So, you want to be a good business manager, huh? Management means getting things done through people within a prescribed period of time under a certain budget. If you get what you plan to achieve, do it on time and within the budget, that is it! You are a good manager.
What does it mean to be a manager?
Good managers, in order to achieve business aims and business objectives, must properly know and be able to apply five functions of management:
- Planning.
- Organizing.
- Coordinating.
- Commanding.
- Controlling.
How to become a good manager?
For those of you who study business management to become managers, or already work as managers, either at multinational companies or start up your own businesses, I wrote up a couple of ideas that may help you to become even better at management:
- Do things right. Your primary job as a business manager is to achieve organizational goals. You will deal with making the big decisions set by the CEO and the directors happen. Particularly with the questions such as ‘how to do it’, ‘when to do it’ and ‘who should do it’. But remember to never neglect doing the right thing at the same time. Blend earning money for the business with being the righteous person to achieve long-term success of the company that you work for, or your own business.
- Direct and control other employees. So, your workers perform at their best. But do not be a bully. You are also responsible for performance, safety and health of all members of your team. Never sacrifice safe environment at the expense of increasing profits.
- Delegate tasks. You are not able to do everything by yourself, so delegate often to your subordinates. Do not shy away from passing on roles and responsibilities to your employees at the lower level of the organizational chart. Give others a chance to learn new things and progress.
- Be both task oriented and people oriented. Be nice to your subordinates and they will pay you back with getting things done on time and on budget.
- Conform to organizational norms. Follow determined rules and policies set by your organization. But, never agree to accept any unethical policies that may be harmful to other people or the society.
- Implement the higher-level decisions. The decisions are made by the CEO and directors. Your job as a manager is to implement those decisions. No decision should have negative consequences for stakeholders.
- Minimize the risk. Plan the course of action and consistently monitor progress. Keep order and control. Also, pay attention to details in order to avoid costly mistakes. Once you agree to work for someone else, always try to do things the best you can.
- Make the employees listen to you. This is done through mutual respect rather than force. Delegating and empowering that goes along with growth opportunities for everyone is way more effective than micro-managing your subordinates’ work. Openly analyze both successes and failures.
- Rely on things you have learned in the past. Use business theories, tools and techniques to solve problems. But also listen to your gut-instincts, and learn from previous mistakes.
Admire the best managers. They can do the right things right
I admire good managers, people who are better at managing than me.
The best managers in the world such as Tim Cook at Apple are able to achieve incredibly high targets maximizing profits for shareholders and remain good people all at the same time. The best-case scenario is when managers have strong personal values and moral judgments that ensures the ethical conduct of the whole organization.
There are no jobs in the world which are easy. Managing other people is not always painless, neither is building houses, driving trucks or business blogging.
I believe that I am not that bad at being a manager. Running the Super Business Manager website requires me to be both the good leader and good manager at the same time – the Editor-in-chief of this online publication. I plan the topics for articles which I am going to write in the next couple of days. I need to control the length of each post not to write too much. I also need to organize my time throughout a day. This all requires managerial skills.
Despite studying business in college, managing is not something that I am super passionate about. Maybe that is the reason why I decided to work alone on this project.
I am personally more inclined towards inspiring other people through leadership rather than getting excited about managing. Getting things done through others in order to achieve quantitative goals set up by higher-ranked directors working for corporations. But, the real purpose of using the managerial skills I have learned at school is to achieve things of bigger importance.
Use management to do something bigger than yourself
Too many managers simply focus on maximizing earnings rather than focusing on other human beings. Bringing the managerial skills that people learn in business schools to the next level is a real challenge. To be able to see the bigger picture, to create the best things humans can ever invent, to change the world. All these are of much greater importance to our well-being.
What separates average managers this world is full of from great leaders is that the latter ones have doing the right things in their blood.
