What it takes to be an effective manager?

What image comes to mind when you hear the "manager" word? Think of an engineer, an accountant, a police officer? These images imply precision, attention to detail, control, regulations, procedures and punishments for not following the rules. Conversely, when you expect a leader, you have the feeling of being inspired, engaged, excited, relieved and moved to act in the total answer? This method of separation of management from leadership has a kernel of truth in it, but being an oversimplification, it is as wrong as right. To understand what it takes to be an effective manager, we must first know what it means and how management differs from leadership.

The clearest way to differentiate leadership from management that is to say that leadership promotes new directions, while management is performed in existing directions as efficiently as possible. The truth is that leadership, a call to change direction, can be challenging, but it can also be made, based on tests and expressed in logical language, quiet or very loud. While the management is to achieve efficiency, must not be coldly control. If you manage knowledge workers trying to make them smarter and work harder, you could leave it as self-managing as possible. You could train and develop, nurture and motivate them. In short, it can be just as stimulating as a leader. The only difference is that you are trying to get people to work harder or smarter, while the inspirational leader is trying to convince people to change direction. In other words, influence or communication style is a poor way to separate managers from leaders. This must be true, because all we can think of leaders with very different styles. Compare Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi - both leaders, but no similarity in communication and influencing styles.

Thus, the only way to differentiate the management by the leadership is the function or purpose. And 'as a marketing and sales. Perhaps certain personalities are more suited to one of these functions than the other, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Note that we define as sales and marketing, not to mention the human or financial resources, in terms of function or purpose, are used in organizations. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to do the same with the leadership and management. Other writers have suggested such a functional distinction, but all have one foot in the past, so they felt compelled to add that leaders are innovative, while the operators are purely factual, logical and unemotional. This is a myth that needs to bury once and for all.

To be an effective manager, then, must be able to do things efficiently, to achieve a goal with the best possible use of all resources at your disposal. Self-management means simply make better use of their resources than to a specific objective - your time, talent and skills. If you are a manager in an organization, you will also have financial resources, human and material at your disposal. It 's useful to compare the investment management. If you want the best return on your capital, you need to think carefully about how best to invest. You also need to monitor your investments regularly to move your money around if you see a way to make a better return.

So, to be an effective manager, you must have the necessary discipline and organization to allocate resources wisely first and then to monitor their productivity relative to your goals. Now the distribution of human resources to get the most out of them takes a whole different set of skills. At one time, the managers considered people as just another part of the organizational machine, which will be handled like any piece of hardware. But modern people are much more intelligent, well educated and prepared to go elsewhere if you do not like the way they are treated. Managers today are almost the same position of the managers of professional athletes such as tennis star or better players. In these cases, the athletes are that the real control. Their leaders are really service providers for the stars. While organizational managers have the power to promote or fire employees, they are so dependent on their talents that their security is based on their work as well to manage people. This means that effective managers must be good motivators, able to support, instruct and talent base in developing as well as being sufficiently organized to promote efficiency. It 'also important to realize that being good at these activities will make an excellent manager, not a leader ....