Planning your move into management

Many expect to read short cuts when they search for tips
on how to move up the corporate ladder. The fact is clear, there
are no short cuts no matter how much one wants to
believe in it. It is all too easy to think that the way up
the corporate ladder is through connections and
networking.

You landed that first job and you have been at it for
about a year or two. And you're looking for career
promotion advice to move up the ladder, successfully.
Obviously, there are no hard and fast rules to this. However,
there are guidelines that can help increase your chances of
promotion.

It would be safe to say that you would have probably
entertained the question of how to get promoted even
before you graduated or left school. This getting promoted
article isn"t going to teach you any short cuts to getting that
promotion. Neither is it going to give you any tips or tricks to
win brownie points from your bosses and superiors. The advice you
will get here are my real strategies for advancing career
and getting the promotion you want. This is the long
way, and the hard way, if you will.

In my years at work, I have had the opportunity to
practice some of these advice and observed some of it being
practiced too. I have also had the opportunity to give this
career promotion advice to my staff. Many have gone on to greener
pastures and they have told me these are some of the career
promotion advice that works for them even now.

But what do you have to do to shine to gain promotion?
Here are some guidelines you can follow:

1. SeriousBe serious at work and be serious with
your work. What does this mean? Being serious with your work does
not mean that you cannot have fun at work. Neither does it mean
you cannot enjoy your work. It just means that you need to focus
on your work.

Be focused and never let anything detract you from what
needs to be done on time with speed and consistency. No bosses
like people who are not mindful of their job. When you are
serious at work you minimize silly mistakes. Bosses and
colleagues can feel your commitment. This career promotion advice
does not stop you from having fun at work. Being serious at work
means being focused and yet still be able to enjoy your
work.

2. HardworkingThis is one career promotion advice
that many career newbies find difficult to take. After all, they
feel shouldn"t there be some form of short cuts?
Being hardworking probably sounds laborious to many.
And many would expect that a career promotion advice would talk
more about working smart than working hard. Well, not this career
promotion advice.

You see, no matter how much you work smart and no matter
how many "tricks" you know to work smart, you still need to work.
You still need to be hardworking in order for the results to
show. Any short cut that does not require being hardworking will
not bear fruits!

3. IndispensableIsn"t it true that no one is
indispensable in this world? Well, it is true. But you should
strive to make yourself indispensable in the unit you work in. To
gain promotion and to shine at work, make "being indispensable"
part of your career goals.

Strive to be a key competitive advantage to
your bosses and your unit. When you do that you are making
yourself indispensable. Being indispensable means taking
initiatives, do what needs to be done on time. And take the
initiative to do what is beyond the call of duty. When you take
this career promotion advice to heart you increase your chances
to gain promotion.

4. NiceThe advice of being hardworking in order
to shine to gain that promotion is toughest to swallow for some.
This career promotion advice then should be the easiest to accept
– being nice at work. Being nice at work is to be a delight
and pleasing to work with. It means to be polite and being able
to handle your frustration and anger. It also means being able
to lower your stress levels.

You would probably ask, why would being nice increase
your chances to gain promotion? The answer is simple, when you
are nice – polite, pleasing and able handle your emotions
well; you demonstrate professional decorum. One who does that is
more professional and shines at work more than one who does
not.

5. EnthusiasmIf you want to gain promotion be
enthusiastic at work. Put passion behind every task that is given
to you to complete. Let that enthusiasm rub off on your
colleagues. This career promotion advice works because when you
put enthusiasm into every task, work becomes easier and lighter.
You complete it with more accuracy and speed.

Enthusiasm doesn"t just fuel you alone. That feeling of
passion is also easily transferred to fellow teammates. It then
fuels them to work harder for that common goal. When you
work that way you naturally shine at work.

To become a
leader

A recent woman law school graduate might be surprised to
find so few women among the leaders of the firm she just joined.
After all, half of her law school classmates were women. And
although this law school statistic is often reported as if it
represents some dramatic change, the fact is that roughly 40% of
law school students have been women since the mid
1980s.

Although there have been small positive changes, for the
most part, legal workplaces continue to be sadly lacking in women
leadership.

There are several reasons for this, perhaps chief among
them, the fact that a "committed lawyer" is defined so that it
excludes the majority of women lawyers. If "commitment" is
mutually exclusive with pregnancy and motherhood, then the odds
of a woman lawyer advancing to a leadership position are
slim.

