Becoming an Effective 21st Century Manager

Introduction

My personal goal is to become a great manager of the 21^st century. I understand that such a position carries significant management responsibility and personality characteristics that must synthesize the most important topics of management such as leadership, personality, motivation, decision making, communication, and the importance of good management to a person and to society.

The interview with Renee’s made me think about some leadership precepts that impart to me. My interviewee’s personality, referring to a “Big Five” model can be characterized as the very successful for a good manager. According to five dimensions (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect), Renee has an average level of sociability and friendliness (Robbins et al., 2013). Moreover, this person is well-organized and dutiful enough, although is more relaxed than many other workers, that is why he is not prone to distress. Consequently, Renee’s character can be defined as appropriate for working with papers and people as well as the position requires. This person is also critical and straightforward, he has the qualities of a leader, is goal oriented and pragmatic. Renee needs to be socially important and has an ability to adjust to various situations.

Body of the Paper

A person must constantly work to achieve success in something. As for me, I have to work hard in order to become a cultivate self-discipline, guiding vision, determination, wisdom, fortitude, humility, patience and endurance. I already have the power of inspiration, am friendly, communicative, have a good sense of humor and knowledge of the subjects. To train all these features, I plan to use Mahatma Gandhi’s ten tips on how to change the world. These principles of leadership may be applied to the real life situations and used in my self-development.

• I try to change myself, “To change the world around you, you have to change yourself” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 35). If a person can change himself/herself, he/she can change the world around.
• I learn how to acquire control of myself, “Without my permission, no one can hurt me” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 89). A person’s feeling and even reaction to something always depends only on him/her. An individual is free to choose what to think, how to react, and what to feel concerning almost everything. When he/ she realizes that no one except him/her can control his/her feelings, then he/she can start to use this understanding in their everyday life gradually transforming it into the part of their traditional way of thinking.
• I want to learn how to forgive others and move on, “Weak is not capable of forgiveness. Only strong has the ability to forgive” (Gandhi, 2003). The adherence to the rule of an eye for an eye can lead to the fact that all people on the Earth will simply become blind (Gandhi, 2003, p. 154). Wasting time on negative memories does not help a person after he/she has extracted all the lessons from the experience.
• I realize that by failing to act, I may come to nothing, “A gram of own experience is worth more than tons of other people’s instructions” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 98). In fact, only own hard work can make a person a good leader.
• As Gandhi (2003) has advised, we must live in the present, “I do not want to predict the future. I care about my actions in the present, because the God did not give me the power of future” (p. 147). The best way to overcome the internal resistance, which often stops us from acting, is to live as much as possible in the present and accept it for what it is.
• Each of us is a person, “I consider myself an ordinary person who just like all other mortals has the right to be wrong. At the same time, I recognize that there is enough humanity in me to realize my mistakes and understand their causes” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 132).
• One should be persistent, “In the beginning, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 212).

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Over some time, the opposition around a person will be weakened and then completely disappear. Internal resistance and a tendency to self-destruction that pulls a person back and prevents him/her from changing will disappear. One should understand what he/she really love to do. This will allow finding the inner motivation to continue walking further.

• It is relevant to look for the good features in people and help them, “I try to see only good in people. I did not just stumble in life, and do not think it is possible to judge the mistakes of others” (Gandhi. 2003, p. 94).

Usually, along with something good, there is something wrong in people. However, it depends on a person and what he/she looks for. If a person wants to make a difference, then the correct solution is to focus on the good side of people.

• It is necessary to be honest and be yourself, “Happiness is when what you say, think and do are in harmony with each other” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 83)
• One of the best tips on improving communication skills is to start a sincere talk and behave friendly with other people. If a person is truly sincere, people are really trying to hear what he/she is saying.
• Furthermore, it is crucial to continue to grow and develop, “Continuous development – it is the law of life and the man that in order to be consistent always tries to stick to the same dogmas advance puts himself in a losing position” (Gandhi, 2003, p. 64).

Considering the expectancy theory, one should remember that in order to make the employees work better, it is essential to provide them with the possibility to fulfill the steps that lead to the goals, which already exist in individuals’ minds (Ordóñez et al., 2009). One can always greatly improve his/ her skills, change habits or revise his/ her assessment. A person can gain a deeper accepting of the nature and the world around him/ her. Indeed, one can look illogical or not understand what he/ she is doing; moreover, have troubles in achieving harmony and sincere communication. However, if a person does not evolve, then, according to Gandhi, he/ she will put him/ herself in a losing position. The position in which one is trying to stick to or cling to the old views in order to continue to be logical even though deeply down he/ she may know that is not so. It would be better to choose a road of development and growth.

