Manager – What kind of manager are you?

If you’re in a management position or looking to move into a management position, firstly look at yourself first and determine what kind of a manager are you or will you be?

To start things off let’s describe managers in 2 titles for now:

1. Manager by title.
2. Manager of choice.

Let’s look at the first one.

Manager by title:

You can all agree that everyone has this in their company, business or as their manager.

I have seen many people that have been promoted into a management position for the wrong reasons.

Some of the reasons but not limited to:

1. They “knew” the right people.
2. It was a “need” at the time for the company.
3. They could talk the talk.
4. They are good at what they do.

While there are more reasons, I think this is enough for now.

Let’s analyse the each point.

1. Bias decisions made by other managers, to have certain people promoted over others who are more skilled. This is a very bad management decision especially if the person being promoted is known by other colleagues that there were more highly skilled operators to choose from. In effect you have just become a – Manager by title.
2. This one is not entirely the person’s fault, it would be the fault of the person promoting someone into that position because they “needed it” rather then spending the time to train someone and ensure that the “manager” had enough skills to manage others. Unfortunately you still have become a – Manager by title.
3. These people are the go getters of the world, they know every answer to everything, they are never wrong and they can make the world spin backwards if they wanted to – so they would try to lead you to believe.
   They have the passion and drive – but lack the skills that are necessarily, but do not tell them this because they will argue this point to the death to prove you wrong. Unfortunately for them being able to take on ideas from others and feedback is crucial to becoming a successful manager, therefore they are still – Manager by title.
4. Now these are highly skilled operators in what they do, they are the best in the field and promoting them would probably be the best idea as they are achieving all KPI’s and other goals that are set out for them.

Though if their job scope does not include communicating with others, how would they go about communicating with a team of people?

Putting it simple – if you’re a math’s genius, does this automatically make you a good math’s teacher? No of course it doesn’t!

Therefore without the skills of being able to lead others – Manager by title.

If the above 4 sound similar to you, if you do not change the way you view things you could be headed for a train wreck.

I will keep adding onto this and hopefully if you have identified yourself as one of the above – watch this space, it is not all doom and gloom, and there are definitely ways of improving yourself to become a better manager.