This definition also excludes male lawyers who want to
be more than just financial providers for their families. In
fact, any lawyer seriously wanting "a life" is at risk of being
deleted from the potential- leaders list.

The best chance of changing this systemic obstacle is to
tip the gender scales in leadership balance. As more women become
leaders in legal organizations, organizational values and
definitions are likely to change. The concept of the "ideal
lawyer" [1] will broaden to become equally inclusive of women as
well as men whose wives handle family matters. The inclusion of
men and woman who understand that work and life are not a zero
sum game would benefit the profession as well as the individuals
practicing it.

As organizations move from mono-cultural clubs to
diversity-welcoming institutions, one might expect that the
"ideal lawyer" image would also evolve into one that equally
includes lawyers of color and those of non-majority sexual
orientation.

There is another reason to expect that fostering
leadership ability among women lawyers will benefit the careers
of these and future women attorneys, as well as the organizations
in which they work:

Research on leadership indicates that 50-75% of
organizations are currently managed by people sorely lacking in
leadership competence [2]. They are hired or promoted based on
technical competence, business knowledge and politics – not on
leadership skill. Such managers often manage by crisis, are poor
communicators, are insensitive to moral issues, are mistrustful,
over-controlling and micro-managing, fail to follow through on
commitments they've made and are easily excitable and explosive.
The result is low morale, alienated employees, and costly
attrition. Since the best business outcomes are achieved by
satisfied employees, the legal profession can only gain by an
increasing focus on the development of attorneys' leadership
competencies.

Women lawyers can take the lead in this endeavor. Here
are 20 ways to become a leader:

1. TAKE CHARGE

Become the sculptor of your own career and life –
not the sculpture. Leaders are authentic – the authors of
their own lives. Take responsibility for your professional
development. No one has a greater investment in your success and
satisfaction than you. Especially as a woman, you cannot depend
upon the traditional management structure of your organization to
put you on the path to achievement. It's up to you to direct and
protect your career and to develop your own potential. You cannot
afford to be passive or to accept roles assigned to you. Know
what you want and why and be prepared to take action to make it
happen.

2. KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS

Work is most meaningful and satisfying when it gives us
an opportunity to use our strengths. Leadership is fundamentally
about character. Knowing your character strengths enables you to
find ways to select work environments and work assignments that
allow you to express and develop them. For example, if one of
your greatest strengths is loyalty and teamwork, you'll be most
effective and satisfied working as a member of a team. If
fairness is among your greatest strengths, you'll be frustrated
and dissatisfied without an opportunity to work on issues of
justice. If you're someone who loves to learn, you'll feel bored
and frustrated unless you find ways to master new skills and
bodies of knowledge.

It's also important to keep track of your own
accomplishments. Unfortunately, legal workplaces are notorious
for focusing on mistakes and defeats rather than what people have
done well. However, good leaders develop talent by matching
peoples' strengths with work tasks. They recognize contributions
and celebrate accomplishments.

Start practicing good leadership by keeping a log of
your successes. Record even small wins – this is essential
for building your own confidence as well as developing a crucial
leadership competence.

You can assess your strengths by taking the VIA
Strengths Survey athttp://www.authentichappiness.org. Dr. Martin
Seligman, a psychologist known for his research in the areas of
helplessness, depression, optimism and positive psychology has
developed this website. Since he continues to do research on the
instruments on his website, you can take them for
free.

The Gallup StrengthsFinder is another way to assess your
strengths. You can learn about it
athttp://www.gallup.com.

3. CREATE YOUR VISION

Leaders are vision directed. A leader creates a
compelling vision, is committed to this vision, and inspires
others to action by aligning their goals with this
vision.

Start developing this leadership competence by creating
your own personal vision. Your vision statement is a picture of
the future to which you can commit. It expresses your values, the
contribution you want to make, and the way you want to live your
life.

Without a clear vision, it's easy to be led by the
expectations of others. As a professional coach, I can attest to
the unhappiness of lawyers who've allowed the demands and
approval of others to become their compass. It is heartbreaking
to look back on your life with regret.

Your vision statement is your own personal "why."
Knowing what you're working toward allows you to plan your
professional development as well as to be resilient in the face
of obstacles.

If you'd like a format for a personal vision statement,
you can email me at Ellen@lawyerslifecoach.com with "Vision
Statement" in the subject line.

4. CHOOSE A WORKPLACE WITH COMPATIBLE
VALUES

One of the biggest mistakes many attorneys make is to
accept a position in an organization with values contrary to
their own. This situation leads to misery at worst, and job
change at best.

