial sheets; budgets; ratios; accounting; banking.
X+1 – Add extra value to your staff. Provide opportunities and growth for them.
Management is a privilege and is one of the roles within a department required for the department to succeed. Each person on your staff should have a role to play, including the manager. The manager is the mouthpiece for the team and the department. He communicates to management team successes and he also communicates team deficiencies. God help you if you think that as a manager others “pay obeisance” to you. Rather, you are the servant of all and must serve each person on your staff to cause them to be all they can be for themselves and the team.
As a manager you must also know that you are paid well to produce tangible, value-added accomplishments. If you do not produce, or if you drop the ball on an easy assignment, then you likely will NOT get a second chance, but will be dismissed. This is fair and proper. You have to be consistently producing and not one to make silly, needless mistakes. Many people look to you. You have to deliver. You have to communicate. You have to lead!