Text 2E. What makes a good manager.
I. Read text 2 E and choose fragments which can help you reveal the main idea of the text.
When your career takes a turn towards a management track, you may begin to wonder what, exactly, makes a "good" manager.
The answer to this question is complex. It's not just one thing or one factor that will make you an effective manager. Rather, it is a combination of traits and behaviors. Some people are born with the innate talent of leadership, but anyone can learn how to succeed in a management career.
It is interesting that the formal definition of management includes the word "art", because in some respects, it is an art as much as a science. Just about anyone can learn the basic mechanics of becoming a manager. However, there is a certain amount of mystery in defining that extra dimension of skills and traits that elevates certain people to a status of "good" manager. What is it?
Part of it is charisma. Charisma is a sort of magical quality of magnetic charm or appeal that makes people want to follow the person who has it. Strong interpersonal skills are certainly critical to the creation of charisma, but are by no means the only ingredient. The perception of charisma must be earned through accomplishment.
A strong leader gains the respect of his/her people by actions. Principal among those actions is the involvement of the organization in decision making. How many times have you heard someone say, "If I was running the show, I sure wouldn't do it that way!"?
It is important that the manager has the mechanisms in place that allow ideas to bubble up from all corners of the organization. No matter how smart we think we are as managers, we certainly don't know everything. Many of the very best ideas come from the people on the front line of the day to day business.
We have to have a way for people to express those ideas and get rewarded for their contributions if the idea pans out. Delegating many of the day to day tactical decisions in no way undermines the manager's authority or responsibility for the bigger picture. Remember this: If people have enthusiastic ownership of an idea, their idea, they WILL make it work, even if it is a BAD idea. If not, they can torpedo even a GOOD idea.
Recognizing people for their contributions is one of the surest ways to secure employee loyalty and to earn the perception that the manager is smart enough to understand that he/she doesn't know everything. Recognition and rewards are not necessarily monetary. In some cases, simple public recognition is all that is required. Recognition nurtures the ego and differientiates people from their peers. Recognition just makes a person feel good and stimulates the desire to have it happen again.
If a manager utilizes the people to help develop the organization's mission statement, then the people will follow. Having a solid and workable mission statement is critical to organizational success. It can serve as the basis for decision making. If you bounce an idea off the mission statement and it sticks, you might do it. Otherwise, forget it.
For example, if you are in the business of developing the world's best diagnostic software, you are not going to open a resturant to raise extra cash. That would be way outside the mission statement. See the point? All tactical decisions should fit within the mission statement.
Next, a "good" manager is a strategic thinker. The manager should have at least a five to ten year view of the future. Where does the organization want to be in five years and tactically, what needs to be done today, tomorrow, next week or next month to get there? Nothing can undermine a manager faster than having the organization perceive that the manager has no idea of direction.
Then, there is integrity. A manager has to be seen by his superiors and his employees as being honest and forthright and doesn't play silly political games. No one likes a sleazy character that cannot be trusted, especially if that person is in charge of the careers of people. Would you?
The "good" manager fights for his/her people and they know it. Everyone knows that outstanding performers are amply rewarded and substandard performers are penalized or eliminated. People know that the decisions made by the manager well thought out and are in the best interest of the organization.
An employee may not like the fact that the manager had to cut their pet project out of the budget. But if the employee is in tune with the organization, he/she will understand why it had to be done.
A "good" manager is highly selective when building the "culture" the organization. People hired should "fit" the collective personality of the organization. Loners and hotheads should not be merged into an organization of people who genuinely like each other and work well together. Think about the best sports teams. The very best ones are those where the members are more like family than team mates.
Finally, the "good" manager will spend the extra time to collect the information necessary to show how valuable the organization is to the company. This can take any number of forms such as cost savings, cost avoidance, improved process, improved productivity, and so on. Then the manager makes sure everyone knows about it, from top to bottom. It is vital that the people feel they are important and are making a contribution to the overall success of the company.
There is no magic formula for becoming a "good" manager and the points mentioned above are certainly not an exhaustive list. Some of it is instinct, but it mostly stems from the gut-level understanding that the most important thing in an organization is its people. Treat people with respect and dignity and you will get that back in spades.
II. Look through the text 2F, sum it up and write whether it is difficult to be a good manager or not.
TEXT 2 F. HOW GOOD IS YOUR TIME MANAGEMENT?
How often do you find yourself running out of time? Weekly, daily, hourly? For many, it seems that there's just never enough time in the day to get everything done. When you know how to manage your time you gain control.
Rather than busily working here, there, and everywhere (and not getting much done anywhere), effective time management helps you to choose what to work on and when. This is essential if you're to achieve anything of any real worth.
To start managing time effectively, you need to set goals. When you know where you're going, you can then figure out what exactly needs to be done, in what order. Without proper goal setting, you'll fritter your time away on a confusion of conflicting priorities. People tend to neglect goal setting because it requires time and effort. What they fail to consider is that a little time and effort put in now saves an enormous amount of time, effort and frustration in the future.
Prioritizing what needs to be done is especially important. Without it, you may work very hard, but you won't be achieving the results you desire because what you are working on is not of strategic importance. Most people have a "to-do" list of some sort. The problem with many of these lists is they are just a collection of things that need to get done. There is no rhyme or reason to the list and, because of this, the work they do is just as unstructured. So how do you work on To Do List tasks – top down, bottom up, easiest to hardest? To work efficiently you need to work on the most important, highest value tasks. This way you won't get caught scrambling to get something critical done as the deadline approaches.
Having a plan and knowing how to prioritize it is one thing. The next issue is knowing what to do to minimize the interruptions you face during your day. It is widely recognized that managers get very little uninterrupted time to work on their priority tasks. There are phone calls, information requests, questions from employees, and a whole host of events that crop up unexpectedly. Some do need to be dealt with immediately, but others need to be managed. However, some jobs need you to be available for people when they need help – interruption is a natural and necessary part of life. Here, do what you sensibly can to minimize it, but make sure you don't scare people away from interrupting you when they should.
I'll get to it later" has led to the downfall of many a good employee. After too many "laters" the work piles up so high that any task seems insurmountable. Procrastination is as tempting as it is deadly. The best way to beat it is to recognize that you do indeed procrastinate. Then you need to figure out why. Perhaps you are afraid of failing? (And some people are actually afraid of success!) Once you know why you procrastinate then you can plan to get out of the habit. Reward yourself for getting jobs done, and remind yourself regularly of the horrible consequences of not doing those boring tasks!
Much of time management comes down to effective scheduling of your time. When you know what your goals and priorities are, you then need to know how to go about creating a schedule that keeps you on track, and protects you from stress. This means understanding the factors that affect the time you have available for work. You not only have to schedule priority tasks, you have to leave room for interruptions, and contingency time for those unexpected events that otherwise wreak chaos with your schedule. By creating a robust schedule that reflects your priorities and well as supports your personal goals, you have a winning combination: One that will allow you to control your time and keep your life in balance.
I Read Text 2F and give titles to each paragraph
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