Management Interview Analysis

The manager who was the subject of the interview is Captain W. He occupies a very important position since he is responsible for the excellent management of the Ministry of Interior. Captain W. has graduated with a master’s degree in business management in the United Kingdom. However, he chose to continue his education and he is currently studying for a doctorate in the UK. Captain W. engages in a modern system of public service. The objective of MOI is to ensure the functions of safety, law, and order, protection of the citizen’s rights and freedoms as well as fight crime. This public body occupies one of the highest places in the ratings of trust for government and public institutions. This fact emphasizes again the importance of Captain W.’s job. The specifics of Captain W.’s position involve widespread use of principles, methods, technologies, and various achievements in different fields of science, especially, in the area of sociology of management.

Self-Development of the Manager

Captain W. identifies his personal goals to continue his education. Professional self-development is not ubiquitous and not typical because not all possess the qualities that are essential for purposeful work on themselves. However, Captain W. employs a continuous program of self-improvement, which is crucially important for being a successful leader. In order to develop the necessary leadership and management skills, a manager needs to constantly learn something new. This process can be considered as a conscious and purposeful process of a leader’s self-development, which includes improvement of knowledge, skills, personal and functional qualities, and general competence. Education is very important for ensuring the high levels of effectiveness of professional activities. Captain W. stated that studying business management is very important and that one cannot practice it without having sufficient knowledge about what they are doing.

Care for Employees and Clear Tasks, Achievement of the Goals

Captain W. believes that not every manager possesses unique qualities that help to ensure an excellent level of performance for the whole staff. He states that every manager must care about his/her employees and make their tasks clear for them. Thus, the main objectives of management are to organize collective work, achieve the set objectives, check the results of work, and maintain the working spirit in the team. Teamwork is an urgent need for an effective organization. A manager should be able to unite people by a common idea, and as a result, a manager must be able to create a cohesive team. In order to create a truly effective team, a leader must be able to take the responsibility for formulating the objectives and the results. For an effective approach to management, a leader should possess a high level of authority, which would allow him to manage the staff of an organization.

Moreover, the manager should take care of their employees, support them, and encourage them when they show good results. A good manager should value people. A manager’s job is to manage people. Therefore, the job cannot be performed well, if a manager does not like people. The best leaders care about their employees and are interested in what others are doing. A good leader should be available for the staff that he/she is responsible for.

Moreover, a manager should be able to figure out the goals for the employees and define a clear challenge for them. In order to fully achieve the set objectives in a certain period of time, it is necessary to correctly formulate the goals. Otherwise, goals become uncertain. If there are no requirements to perform them in a certain timeframe, the goals will never become feasible for the employees.

In practical management activities, there are criteria that must comply with the objectives. First of all, the set goals should be as specific as possible. Achievement of the set objectives should have a clear timeframe that is limited by a certain period of time. Also, employees must clearly understand what benefits will bring the achievement of a certain goal (Trompenaars, & Coebergh, 2015, p. 55). If employees do not understand the usefulness of a certain objective, it is likely that the job will not be done in a way that is required by the manager. An important skill for managers is that they know how to follow up with work. A manager must constantly monitor the course of goals implementation.

Collective Management

When dealing with difficult situations, Captain W. suggests that a manager should focus on their employees. He noted that one person cannot solve all of the issues of a company. Thus, the development of a collective management approach is one of the specific tasks faced by a successful manager. It assumes that in one way or another a leader delegates the case and decision-making process in the hands of a team of subordinates, solving a problem associated with the creation of a necessary set of conditions for their work, and defining the space boundaries for the solution, conflict resolution, and counseling (Cuervo & Dominguez, 2015, p. 34).

In the process of solving the problem of leadership, there are two types of action that should be implemented. The manager should take into account the understanding of the problems by the employees and help them to exchange views. The superiority of group decisions over individual decisions is due to the presence of more information in the group, a large creative potential, reasonable risk, usage of more effective tactics and advancing ideas, activation of everyone in the discussion, the possibility of rapid correction of errors, the social support to facilitate thinking, the spirit of competition. Moreover, the higher the level of development of the group is, the greater is the benefit.

Collective management is most effective when there is a need to find a solution to a complex multi-dimensional problem by combining the knowledge and experience of a number of specialists in different fields of expertise. It allows all of the interested parties, especially the future performers of the task, including the ordinary ones, to take part in the process of problem-solving, especially the controversial ones. It increases their interest in further work, helping to expand their knowledge and improve their qualifications (Cuervo & Dominguez, 2015, p. 33).

Captain W. uses a Selling Style when working with his team. He is open to cooperation and motivation. He produces the majority of indications. Captain W. seeks to psychologically force the subordinates to buy the decisions that must be made through two-way communication and socio-emotional support (Trompenaars, & Coebergh, 2015, p. 77).

Matching of Executed Functions and Competencies of the Employee

Among other skills that are necessary for a successful manager, Captain W. noted that before empowering the employer, a manager must know exactly how responsible an employee actually is. Firstly, an employee is empowered by training, and then, the appropriate tasks should be given to respective right people. A manager generates frames, establishes a system of relations between people, include them in the process of collective work. Thus, the mission of a manager is to empower the staff, facilitate its development, learn and grow, including an effective learning process, improvement of efficiency, finding a balance between employment and promotion. Managers should set themselves the task of developing their subordinates and introducing the mechanisms for the development of potential employees, such as training, documented plan for the development of personnel, methods for identifying the talented and responsible candidates for further targeted development, etc (Lawson, 2015, p. 26).

