An executive or manager’s accumulating education, background and work experiences provide them with a set of business, organizational and career credentials. Everything an executive or manager does, both inside and outside work, can add or take away from those credentials. For example, taking on optional leadership roles or educational opportunities either in your company or in the community can add to their credentials. Conversely, accumulating a random set of unrelated job positions or educational programs can significantly take away from their value.

Some job opportunities in a person’s career occur serendipitously. However, without a clear direction, a person’s career could be viewed as a random set of jobs with no clear focus or pattern. Over the long-term, a career-oriented person needs to exhibit a logical progression of greater job responsibility or increasing personal capacity across one or more of three fundamental career areas: a) developing an expert technical capability, b) building increased management responsibility, or c) taking on calculated entrepreneurial ventures. There is nothing wrong with seeing someone shift their career focus across these 3 areas, as long as past experiences add to the value of the person’s current career focus. For example, I moved my career from a technical/engineering focus, to a managerial focus, and then to a management consulting practice over the span of my work life.

Manager plays a number of roles in their position. They wear different hats to deal with:

• Individual Staff Members
• Their Department or Whole Staff Team
• Their Peers (in other department or divisions) across the Organization
• Outside Customers, Suppliers or Strategic Partners
• Their Immediate Manager (and/or other high-level stakeholders in the business)

For each role, a manager needs to be clear about the demands and expectations that each group of people (e.g., customers, peers, staff, etc.) are making of him or her. In this way, they can best consider and gauge their responses and job goals to those demands and expectations. Without clarity of expectations and goals there can be misunderstanding, confusion and loss of efficiency between a manager and those with whom he or she need to work. Also, to progress in their roles, managers must be able to define and implement their goals effectively, as well as to evaluate their performance objectively.

Not only do managers play various roles in their position, but they also need to develop critical skills to play these roles well. These skills are generally transferable from job position to job position. Typical job skills include:

• Technical proficiency (being knowledgeable in a technical field)
• Work management (work planning, coordinating, budgeting, tracking, reporting, etc.)
• Staff management (performance management & improvement, leadership, etc.)
• Peer and boss interaction (communication, influence, negotiation, etc.)
• Customer service or relationship skills, and supplier negotiation and collaboration
• Self-management (time, stress, risk and change management)

It is crucial that managers and executives regularly assess their managerial skills to determine their skill strengths and weaknesses. They can then work to develop and practice relevant job skills over time. Building managerial skills enhances the manager’s value to the organization and helps him/her get things done more efficiently and effectively.

Like flavors of ice cream, we all have different personal styles. Most importantly, we want to ensure that a manager’s style fits their organizational position. Not long ago I worked with a company CFO who’s boss, the president of the company, felt he lacked good time management and personal organization skills. We determined that this executive’s preferred orientation was for new technical projects rather than maintaining systems and controls for accounting and finance. Therefore, this manager was not well suited for his current job. Taking that information to the CFO’s boss, the president said "No wonder this person is having problems in their current job!" The President then started a process to find the right project-management position in the organization for his CFO.

Creating a reasonable match between a manager’s personal style and their job position can increase that person’s energy, vitality, commitment to, and effectiveness in their job.

Style is also important form the perspective of personal development and interpersonal communication. Learning to balance one's style approach allows greater work flexibility. Also, style flexibility (i.e., being able to speak in someone else's style language) can help to improve interpersonal communication and therefore improve organizational productivity.

Every Boy or Girl Scout knows what good character is. No matter how outwardly capable a manager or executive is as an individual, without sound character they can be perceived by others as just "an empty suit." For me, character boils down to three crucial elements:

• Initiative — not waiting to be told (by a boss or customer) to act on a problematic situation or potential opportunity. Initiative involves approaching situations as if one owned personal responsibility for it. With initiative must also come resourcefulness and determination to see things through to their completion.
• Integrity — keeping one’s word. Without integrity, a manager cannot build credibility. Integrity is also about knowing who you are and what you "stand for." Without that one has little in terms of true identity and self-worth.
• Intentionality — having a positive attitude and a personal commitment. It means being out for the best interests of not only oneself, but all those around them. If a manager lacks commitment to others, then they will have trouble in completely fulfilling their work. Managers especially need to be able to balance the needs of all parties to progress and succeed in their work endeavors, goals and initiatives.
• Innovation — demonstrating creativity in your work and in your relationships with people. Being able to develop new ideas and methods, and adjust to new situations, adds much to a resilience and value.

As a business owner or executive, it is crucial to speak to these three character elements in setting the operating philosophy of your managerial team. Working on character builds managerial strength and resilience, as well as portrays credible company leadership.

Continual attention to these five dimensions will help your managers get and stay ahead in their professional work and career. You may even consider tying these dimensions to managers’ performance reviews as a way to keep a focus on their development. Note that a 1% compounded improvement every day yields a doubling of a person’s effectiveness every 70 days. Valuable managers and executive commit themselves every day not just to their personal development but also to the development of all those around them.


Harvy Simkovits, CMC, President of Business Wisdom, works with owner managed companies to help them grow, prosper and continue on by offering innovative approaches to business development, company management, organization leadership and learning, and management education. He can be reached at 781-862-3983 or .