Furthermore, you are much less likely to achieve a
position of leadership in an organization with values at odds
with your own ethics than you would in an environment that echoed
your principles.

5. ESTABLISH YOUR OWN PERSONAL ADVISORY
BOARD

Although the legal profession puts a premium on
self-reliance, everyone needs guidance, role models and support.
Old-style mentoring rarely exists in the 21st century legal
workplace. Even if you have an assigned mentor, such "arranged
marriages" rarely meet your most important professional
development needs. It's especially difficult for women and
attorneys of color to find mentors who identify with them or to
whom they can look for time-tested strategies that apply to their
unique challenges.

Establishing your own personal advisory board enables
you to obtain assistance from several people. Each has a unique
contribution to make to your career success. This approach also
gives you an opportunity to seek needed assistance without
over-burdening any one person.

In order to construct an effective personal board of
directors you need to assess your learning needs. Identify the
skills you need to acquire or improve in order to achieve the
career goals you've set for the next year or two. Having
identified your knowledge needs, you'll be ready to identify
potential advisors. You can get recommendations from others. At
the same time, observe people you'd like to emulate or those who
have some special expertise in the areas in which you're
interested. Look both within as well as outside your current work
setting.

The people on your board will change as your learning
needs change. Here are a few important tips for developing your
advisory board:

• Select people whom you trust.

• Keep in mind that the alliances you form with your
  advisors are substantive, strategically important, and
  meaningful relationships.

• Clarify each person's expectations for the
  relationship. Negotiate how long you expect the relationship
  to proceed in this form.

• Understand what you mentor needs in order for the
  relationship to be mutually rewarding. For some advisors,
  helping another attorney succeed is sufficient. Others might
  feel rewarded by your offers to assist them in their own
  work.

You'll need to have advisors who serve different
functions. The most important of these are:

A Culture Guide

If you're a new attorney, or are new to your current
work setting, you'll need an advisor who can help you learn about
the organizational culture. This mentor can provide tips on who
is powerful, who the key players and decision-makers are, whom to
seek out and whom not to cross. This mentor may also suggest
committees to join and other avenues to pursue so that you will
become more visible.

A Legal Skills Mentor

It's useful to find a mentor with deep knowledge in your
area of the law – a senior and successful attorney who can
provide candid and constructive feedback about your work. You
need to have someone you trust to whom you can turn with
substantive questions about your work. Ideally, this would not be
someone who will be in a position of evaluating you: you can't
hold back if you want to really learn.

A Role Model

It's especially helpful for women attorneys to form
alliances with other women lawyers who share their work/life
balance values. Ask someone you admire to share her strategies
for balancing work and family.

It's particularly helpful to identify leadership role
models. Think of the most inspiring leaders in your life and list
the attributes that elicited your admiration and respect. Find
role models who can advise you about how you can become a
leader.

A Good "Connector"

Unless you have a well-established network, it's helpful
to know someone who can introduce you to people you'd like to
know. As a knowledge worker in today's economy, you simply cannot
know everything. Establishing a knowledge network enables you to
identify the fastest route to the information you need and the
people who can connect you to that information. Whether you're
seeking information requested by a client, connections to
business development opportunities, or looking for another job, a
well-developed network is an essential resource.

6. FIND A CHAMPION

It's essential to have someone who will be your champion
in the organization. Most likely, this will be someone with whom
you practice. The more value you add to the practice of a senior
lawyer in your practice group, the more he or she will be
invested in retaining you. People who like you, as well as your
work, are more likely to be in your corner. It's also necessary
that this person be in a secure position in the organization;
someone in a tenuous spot is unlikely to feel able to go out on a
limb for you.

7. WORK TOWARD EXCELLENCE IN YOUR
PRACTICE

Excellent work performance is a necessary, although not
sufficient condition for leadership. Stay on top of your
professional development. Don't wait for your firm or
organization to offer a seminar in the skills you want to learn
– seek out your own training opportunities.

Keep in mind the difference between excellence and
perfection. Maintaining high standards for your work reflects
positive striving. On the other hand, being harshly self-critical
for the smallest error will undermine your success. Perfectionism
easily leads to micro-management and harsh criticism of others,
neither of which are effective leadership behaviors.

It's difficult to strive for excellence unless you're
doing what you love. People who are committed to what they do
– who are strongly interested in their work – are
resilient in the face of challenges. Enthusiasm and passion
motivate hard work. Genuine interest sustains focused
attention.

