Effective manager: 15 key boards on track to their own success. Practical guidance. Vadim Milorodov

people at your disposal; if you are a manager heading a division, you have only other human resources at your command, acting ultimately on the orders of higher leaders and the basis of resources received from them. This vertical hierarchy leads to the formation of levels of the entire management system, which distinguishes top managers, middle managers, and low managers, according to the principle “from the highest to the lowest”. The principled and proportional division of management participants can be represented in the form of a pyramid (pic. 1).

      Pic. 1. Management pyramid of the organization.

      The existence of this hierarchy is not and cannot be proof of the existence of obstacles to career advancement. Any “low” should have the prospect of promotion to the “middle” or “top” level.

      Each of the vertical branches of management has its own goals and tasks, which are delegated to those below. As a result, the most routine and typical operations fall on the shoulders of low-level managers, which leads to their own stereotypes based on the “universality” of the manager, who combines a secretary, a consultant, a janitor, and only then a “manager”. Despite the loud name, this stereotype has its place. The reality is that not every head can be assigned complex tasks on which the result of the entire company will directly depend. The head needs an exceptionally effective manager who will enjoy the personal trust and demonstrate a high reputation. A head may want to distribute all his tasks and authority among his subordinates, but as practice shows, if there is uncertainty about success, such a scheme is ruled out. Your goal in the company is to pass the way from the low-level manager to the middle or top manager, to reach a certain position in the management structure, and only then we can speak about your full-fledged efficiency, a significant contribution.

      The common feature of all managers is to solve complex problems for normal functioning, and then already the development of the company [28]. It is the normalization and maintenance of the state of habitual operations, bringing them to completion on time and without disruption that fall on the shoulders of low managers. Therefore, a modern company puts a great deal of effort into finding people with these skills: pic. 2.

      Pic. 2. Key skills of a manager in today’s environment.

      The difference between the managers of the various vertical levels is that each of them, as we noted earlier, has its own authority and the corresponding size of the tasks that need to be addressed in the course of work activity.

      For managers at the lowest level (low-level managers), day-to-day operational tasks based on certain job functions are of paramount importance. It is the “low” position that is associated with “give, bring, step back, and don’t bother” type of work. But in fact, the path of any manager to success always begins with the “low” position, as we indirectly pointed out earlier.

      For managers at the middle level (middle managers), there are tasks of a tactical scale, which are usually considered at the level of a particular unit and the focus of its activities. This level is characterized by being responsible for a specific set of established unit functions, such as the purchasing department, in which management is focused on implementing the strategies of top management and achieving minimally predictable results.

      Finally, the senior manager (top manager) is responsible for the effective work of the entire system of departments and outlines strategic plans for the functioning of the company and its overall development in the current market environment. He defines the entire management structure of the company because he works “side by side” with the head. Often the top manager himself is the head of the company.

      Thus, depending on the place of a manager in the vertical hierarchy, a load of responsibility imposed on him naturally increases, which generally reflects the distribution of expectations of the employer to the candidate for a managerial position, as well as indicating the current level of confidence. Usually, open recruitment of managers is carried out with an emphasis on the low level, with the prospect of gradual promotion “upwards” with a demonstration of minimum abilities and signs of effectiveness, readiness to work independently, and development.

      Before describing the basic criteria for determining an effective and ineffective manager, let us note that there is also the so-called horizontal hierarchy of managers, which determines the position of job responsibilities of managers within one level. For example, it may be sales, logistics, finance, and many other managers who are responsible for specific and assigned functions.

      The division of managers into effective and ineffective is quite normal, which means that there is a place for prioritizing and selecting employees who can create value for the company and be trusted by their superiors. Let’s start, perhaps, with the obvious signs of inefficiency. An ineffective manager will always seek to complete any task on his own without involving subordinates; by distracting yourself with tasks that you can a priori delegate to another person, you become an ineffective manager. Reach your potential in the most complex tasks rather than taking on generic operations. This is true at all levels of the vertical hierarchy, and the higher you are, the more your inefficiency affects the organization’s bottom line.

      An effective manager concentrates on the most difficult and inaccessible activities for other managers, eliminating routine and unnecessary operations by redistributing them among other operational employees. Also, unless we are talking about upper management, a manager is ineffective when he demonstrates his busy and rambunctious activities without trying to engage other subordinates. Demonstrating in this case is nothing but a reflection of idleness, of zero efficiency.

      An effective manager, however, meets several expectation characteristics, among them:

      – The ability to separate important and urgent matters.

      – Managing a team and creating conditions for its development.

      – Exceptional professionalism.

      – Responsibility only for defined powers.

      – Assessment of the state of the environment not for its site (the object of management), but in the context of the global management system – the company. The same applies to the issues of assessing the value of actions, which should be considered through the prism of not only independence but also the global impact on the result of interest to the company.

      – Compliance with company rules, regulations, and principles.

      Also note that the latter category is often a managerial abyss, which, as practice shows, is underdeveloped in many companies. Its development requires the creation of additional organizational conditions, which we will discuss in more detail below.

      Tips for the manager: how to set up a manager to work efficiently

      For a manager in an organization to be effective, it is not enough to simply select an effective candidate. You, as a head, must create all the conditions that ensure effectiveness, focusing on prescribing certain rules and measures, compliance with which will achieve minimum performance indicators. Management of managers is based on a whole system of factors, starting from the chosen methods, principles, and style of leadership, the management system itself (which we will talk about in more detail below), and ending with a set of rules, regulations, and prohibitions that will set the manager a certain framework of activity. Of course, limitless possibilities and creativity are good, but how long can your company survive without performing the simplest operations? Our answer is probably not long.

      In connection with the understanding of the particular importance of the issue at hand, let’s formulate some of the most important tips-basics, the observance of which will make it possible to create a system of effective management of managers in the company:

      – Build your own system of interaction, sticking to the format that is most convenient for you, which