Interview with two managers assignment: Welcome to the first “Develop Your Career Potential” activity! Theseassignments have one purpose: to help you develop your present and futurecapabilities as a manager. What you will learn through these assignments is nottraditional “book learning” based on memorization and regurgitation but practicalknowledge and skills that help managers perform their jobs […]
Interview with two managers assignment: Welcome to the first "Develop Your Career Potential" activity! These
assignments have one purpose: to help you develop your present and future
capabilities as a manager. What you will learn through these assignments is not
traditional "book learning" based on memorization and regurgitation but practical
knowledge and skills that help managers perform their jobs better. Lessons from
some of the assignments-for example, goal setting can be used for immediate
benefit. Other lessons will obviously take time to accomplish, but you can still benefit
now by making specific plans for future improvement.
In her book Becoming a Manager:
Mastery of a New Identity, Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill conducted
extensive interviews with 19 people in their first year as managers to learn firsthand
what it's like to be a manager; interview two managers that you know, asking them
some of the same questions, listed below, that Hill asked her managers. Be sure to
interview managers with different levels of experience. Interview one person with at least
Five years of experience as a manager, and then interview another person with no more than two years of experience as a manager. Ask the managers these questions:
Be prepared to discuss your findings in class and write the assignment report
.What conclusions can you draw from your interview data?
In the interview, two managers were involved, the first being a sales manager who had been recently employed in a cloth manufacturing’s Human Resource department and had one-year experience. The second interviewee worked at a large car dealership as a Marketing manager and had seven years of experience.
The key responsibility of a manager is to provide leadership in overseeing a group of workers or a department within an organization. Regardless of the number of years and the level they had been operating, their central roles included staffing, coordinating daily operations, setting goals, liaising with other department heads, dealing with administrative duties, training, evaluation, and enforcing company policies.
The sales manager claimed that one of the most pressing demands involved pressure to perform and adapt to the new role. The challenges faced by the more experienced manager were different, with the main problems including crisis handling, hiring the right people, and dealing with outstanding employees. Arguably, an increase in experience levels is associated with challenges encountered by professionals shifting from smaller concerns to larger organization strategic planning and problem-solving concerns.
There is no correlation between the likes and dislikes of managers and their experience levels. Both managers liked the shifting responsibilities involving training, problem-solving, and decision-making according to the task. The HRM stated the reason behind the interest lay in their ability to be creative and achieve better organizational skills; consequently, the sales manager mentioned that the activities aided in bringing tangible change brought about by their involvement. The dislikes mainly included having to reprimand or punish employees and crisis handling within the organization.
The significant difference between a competent manager and an average one is that the former can influence the workers through people’s skills; consequently, they are goal-oriented, good at strategic planning, and initiate healthy working dynamics. On the other hand, ineffective managers are easily swayed by circumstances, lack general wisdom while directing the workforce, and have inferior negotiating skills.
Managers should possess intellectual, strategic business, and information management skills. While most of these skills come through theoretical studies, achieving expertise occurs only through fieldwork exposure which aids in enhancing their knowledge and skills. Other learning activities include seminars, workshops, team building, and personal reading.
The Sales manager’s biggest mistake involved hiring an ineffective and unorganized personal assistant. Since the manager delegated some of the duties to the assistant, the incompetence in handling arrangements, meetings, and other crucial engagements made the manager seem incompetent in choosing a viable workforce. The mistake would have been avoided by having a rigorous assistance selection process. The Human Resource Manager’s worst mistake was focusing on details and micro-managing shortly after being appointed. This trend ended up making the manager’s social life suffer and losing precious time that could have been used for other pressing issues. The mistake could have been avoided by setting and aligning goals, choosing the tasks, and distributing them to the subordinates according to their strengths and weaknesses.
Customer's Feedback Review
Published On: 11-04-2019
You are welcome.
Access to the order has been disabled by the author