Characteristics of a good manager

There are many qualities and skills we can associate with being a good manager, many involve how you portray yourself to your workforce or how you interact with them. But how do we define who or what a good manager is, are there predetermined qualities that apply in all cases, or does It depend on the context in which the manager is working?

One key area in the functioning and success of any business is teamwork, a business will not thrive if there are very evident divisions between hierarchical levels and also fractions between employees of the same level. A ‘good’ manager should be able to build up a relationship with his or her workforce and instil a sense of community and joint responsibility. If a manger can achieve this then everyone will be pulling in the same direction and striving towards the same set of goals, this should increase efficiency or raise output levels.
[Tom Hopkins, 1996, http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Hopkins11.html]

A manager may create a sense of teamwork by setting achievable goals and targets to work towards for his or her team. As a manager you will have an overall target of say £500,000 extra revenue this year. To achieve a target a manager must delegate responsibilities to each member of his or her workforce. For instance each salesperson may be set monthly sales targets, which if achieved will in turn help to achieve the companies overall goals for an operating period. For these individual targets to be realistic the total goal must be realistic. A manager can only set a practical goal if they have an overall understanding of the company, things such as; the companies past performances, its market share, its competitors and market conditions. An appreciation of all the things listed above will enable a good manager to set an achievable goal, delegate parts of the goal to others via targets and move towards this target improving company performance on last year.

Furthermore the way a manager interacts with his or her staff and the image or presence they convey is crucial. A good manager is one who treats his staff as a person not just a number, they don’t look down upon them. Staff should be treated in a way that makes you seem approachable, and willing to give up time to see them. However at the same time you must have authority and command respect. A balance between absolute authority and laissez faire management styles should be achieved as employees will not only admire and want to work for you, but also fear punishment if they slack off and don’t meet there targets.

Communication skills are essential to any good manager and also for his or her staff if they are to understand what they are to do, and how to do it. A good communicator is one who can get there point across to others, explain any queries and negotiate a compromise. To achieve the above things one must be eloquent but also confident in themselves and in speaking to others. A manager with good communication skills will lead to a workforce where everybody knows what they are doing and therefore less of the manager’s time is wasted and staff are more efficient. As a spin off of communication skills a manager needs to be able to motivate there workforce so obviously an ability to communicate well and express ones self is crucial. Motivating an employee may not be easy as very often they are motivated solely different things. This may be security reasons such as a stable job with enough income to fulfil there needs. Furthermore a person may be motivated by less basic needs such as a desire to achieve and in turn increase ones self worth or self esteem.
[Abraham Maslow, 1943, a theory of human motivation]

According to Katz there are three main skill groups that are required by managers. Firstly we have conceptual skills, these are skills which help the manager to solve problems and break up the companies goal (£500,000 extra revenue than last year) into more manageable chunks for its employees. Secondly he stated the need for interpersonal skills, these are any skills which help a manager to interact with and work with other people. And finally he stated a requirement for technical skills, this I shaving the correct knowledge relating to the industry or sector of the economy you are working in. For example a hedge fund manager needs knowledge of the conditions in the financial markets, currency strengths and how a government’s fiscal policy will affect companies operating in an economy. However we can’t just say that a manager needs all three of these skill sets without any further elaboration, we need to think about the type of manager we are talking about. A first line manager will need predominantly technical skills and very few conceptual skills compared to a senior manager.

[Theory by Katz, 1974. contained in the textbook- Fundamentals of management, Mike Smith]

Moreover, to say that a manger needs every characteristic that I have talked about would be naïve and profoundly wrong, a good manager doesn’t have to tick every box. To further understand what characterises a good manager we have to think about the context in which he or she is functioning, the manager may need to be strict as total obedience is imperative like in the army. On the other hand a manager may need to be more laissez faire if they is a creative process taking place and people need to brainstorm ideas, for example in the research and development offices at Dyson.

To summarise I would say that a broad set of characteristics is needed by every manager, ranging from social skills to an in depth knowledge of the industry. Furthermore many of these skills and characteristics can be categorized. My first conclusion would be that quite allot of characteristics are useless without others, for example what’s the point in being able to analyse your market and come up with a strategy if you cannot communicate this? Secondly I feel it is vital to first understand the background on the market place a manager is engaged in before we can decide what characteristics define a good manager.