IDENTIFYING AND ANALYSING A MANAGER’S
Manager Efficency
In my former workplace, I had the privilege of working with a senior manager named John. While he had his own strengths, he also had a number of weaknesses which managed to hamper his efficiency.
While being well adapted to the process of change itself, it was very apparent from his behavior that John was a person who anticipated change and encouraged others to walk the same path. He was highly ethical in his approach at the workplace. However, he was also egoistic which lead to problems in interpersonal relationships both in the department as well as outside. This also affected the way he worked with his team, since he led the team from the front rather than as a part of it. His ability as a manager to build teams and work with them were impeded by his ego and temper both which were monumental, meaning he was a difficult person (but not impossible) to work with.
While managing production, he had a constant battle between effectiveness and efficiency. He was a highly effective manager who would have his unique way of getting things done from people as well as completing orders on time, but this often hindered the efficiency of the entire unit since he paid little attention to efficiency.
On the other hand, his technical skills including his expertise, ability to solve process related technical problems highlighted his effectiveness as a manager. Being a driven individual factors like product quality, standards of performance and detailing never suffered.
His style of management was largely the Universal process approach. In recent times however, due to management feedback he was attempting to adopt the Operational process approach to keep rising manufacturing costs under control without allowing quality to suffer.
I believe that John is indeed a ‘good’ manager who could become a ‘better’ manager if he changed his approach on a few counts. Based on the observations above, I think firstly John should strike a balance between effectiveness and work efficiency. His obsession with effectiveness affected the process efficiency most of the times, thus leading to problems in initial production batches and consequent wastage of resources.
Another important facet that John needs to change about himself is the way he leads his team. He leads like a slightly autocratic boss thus infusing a sense of discomfort amongst his team members, most of whom are used to superiors working with them as a team. As noted earlier, this behavior does put a strain on interpersonal relationships within his team. Unless John starts facilitating and working as one with his team he will undoubtedly not be able to strike the required balance between efficiency and effectiveness.
John should combine elements of Behavioral Approach alongwith his present efforts of adopting an Operational Approach in his management style. This would be a good idea since his present approach of following the Universal approach is too generalized and ends up slotting different situations and people into the same mould. A combination of these approaches would made John an astute yet sensitive manager.
As a senior manager if John succeeds in striking the right balance between effectiveness and work efficiency as listed above, he will become a much better manager than he presently is.
