There is no set of qualities that can universally describe a “successful manager.” It is easier said than done. Based on my 25-year management experience, the determination of these qualities is practically situational. The set of winning qualities varies, and usually influenced by the culture or compelling priorities of an organization where the manager is attached and rated.
Difficult as it may seem, we can, however, consider key prescriptive qualities of a successful manager, attributes that tend to have great “survival significance” across industries and organizations in today’s complex and fast changing world. When assuming any management post, it is best to be guided by the following contemporary definition:
“A successful manager is a person who consistently pursues and achieves, through people, the vision, mission, objective, strategies, and operational targets of the organization, all in the context of serving and delighting the customer.”
Using this definition as a backdrop, the prescriptive qualities of a successful manager require his possession of both the “hard” and “soft” skills demanded by a managerial function, which are as follows:
A. Hard Skills
1. Functional Knowledge: He has adequate technical skills for the job.
First and foremost, a manager must have relevant, updated, and competitive knowledge about the discipline in which he is assigned. The point here is: a manager must possess at least the minimum essentials of the technical skills specifically required by his function. He need not be a specialist in the job, but he must demonstrate clear understanding and working knowledge of the nature and scope of his function to render good managerial value.
A non-technical human resources manager cannot be expected to deliver full value when made to handle a technology-based, software application managerial job. A manager holed in this kind of mismatch is bound to fast reach his level of incompetence (Peter’s Principle).
2. Systems Knowledge: He knows the ins and outs.
A manager is quality-driven. He knows both the company’s and the customer’s processes by heart. He shuns errors and mistakes as he strives to make it right at the first time. He is aware of the bottom-line significance of correct processes and methodical rendition of his function. A manager’s organizational skills encompass the way he orchestrates resources, people, systems, strategies, and financials in favor of desired results and efficiency.
He is updated with evolving technology and logistics disciplines germane to his company’s business. He has deep knowledge of the Internet, and conversant with online tools, jargons, and buzzwords. He is resourceful and quite knowledgeable about various search engines, databases, websites, blogs, and other web information repositories. He possesses present-day systems know-how.
3. Planning Knowledge: He views the future.
Planning is one of the four fundamental functions of management. A manager must be aware of the vision of the company, and must have the capacity to plan to achieve that vision and fulfill the business or mission of the company. Even on a functional level, a manager must have the “skills readiness” to craft workable and realistic plans to be able to render meaningful decision and business judgment attuned to the company’s vision and mission.
A manager must understand what a good planning framework is, which is the embodiment of knowing the following: company’s strategic intent, external context of business, competition, resources to be managed, structure that will carry out the mission, processes involved in the business operations, and relevant financials of the enterprise.
4. Customer Knowledge: He is customer-focused.
Satisfying the customer’s needs to the point of delight and advocacy is what stimulates the thinking and behavior of a manager. It is a controlling mindset that upholds the idea that all change and growth initiatives of the company are directed toward keeping the customer for life. A manager has genuine interest in the customer and realizes that he is in his job because of the customer.
5. Performance Metrics Knowledge: He meets targets.
A manager may have the necessary credentials, but if he fails to meet his assigned functional targets, he remains to be a failure, especially in organizations with intense “financial culture” or companies that are highly “growth obsessed.” A manager must be fully aware of the metrics by which he is being gauged, and he must persevere to meet or exceed these metrics to be considered successful. He might be loved by all the employees in the organization because of his political charisma or acumen, but if he does not make good on his deliverables, his internal popularity will flicker and send him to oblivion with the much unwanted exit papers.
B. Soft Skills
1. People Knowledge: He is passionate about people.
By its literal meaning, management is all about managing people; no more, no less. We do not manage sales, revenues, costs, and profits. Neither do we manage technology, systems and processes, facilities, intellectual properties, agreements, and obligations. We only manage people. The idea is for them to effectively orchestrate and leverage all these non-thinking business endowments in order that the company can achieve its business purpose.
A manager must therefore have the interest, tolerance, humility, and compassion to listen to people and accept them as they are. A manager can make things happen if he respects his co-employees, peers, and subordinates, a relationship of rapport and trust that generates winning performance. It is difficult to imagine how a manager can successfully perform if he is in conflict with his subordinates and co-employees. The phrase “through people” in our definition encapsulates the gist of management.
2. Leadership Knowledge: He is a full-blooded leader.
A manager is the quintessence of a leader who demonstrates competence, integrity, commitment, focus, courage, and energy. He remains accountable for the consequences of his decisions. He sets the pace and finds comfort in taking risks as a basic management challenge. He exudes decisive behavior, and always firm but fair in his disposition. He coaches and mentors people, always prompted by the thought that employees will consistently perform in an outstanding manner given the right working stimulus (Douglas McGregor’s “Human Side of the Enterprise”).
A manager takes the lead in empowering and training people. He exercises the initiative to educate, renew, and retool his people by direct training, sponsorship, delegation, enhancing job content, and other learning tools.
3. Communication Knowledge: He collaborates and shares.
A manager has excellent oral and written communication skills. He can articulate messages that have to be communicated internally and externally in clear, logical, and powerful manner. He remains interconnected with company stakeholders and evangelizes on the culture, values, and strategic intent of the organization. He collaborates and shares, never stingy on information and knowledge. He relies solitarily on communication as a medium of understanding, clarity, and purpose.
4. Team Knowledge: He appreciates team effort.
If a manager is a leader, he necessarily possesses an uncommon appreciation for team performance. He sees the value of participative activity in unleashing the potentials of team members. He considers himself as a co-equal of all the team members and recognizes that he is never all-knowing. As such, he yields to the combined intellect of the team. He strips himself of his management personality.
A manager is a proponent of the late US President Ronald Reagan’s famous quip: “surround your self with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and never interfere.
5. “Continuous Learning” Knowledge: He values change.
A manager seeks new knowledge and maintains a strong appetite for taking advantage of every new learning opportunity that comes his way, on or off the job. He is a competitive generalist, and a cross-functional performer with portable management skills. He thinks outside the box, always asking questions, searching for solutions, and modeling upon successes.
A manager is a leading agent of change, averse to the status quo and continually searching for improvements as a way of corporate life. He is aware of the changing context of business. A manager exemplifies his passion for change to his people and guides them to practice the same. He tracks work progress, determines key result areas, conducts dialogues, corrects adverse results, and follows through. He always treats the exercise as an excellent opportunity for change.
What a challenge for aspiring successful managers! But that is what it takes to be one nowadays. Technologies change and create disruptions by the wink of an eye. Digital platforms create new demands for new products and services, entail new systems and processes, alter functions, redefine relationships, and impose new standards, developments that bear on the quality of managerial content in any organization amidst uncertain times.
To this exacting managerial issue, I end with an indestructible quotation: “A manager who has failed to learn how to learn is lost in the rich and bright universe of new knowledge. He loses his path to wisdom and becomes a burden to his organization.”
