Here is a pertinent ‘Point to ponder over’ for staying on top of your leadership game!
Companies that flourish, both, in terms of their bottom line and their employee success score are those that are managed soundly by strong leadership at the reins. Similarly, Companies that fare well even in rough weather and times of crises are those that are run by mandarins who espouse good management principles.
Good Management style is at the centre of a Company’s overall lifespan, profitability, future growth, market standing, Brand strength and employee retention. Successful leaders know that and keep at it unabatedly.
So what is more important in good management? Is it Education (knowing why), Training (knowing how) or Experience (knowing what, when and where) – a long-standing debate amongst management mavens.
Without as much as thinking twice, I would assert that it has to be a composite of all three, in any industry.
Good education is like a strong foundation.
Education is a resource that you keep dipping into consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously all through your work life. Choose your educational institutions well – not necessarily just well-known but places with the finest faculty, particularly in your chosen stream.
In today’s world of so much information and knowledge available on the internet and through virtual places of Study like Coursera, Udacity and the like; there is no dearth of opportunities to gain and brush up knowledge.
Then, there are courses offered by companies or sponsored by them for Study Programs in renowned places that offer a valuable chance to keep one’s education bank updated and relevant. One of the world’s finest hotel chains I worked for organized a Summer University one year for its middle to senior executives. We had faculty from the University of Strathclyde, V Dimension Consultancy and Asian Institute of Management and were offered a roller-coaster, fast-tracked executive MBA program. It has been such a wonderful interface that has left indelible lessons and a valuable experience in one’s kitty.
Bursts of educational capsules throughout one’s working life help to keep a professional curious, up-to-date with the latest advents and mentally agile – certainly prerequisites for a healthy and long career.
Training is like the cement and mortar that fortifies.
Just as the strength of a building is secured by the base materials used to create it, similarly the sustainability of your professional persona is defined by the quality and content of Training. With sound training, you keep adding suitable inputs commensurate with the kind of outcome you wish to see.
Good training exposure makes you practice what you have learned over a period of time, urges you to evaluate your skill set and knowledge base with the present need-of-the-hour and helps you reinforce your acumen and hold in your area of expertise.
Training solidifies your learnings and equips you with nous to evolve your best practices and fine-tune your work tactics and strategies.
Experience is the beautifully robust Building.
Finally, experience is the composite, wholesome structure that you have built/acquired through years of slogging and tilling away in the right direction.
Every bit of academia learned, courses taken, training programmes participated in, workshops and think tanks attended, study material internalized, on-site/off-site exercises engaged in go into creating a superlative professional who believes in delivering nothing short of their best and bettering their optimal in order to create new levels of excellence.
And for well-rounded management, you need to add liberal doses of understanding, compassion, wisdom, adaptability, humour, MBWA, leading by example, Gestalt and fore, and farsightedness.
What’s your good management Mix?
Management today has its underpinnings in practices and beliefs from over half a millennia. I feel that the discipline of good management is also knowing which assumptions are still valid today as they were 500 years ago; and knowing this validity according to industry.