What skills do managers of managers need to inspire peak performance from their team? In a recent report on professional skills development and training, AMA detailed the factors that contribute to employees’ performance in a high or low-performing organization. See what you need to know to move up in your company.
Key Finding: Core Business Skills Rise in Importance for Middle Managers
As one moves up the corporate ladder, the focus may shift from managing direct client relationships towards managing relationships with managers and implementing strategy. This explains the rise in importance of such skills as written communication, information technology, sales, finance and marketing. These skills are important in monitoring the progress of employees as well as staying on top of marketplace trends to make sure the strategy doesn’t need adjusting.
Execution is also a competitive advantage at this level. Low-performing organizations don’t rank in the top six for execution as strength, and they lag behind high-performing organizations by 10.3 percent in this skill.
“It is essential for all employees to consistently work on building their skill set,” said Mike Wright, CMO at American Management Association. “As you advance within an organization, you’ll take on added responsibilities that all have to be executed effectively. Often, these new responsibilities are in areas that you have little to no prior experience in which can be overwhelming. If you take the initiative to build your skill set from the beginning, it makes for a much easier transition when moving up the corporate ladder. The greater your skill set, the more you can contribute to the organization, ultimately making you a more valuable employee.”
Teamwork and collaborative skills rank high in the top five skills of managers at this level of high-performing organizations, but it doesn’t break the top six skills for their counterparts at low-performing organizations. In fact, low-performing organizations rank on average 11.4 percent lower in this skill. This indicates that organizations that perform well tend to have strong teamwork right up through the manager of managers level.
Key Finding: Decision-Making is a Critical Skill for Higher-Level Managers
Critical thinking/problem solving claims the top spot for the skill on which managers of managers rate themselves the highest. A recently published article “Eight Habits of Effective
Critical Thinkers” by Stephen L. Guinn, Ph.D. and Gary A. Williamson, Ph.D., discusses core traits of critical thinkers, including assessing situations before making decisions, focusing on the big picture as well as minute details, and flexibility. While still important, customer service acumen appears to take a backseat to other competencies as it falls to third.
“In today’s workplace, executives are faced with complex, multi-layered challenges on an almost daily basis,” said Wright. “Leaders need to possess top-notch critical thinking abilities in order to solve some of these problems. The results of decisions made by executives with poor critical thinking skills could sabotage the entire organization’s reputation. However, with the proper training, executives have the potential to increase productivity by explaining things in a more concise way to employees and be able to read between the lines when problems arise.”
The capacities to stay on top of multiple teams and execute strategy are imperative skills for managers of managers. Their client service, affinity for learning, and collaboration skills remain strong, but the increased passion to succeed by this group demonstrates the overwhelming drive to accomplish, lead and advance to the next level. Areas of opportunity for managers of managers are similar to previous levels in that improvement in sales, marketing and financial knowledge would give them a competitive edge.
This post was adapted from the AMA report “Business Skills that Set High-Performing Organizations Apart.”