It's important to know what skills you should be
developing as you progress in your career. The ABCNY Report of
the Task Force on Lawyers Quality of Life delineates specific
training goals for corporate and litigation associates. You can
find these
at: http://www.abcny.org/taskforce.html

Look for Attachment C. For a list of skills against
which to assess your progress, you can send an email to me at
Ellen@lawyerslifecoach.com with "Skills" in the subject
line.

The more knowledgeable you are and the better your
skills, the more you'll be a resource to others. Expertise builds
your reputation as a credible and trusted resource, which is
essential for attaining leadership roles.

8. TAKE INITIATIVE

Whatever you're trying to accomplish, you need to take
control of your own destiny and act on your own convictions. To
become a leader, you must first learn to lead yourself.
Initiative is a fundamental leadership competence. Choose your
work – don't let it choose you. Seek out work you like or
from which you can learn. If the work you really want isn't
coming your way, make a plan to find it. Forge alliances with
people both within and outside your organization who can help you
work with the kinds of matters and clients you prefer.

Avoid the "tyranny of the in-basket." [3] You need to
actively work on your career, not just on your work. Develop a
career plan. Identify specific, measurable goals and routes for
accomplishing them. Go beyond adapting to whatever comes your
way. Proactively select and influence the situation in which you
work rather than merely reacting to situations created by others.
Work to change yourself and your circumstances for the
better.

Leaders create a vision, set goals that embody the
vision, inspire action to accomplish the vision, and develop
strategic plans which lead to their goals. Start on your path to
leadership by leading yourself.

9. TAKE RISKS

Developing leadership skill requires getting out of your
comfort zone. Set "stretch" goals that enable you to develop new
skills. Join committees and take a leadership role. This is an
opportunity to develop leadership competencies as well as
increase your visibility. Many women lawyers have told me that
they do their best to fly under the radar. They believe that this
demonstrates that they are team players. I disagree. You stand to
lose far more by being invisible than you do by taking risks. In
order to break through the stereotypes that keep women from
achieving positions of leadership, you'll need to appear
confident. That means being willing to learn on the job instead
of waiting until you know everything before you take on
challenges. Ask your advisory board and network to help you fill
in knowledge gaps. Present your ideas. Be decisive and to the
point. Speak in a convincing manner and make your statements
strong and powerful. Claim authorship of your ideas. Don't
qualify your statements or apologize for speaking. Be assertive,
not aggressive. Manage your emotions when you set limits and make
requests. Avoid harsh criticism and always respect the dignity of
others. Depersonalize your mistakes. Just because you failed at
one thing doesn't make you a failure. View mistakes as learning
opportunities. If you become so worried about how you're
perceived after you make an error that you never try again,
others will conclude that you always make mistakes. But if you
attribute your error to insufficient information, you'll learn
more and try again. Your track record of successes will outweigh
the memory of your small errors. Taking risks builds resilience
and self-confidence. The more you stretch yourself and succeed,
the more confident you'll feel. This will empower you to strive
toward a leadership position.

10. BE OPTIMISTIC

As "purveyors of hope," [4] leaders must be optimistic.
Realistic optimists take control where they can and stop
investing energy in things beyond their control. When faced with
a setback, optimists don't succumb to feelings of helplessness.
They maintain their focus on the larger purpose, finding ways to
bounce back and pursue alternative routes to their goal.
Optimists see mistakes as learning opportunities, not as
catastrophes from which they'll never recover. This enables them
to take the kinds of risks necessary for becoming a leader.
Optimism is especially difficult for lawyers, since so much of
legal work is about anticipating and preventing disaster. But
even though pessimism may help you be more effective in
practicing law, it will be an obstacle if you think this way
about career planning or the rest of your life. You're probably
used to thinking that optimism is just a personality
characteristic and you either have it or you don't. But, the fact
is that research has demonstrated that people can learn to think
more optimistically and that these changes are enduring. If you
want to learn to be more optimistic, I'd encourage you to read
"Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman, Ph.D. [5].

11. BECOME "UN-FUNGIBLE"

Find a niche which your organization values and about
which you can be passionate. Develop your expertise in this area.
If you are the only expert, or one of a few experts in this area,
you'll be of considerable value to your firm. This increases your
power to lobby for flexibility in your scheduling and
opportunities to take on leadership roles.

12. MAKE YOUR CAREER MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR JOB
[6]

Focusing on your long-term career goals enables you to
minimize the power of any given employer. If your goals are
incompatible with those of your organization, or if you can't get
the support you need to make your vision a reality, look
elsewhere.

