Effective
Managers
Nadeem Yousaf
The article
highlights behavior of effective managers because all companies demand
effectiveness and efficiency from their managers to grow. Effectiveness is
the degree to which a manager achieves a stated goal that the organization
has pronounced. What is effectiveness? It refers to the ratio of
resources (raw material, financial and human resources) that are used and
the output that is achieved.
Effectiveness
and efficiency is only possible when managers are skilled at planning.
Planning is needed in executing all organizational activities from formal
structuring to managing people. Organizations manage well in the rapidly
changing environment when managers know how to make a link between
formalization and people.
Being a manager, you must remember that organizations are
not only controlled by policies and formal statements. Organizational
culture and other informal aspects of organization are very important in
governing human behavior – because they are the means in providing the
shred values of the system. Most of the time employees follow practices of
the organization instead of what is written in the policy books and
manuals. If you want that policies, rules and regulations should be
followed then informal organizational must match to formalization.
Organizations
not only are organized entities but also provide a social setting in which
people develop relationships; for organizational growth and employee
commitment, it is important to develop friendly relationship with
subordinates, peers and superiors. Since the movement of human relations
it has been recognized that under excessive stress neither employees
perform nor maintain meaningful relationships with others. Manager
negative and inconsiderate behavior can be a hindrance in pursuing
organizational interests.
Bias and
prejudices towards committed and professional employees is a sin. It is
analogous to providing unconsciously undue favors to those employees who
are less committed and competent. The research shows that sometime it
happens that "do-nothing" type of individuals is picked up for promotion
over a more qualified candidate because of decision-makers personal
prejudices. It is not very problematic to justify elimination of a
competitive person from a promotion pool but your organization pay the
price for your action – and, you might be, as well. Being a manager, you
must respect potential of your subordinates and give them a chance without
personal prejudice so that you can promote interests of your firm. The
concept ‘reward the right kind of behavior’ does not mean your personal
likeness or dislikeness.
Using all the
time authority will never bring desirable results unless authority is
combined with personal power. Authority and power are two different
concepts. Authority is a formal power which the incumbent of the position
draw from the organization. Authority provides power to coerce and force
subordinates to do something. In contrast, the concept of power implies
the ability to influence behavior of individuals, which is based upon
personal ability in managing people. The difference between ordinary
manager and effective manager is that ordinary manager mostly relies on
authority whereas effective managers employ both authority and personal
power. Combining authority and power turns a manager into a leader.
Effective managers or
leaders understand personality and abilities of subordinates. You might
have subordinates who are of equal rank or position but still they vary in
their competence and personality traits. While
implementing concept of justice, you must appreciate their
different level of abilities. Avoid controlling all your subordinates
with one stick; following this strategy might discourage many of your
subordinates. Mind it, intelligence of a
manager is generally gauged by how well individuals and groups are used.
Smart and effective managers know importance of human factor in the
system. They know that subordinates with a high degree of competence need less
supervision and employees with less ability need more supervision and
guidance.
Effective managers
knows disadvantage of unnecessary communication. For example, it is not a
good idea to keep sending superfluous memos or calling unnecessary
meetings so that you look busy. Similarly, it is equally a bad idea that
you send memo to all subordinates if one person has committed a mistake;
it irritates those who are doing their work with sincerity.
In short, effective managers appreciate well importance of
human capital in the system. A system is likely to survive if competent,
honest, sincere and professionally sound human resources are available but
if human capital lacks organization will sooner or later dies even though
it has abundant financial resources.
Point of
Discussion:
Why it is said in the article that organization will sooner
or later dies if appropriate human capital is not available to the system
If you have any comment on the article or wish to share
something, please send by
email.
|
