Managers in Corporate SA May Not Be Ready For Management

In a company, Directors depend on Managers to keep the ship afloat. Subordinates depend on managers for direction. When this is not achieved, chaos creeps in.

In my years as a Career Coach, I noticed that there are managers that do not fully understand what the expectation is. If you do not know what the expectation is in your position as a manager, you will never know how to assess your own competency gaps and close them. Neither will your employer. That means you will continue this cycle of confusion and frustration. You will not be able to support the goals of executives and effectively direct your subordinates.

This is where it gets tricky for many managers. One thing that I picked up quickly when I got into management was that, there are things that are not listed in your job description that can help you to effectively execute your managerial duties. It is like reading between the lines. To put this into context, I did a little experiment.

I looked at a Program Manager vacancy that I found on LinkedIn. I then looked at the duties and responsibilities. They were listed as follows:

·       Partner with senior stakeholders to build and execute initiatives and roadmaps to achieve business goals.

·       Identify the gaps and pain points in the existing processes and come up with solutions - short and long term.

·       Partner with teams to secure resources, scope efforts, set project priorities and milestones, and drive delivery.

·       Set up performance management mechanisms and track the partner performance on a day to day basis.

·       Write reports/documents that detail the progress to leadership on a frequent basis.

·       Operate autonomously, drive forecasts, and handle escalations.

Let us look at the first duty and responsibility. We will create a scenario where a manager faces a challenge with this line item. The scenario is; you try to partner with senior stakeholders to build initiatives, but you are constantly getting push back or resistance. You constantly hit a brick wall. That frustration will trickle down to the rest of the team and could compromise team cohesion.

Let us look at some examples of why this could be happening (in my experience based on the work that I do):

The Manager Lacks Negotiation and Persuasion Skills – They are not convincing when they present to senior stakeholders.

The Manager Lacks Strategic Thinking Skills – The solutions that they present to senior stakeholders lack depth.

The Manager Lacks Industry Knowledge and Insights – The solutions that they present to senior stakeholders do not take into consideration the current economic or political climate (current affairs).

The Manager Is Not Resourceful – Their solutions are cost and resource heavy.

In terms of the expectation, it not just about the duty and responsibility of partnering with senior stakeholders. It is also about (reading between the lines) being able to convince them successfully. Only the outcome is listed in the job specification, but the input is completely something else.

The initial instinct of many companies in this situation is to send the manager for accredited training. However, these are personal development gaps. They are more about strengthening the character and sharpening personal attributes. It is not an academic issue. Solutions to this should include:

• Coaching
• Psychotherapy
• Neuro-Linguistic Programming
• Mentorship

These interventions are mostly not considered as training because they do not result in a certificate. Therefore, some companies tend to not make investments towards them (coupled with the inability to claim back from SETAs). Contrary to that, these interventions train or enhance your mind skills which improves character and personal attributes. They should qualify as training.

We therefore need to reassess how we prepare managers for their role or how we support them once they are in management. Failure to do so can compromise the competitiveness of an organisation. Skills development is broad and we need to explore it fully.