TIPS: Are you ready to be a manager?

By NISHA T. NAIDU
editor@mystarjob.com

Who wouldn’t want a suave office, a fatter pay check, and more decision-making power?

While the big bump up the rungs of a steep career ladder might promise you all the above, the job of managing people and being key decision-maker is no walk in the park. The transition to the role is even more challenging.

The prospects can be intimidating enough for anyone to start doubting themselves. But challenges aside, being in a managerial role can be very rewarding once you’ve gotten the hang of it.

So, whether you are about to get that promotion, are pondering about your career pathway, or would like to prepare yourself for the future, here’s how you would know if you’re ready for the big responsibility of being in management.

You know how to let go

As a manager, your job is to deal with the bigger picture. You won’t have to deal with those tedious daily to-do tasks anymore.

The great challenge here is to let go of these responsibilities you once used to carry out on a regular basis. This means no micromanaging, and instead doing all it takes to focus and move your team toward a common overall mission.

You’re prepared to take responsibilities

Your job can be pretty sweet when you make the right decisions and the right moves. Likewise, it can get pretty ugly when you don’t. Being in a managerial position means a heavier weightage is put on your decisions, which would lead to bigger rewards but also bigger consequences.

Besides that stress, you now are also responsible for not just yourself, but for your team too. Any screw ups within your team will come directly to you to solve. Are you ready for all these responsibilities?

You have realistic expectations

As a leader, you have to be realistic in your expectations for yourself and your team. Set goals that are challenging yet achievable. Take on projects that align to your organisation’s goals. Say no to suggestions and proposals that don’t, even if they are good ideas.

Being realistic with your time expectations can save you time, stress, and drastically heighten your team’s quality of work.

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You know how to motivate and inspire

To get your job done in the most efficient way possible, you need to have a motivated team. This goes beyond dishing out instruction after instruction.

You know that in order to have a high-functioning team, you’ll need to exercise patience in coaching and guiding each of them. You’ll need to know each member of your team well enough to know what makes them tick, and leverage that to optimise your team’s performance.

You’ll need to communicate the vision that you have for your team, and the whys and hows of the matter. You’ll need to inspire.

You don’t let perfectionism get in the way

Yes, you want the job to be done well, but perfection is not always necessary, and often is time-consuming and stress-inducing. You specify the end result and let your team mates be in charge of execution.

The end result may not be as ‘perfect’ as it would have been if you did it yourself, but you know that perfection is sometimes subjective and in the end, the job is completed. Controlling every aspect of the task would mean micromanaging – which is a big managerial no-no.

You are idealistic

But not overly idealistic, in a pain-in-the-neck kind of way. You are clear about what is right and wrong, and you try your best to keep by your principles.

You are now the role model to your team, and you set the example of what goes and what doesn’t. Furthermore you realise that should you falter from your pedestal, the consequences can be quite dire for employee morale.

You are great with people

Great people skills are a hallmark of a great manager. You’ll need to have the ability to connect with others, especially your team, on a daily basis. This goes way deeper than simply giving out instructions to your team mates. Sometimes, you’ll need to let a little of your personal side show to your team, no matter how introverted you are.

As a leader, you would also have to face the prospect of being an advisor to your team mates, even on personal matters. You recognise that your compassion will gain you your team’s trust and respect not just as a leader, but as a human being.

You don’t let your position get to you

You don’t think of yourself as above the rest. Sure, your remarkable skills and talent may have got you to where you are now, but nobody likes a pompous leader. You know how to talk to your employees on their level while still commanding the respect that you deserve.

This helps you in forging a strong bond between you and your team, and makes you the go-to person for your team, thus reinforcing your position as a good leader.

You are not threatened by conflict

Part of being a leader is handling conflicts effectively. You understand that human emotions are bound to clash at the workplace, and that it is not the end of the world.

You are fair and just

Speaking of conflict, no matter how close or distant you are from your colleagues and team mates, you know that when handling conflict, you need to make a decision that is fair and just.

You will need to be able to step out of your own emotions and look at a situation objectively. In other words, you know how to separate logical thinking from your emotions.

Feeling confident? Getting intimidated?

Fear not, as no one goes into a managerial role knowing exactly how to carry themselves. The important part is to take every victory and mistake as a learning process towards your constant effort of self-improvement. All the best!

Tips for job selection

In my job, I speak to executives everyday about their career goals and objectives. Building a career has never been more complex. Even managers and executives, who have spent more years in a job than most, change positions about every six years. If you're among this group, you'll face several potential forks in your career path and will likely need a new roadmap each time.

It takes on average six to 12 months to find a senior-level executive position if you're thinking of making a switch. That's a lot of time to waste if you set off in the wrong direction.

This could be a waste of time if it's completely wrong for you

Knowing your strengths, as well as what matters most to you at this stage of your career, will bring focus and clarity to your job search. In a competitive and turbulent job market, flexibility and creativity are essential to success. A sophisticated understanding of your professional skills and personal attributes allows you to be more imaginative about how and when they can be applied.

A good first step is a career audit. For every job in your past, make a list of what you liked and disliked most about your role and the work environment. What “non-negotiable” criteria are you looking for now? Creating a list of companies you respect might help narrow the scope of the job search.