In terms of business approaches, internal employee potential is the professional and personal skills that can be useful for an organization. Features of an employee’s internal potential stipulate the quality and speed of their competencies development. It is necessary to assess and evaluate the features and the level of an employee’s potential. It gives the manager an opportunity to determine in what direction should an employee’s development move in the company, and whether such development is even possible or not (Lawson, 2015, p. 22). A complete picture of the potential of an employee will determine the future course and program of their development. It would help the managers to understand the scope of an employee’s capabilities and tp development the tools that can act in a variety of workshops, brainstorming sessions, create a favorable climate in the team, make changes in leadership style, adjust to the corporate culture, help in developing training system, and in development and incentive schemes. When the potential of an employee is determined correctly, it is possible to empower them with the tasks that correspond to their abilities and the level of responsibility. Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses. The task of a manager is to identify the strengths and assign work according to them.

Weak managers focus their work on identifying and eliminating the weaknesses of their subordinates. Effective managers, on the other hand, adhere to a completely different approach. In the case when the work assigned to an employee is based on his/her strengths, the efficiency of such an employee may be improved manifold. Therefore, the first rule of a manager is to delegate work based on the strengths of a person. In order to do this, a manager needs to know each of their subordinates quite well. The task of a manager is to identify and hone the strengths of the employees. A successful manager must remember to use each person’s strengths in order to achieve a greater benefit.

Captain W. believes that when dealing with a variety of employees, a manager must know and understand all of the people and promote interpersonal understanding. Managers need to understand the people that they are working with, not only their employees but also their managers, other department heads, and their employees. The ability to understand what others think and what is important to them helps to ensure the success in achieving the goals. To achieve peak efficiency, the manager needs a correct understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. Captain W. usually organizes his staff according to the task. He knows their abilities and what they can accomplish, and that some of them must work in a team.

The Motivation of the Employees

Captain W. pays a lot of attention to the issue of giving motivation to his employees. He believes that in order to motivate the employees, a manager has to know whether they care for more money or for gratitude. All of the employees should receive the right award at the right time. Thus, a manager has to find out what motivates the employees, what inspires them to achieve peak efficiency. One needs to be challenged, constantly move forward. Otherwise, one will not be able to fully express himself/herself. Others will not move until a manager defines further benefits because these benefits motivate employees to work. Many managers say that when a particular employee is not motivated it is necessary to raise the salary of the said employee. However, such approach should not be applied to every single case. Each employee is motivated by something of their own a particular point in time.

It is possible to define several key motivators which include salary, the ability to make a career, relations at work, a good team, stability, ability to learn something new (Liraz, 2013, p. 55). In a certain period of time, for each person, there is one major motivator and several secondary. The manager needs to understand very clearly the main motivator. That is, which one or what combination will stimulate peak efficiency of the employee. However, in any case, a leader must ensure that the work of all the company’s management will be evaluated based on the results, the objectives, and the KPI, which are established for the company, and cascaded to all levels of management (Liraz, 2013, p. 55).

In order to ensure that people are greatly involved in the activities of a company, non-financial motivation is very important as well (Liraz, 2013, p. 56). A successful manager has to form ambitious goals for their employees and empower them to their achievements. Also, people are motivated by new initiatives and projects. The manager must show people that their work is visible and valuable. This will in turn increase the level of motivation and morale of the team.

Influence of Culture on Management Style

Each country has its own specific management features which should be considered by a manager. They are reflected in the national and historical peculiarities of the people, the geographical environment in which the people live, the type of socio-economic relations as well as the local culture. In accordance with these national factors, the mentality of the people develops, which also has a significant impact on the development of a country’s system of management. Therefore, there are various models of management in the world: the Russian, American, Japanese etc. However, from a scientific point of view, management cannot be specifically Chinese, American, European, or Japanese, as all of the countries apply the same management approaches, strategy tools, types of leadership, and so on (Trompenaars, & Coebergh, 2015, p. 39). On the other hand, there is a factor of national culture, which affects the very actions of the manager. Although there are many common theoretical propositions, the management systems in different countries are common, although there are many differences among them.

The way in which a manager’s actions are affected by changing the culture may be described by using an example of two different business environments of Western and Eastern cultures. While the first is based on the primacy of the individual, the authority of the manager, the second, on the other hand, is based on the primacy of the collective decision making and teamwork. The differences in the labor relations system also define the manager’s actions when changing the culture. The frequent change of place of work, rapid promotion based on personal achievement, the work of the narrow profile characteristic for the Western culture allows to treat the employees with rigor and easily fire them. Virtually lifetime employment, slow career progression based on seniority, a profile of activity in Eastern culture requires the development of the employees within the given organization (Trompenaars, & Coebergh, 2015, p. 40).

Conclusion

A successful manager should be responsible, self-confident, good-natured, have highly developed skills in interpersonal communication. Such a manager should constantly strive for learning and personal growth. Subordinates respect and value such managers. An effective leader should know and understand the staff under command in order to identify and adequately meet the ever-changing abilities and requirements. Captain W. is a great example of such a successful manager.