My personality and those of my colleagues, managers, and subordinates impact on my performance and experience of the workplace. Considering the expectancy theory, one should remember that in order to make the employees work better, it is essential to provide them with the possibility to fulfill the steps that lead to the goals, which already exist in individuals’ minds (Ordóñez et al., 2009). Only working in a good team where all participants interact with each other in a friendly manner creates the most effective work environment.

As to the leadership models, I adhere to the theory of leadership traits. According to this view of leadership, people are born with certain instincts, qualities and specific personality traits that make them more or less suitable for the role of a leader that is the foundation of leadership. However, the weakness of such theories is that not all people with relevant qualities really show themselves as leaders.

However, I believe that I have leadership qualities and I train myself taking into account the results of the Johari Window assessment. Firstly, if a person is a chief, he/she really needs management skills. Today, project managers need to have management skills to effectively perform their tasks in the organization. Most project managers have good technical skills with which they can calculate all the risks associated with a project, but sometimes they lack important social skills needed to show truly effectiveness. Long-term success of the project managers and the potential for growth are limited if they do not have the most important practical skills.

Therefore, there are several specific communication skills that project managers need to have in order to perform their tasks: ability to lead, teambuilding, motivation, communication, influence, decision-making, political and cultural awareness, and negotiation skills. I believe that I have most of them.

My other skills that are important to the people running the project teams include education, the settlement of the conflict, development/ motivation/ inspiration of others, planning time/ task priorities, problem-solving, presentation skills, and goal setting/ devolution.

All of these communication skills and management skills are necessary for a leader in order to effectively manage projects, contribute to the success of projects managed by them, and show their value to the organization that goes beyond their ability to create a work breakdown structure or risk management plan. We must not forget about the other important skills, including the ability to work with others, the ability to think about the future, to anticipate potential problems, risks, etc. I believe that sense of humor is often necessary when time is limited, and workload seems unbearable. Other features are the ability to manage organizational work and good organizational skills.

It is not an easy work to up bring a successful manager, but in light of the leadership models, several tenets of motivation theory impact my conception of the best practices of an effective management. I absolutely agree with McClelland statement that “for the effective work and motivation of subordinates a leader must understand the nature of the work” (Miner, 2005). It means that only a good employee, who has worked honestly as an ordinary worker can become a first-class chief.

Goal- setting theory, expectancy theory are also similar with Maslow’s theory where he underlines five basic types of needs: physiological needs; safety needs; social needs; the need for respect and self-assertion; the need for self-expression takes not just to be an effective employee or a successful manager, but and an exemplary citizen of society, the best family member.

Conclusion

Hard work is the most important quality of a good citizen, a family member and a friend. To meet all the above mentioned needs, a person must constantly work on him/ herself, and take into account not only his/ her own interests. Such caring, honest and hard-working people become good friends, family members and workers, that together means to be an excellent citizen of a country and a resident of the Earth.

In order to play all these roles, I have to strive towards some truths that are:

1. A successful person is looking for opportunities, unsuccessful – for excuses and all the new obstacles.
2. Successful person acts, unsuccessful – defers action until later.
3. Successful person strives for more than they have now, unsuccessful prefer the status quo.
4. Successful person fall and rise again, unsuccessful is afraid to fall, making mistakes, and if drops, no longer tends to rise.
5. Successful person is self-motivated, unsuccessful needs motivation from the outside.
6. Successful person takes a risk, unsuccessful is afraid to take risks.
7. Successful person is patient, ready for a long time to go for his/ her goals, unsuccessful wants all at once.
8. Successful person is not afraid of failures, failures of unsuccessful knock out of the saddle.
9. Successful person believes in him/herself, unsuccessful believes in words of others about him/ herself.
10. Successful person calls to the big dream, a worthy goal in life, unsuccessful pursues small targets.

History knows many examples when the real success comes to those who choose the seemingly unattainable goal, which was much higher than their ability at the time of selection. Each person can become successful, if he/ she manage to develop a necessary quality.

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