Being clear about your “must-have” career criteria such as responsibilities, company culture, work-life balance as well as staying up-to-date on the latest industry and hiring trends, will make it more likely that every job will contribute to a positive career progression.

Next, take the time to understand the motivations behind your earlier choices and what inspires you now. Korn/Ferry utilises an online assessment tool called CareerView that divides professional decisions into four themes: experts, competitors, learners and entrepreneurs. Ask yourself which of these sounds most like you:

1. Experts: Generally stick with one field and often one employer and focus on deepening their knowledge and skills. They are motivated to become sought-after specialists. If you fall into this group, explore mentoring future leaders or becoming a thought leader by writing or speaking on your area of expertise.

2. Competitors: Are driven to gain influence and responsibility. They may frequently switch companies, functions, or even careers purely for more pay or a more impressive title. While it is admirable to seek advancement, it takes time and a wide range of experiences to become a mature leader capable of handling complex roles. If you are motivated by upward mobility, be honest with prospective employers about your intentions and realistic about your abilities.

3. Learners: Are curious and attracted to trying new things. They select a field and then move every five to seven years into an area that uses their previously acquired skills and knowledge in a new way. If you fall into this category, look for organisations where you will easily be able to change departments, participate in company sponsored training, travel, or contribute to new projects every few years.

4. Entrepreneurs: Seek the new and novel. They typically move into new fields every two to four years. If you are a natural-born entrepreneur, but want to work for a corporation, you will do best in a start-up or company with a progressive and even unconventional culture.

Which one are you?

Alternatively, you may thrive in roles where your job is to build a department from scratch or launch a major new initiative.

As you go about your job search, solicit feedback from as many people as possible to get objective views of your strengths. Write out your “personal brand proposition” and a detailed description of your dream job. It is then essential to begin practicing a 30-second to three-minute verbal “pitch” that encapsulates your personal brand.

Even if you believe you have effectively promoted yourself throughout your career, never miss an opportunity to practice selling yourself, whether you are actively looking for a job or not. Doing so may lead you to discover new ways of positioning yourself and also helps you to clearly define and attract what you ultimately want and give you feedback on areas where your approach may not resonate.

A job search can be stressful, but the first step is always the same. Take control explore not only new companies or industries, but your own interests and attributes. Hone your own personal brand, outline your work-related desires and seek out the position that is right for you. A healthy dose of introspection lays a strong foundation for marketing yourself with confidence. Good luck!

Reza Ghazali, managing director of Korn/Ferry International in Malaysia, believes that cultivating strong leadership and talent is the key to unlocking an organisation's success. Article extracted from Talking HR, Star Business.

@http://mystarjob.com/

Warren Buffett Tells You How to Turn $40 Into $10 Million

By Patrick Morris 

Warren Buffett is perhaps the greatest investor of all time, and he has a simple solution that could help an individual turn $40 into $10 million.

A few years ago, Berkshire Hathaway CEO and Chairman Warren Buffett spoke about one of his favorite companies, Coca-Cola, and how after dividends, stock splits, and patient reinvestment, someone who bought just $40 worth of the company's stock when it went public in 1919 would now have more than $5 million.  

Source: Coca-Cola.

Yet in April 2012, when the board of directors proposed a stock split of the beloved soft-drink manufacturer, that figure was updated and the company noted that original $40 would now be worth $9.8 million. A little back-of-the-envelope math of the total return of Coke since May 2012 would mean that $9.8 million is now worth about $10.8 million.

The power of patienceI know that $40 in 1919 is very different from $40 today. However, even after factoring for inflation, it turns out to be $540 in today's money. Put differently, would you rather have an Xbox One, or almost $11 million?

But the thing is, it isn't even as though an investment in Coca-Cola was a no-brainer at that point, or in the near century since then. Sugar prices were rising. World War I had just ended a year prior. The Great Depression happened a few years later. World War II resulted in sugar rationing. And there have been countless other things over the past 100 years that would cause someone to question whether their money should be in stocks, much less one of a consumer-goods company like Coca-Cola.

The dangers of timing
Yet as Buffett has noted continually, it's terribly dangerous to attempt to time the market:

"With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can't figure out when it will happen. You don't want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you're right about what, you don't have to worry about when" 

So often investors are told they must attempt to time the market, and begin investing when the market is on the rise, and sell when the market is falling.

This type of technical analysis of watching stock movements and buying based on how the prices fluctuate over 200-day moving averages or other seemingly arbitrary fluctuations often receives a lot of media attention, but it has been proved to simply be no better than random chance. 

Investing for the long termIndividuals need to see that investing is not like placing a wager on the 49ers to cover the spread against the Cowboys, but instead it's buying a tangible piece of a business.

It is absolutely important to understand the relative price you are paying for that business, but what isn't important is attempting to understand whether you're buying in at the "right time," as that is so often just an arbitrary imagination.

In Buffett's own words, "if you're right about the business, you'll make a lot of money," so don't bother about attempting to buy stocks based on how their stock charts have looked over the past 200 days. Instead always remember that "it's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price."

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