13. DEVELOP YOUR SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

Leadership is interpersonal. Effective leadership is
fundamentally about how you relate to people. Social intelligence
consists of several components:

• Self-management People who cannot manage the
  expression of their own emotions are unlikely to effectively
  manage others. It's important to develop an awareness of your
  own feelings and make deliberate choices about how best to
  use them in any given situation. Managing your emotions keeps
  them from clouding your perceptions and judgments. Being able
  to influence how others perceive you and coming across to
  others in the way you intend require self-awareness and
  self-regulation. It's essential to have a deep understanding
  of your own values, motives, strengths and limitations.
  Though it's not always easy to be honest with yourself, you
  need to develop this kind of honesty if you want to be
  interpersonally effective. Realistically appraise yourself
  without being overly self-critical. Ask others for feedback.
  The knowledge of how others perceive you is a powerful tool.
  Monitor yourself; pay attention to your feelings, actions and
  intentions. Observe the impact of your actions on others.
  Self-awareness is also critical for empathy since we tend to
  perceive others through the filter of our own needs, fears,
  expectations and hopes. When we are aware of what we expect
  to hear or are afraid of hearing, we can get past the filter
  and hear what's really being communicated.

• Social radar Effective leaders can read emotional
  signals and assess other's emotional states. Your ability to
  influence others depends upon your skill at sensing their
  reactions and adjusting your approach accordingly. Practice
  "active" listening – listening not only to the other
  person's words but also their nonverbal expressions. Leaders
  are more persuasive when they can attune their message to
  their listeners.

• Seek Win-Win Solutions to Problems Leaders elicit
  far more cooperation when they work toward equitable
  solutions, which all participants can embrace. Be flexibly
  open to others' points of view and demonstrate your
  understand of their perspectives. Always try to preserve the
  dignity of everyone involved in a problem or project.
  Leadership is about building and empowering teams. Practice
  creating an atmosphere of collaboration and
  openness.

14. BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE

Many women attorneys who are excellent advocates for
their clients are fearful of advocating for themselves. In our
culture, women are socialized to believe that self-promotion is
not only unbecoming and aggressive but will also damage their
careers. But failing to advocate for yourself can have
far-reaching consequences. In the short run, too much modesty
feeds into the gender stereotype that women aren't "tough
enough." Keep in mind that other people see only a small
percentage of our actions. The missing information has to come
from the actor herself. Share your knowledge by offering to help
others. Broadcast your wins through in-house newsletters. Express
your convictions. Self-advocacy is necessary for reaching
positions of leadership. At the same time, make sure that you
acknowledge and appreciate everyone who contributed to the group
effort. Leaders are able to make their employees feel proud of
their contributions. They don't need to steel the credit for
themselves.

15. BREAK THROUGH EXPECTATIONS

Gender role stereotypes are an obstacle to women
achieving leadership in the legal profession. But believing
you'll never break the "glass ceiling" is sure to hold you back.
Sometimes the only way to get past these stereotypes is to
address them directly. Shining a light on unspoken assumptions
can enable your listeners to hear and see beyond their
expectations. By identifying these assumptions, you're conveying
power and insight, which inspire trust.

16. BECOME AN EXCELLENT COMMUNICATOR

A leader must communicate her vision in a way that
energizes people and galvanizes them toward action. The ability
to gain the cooperation and support of others – through
negotiation, persuasion and influence – depends upon
communication skill, which in turn is essential for leadership.
Be aware of gender differences in communication style. (For
details, see Issue # 27 of "Beyond the Billable Hour
at http://lawyerslifecoach.com/newsletters/issue27.html.)
Essentially, you must take your listener's expectations into
account in tailoring your communications. For women, it's
especially important to give the other person a reason to listen
by addressing a goal your listener wants to achieve. When people
feel heard, they're more likely to hear you. When you understand
their goals, you can articulate how their aspirations can be
aligned with your vision. Although implicit gender role
stereotypes foster the belief that mothers cannot be good
leaders, the fact is that parenting is excellent training ground
for leadership skills. As a parent you learn to plan
strategically, negotiate, enlist cooperation and persuade –
all of which you can transfer to the workplace.

17. SHOW CONCERN FOR OTHERS

Research [7] indicates that among the most important
characteristics of effective leaders are compassion, nurturance,
generosity, altruism and empathy. "Agreeableness" is a social
trait and leadership takes place in a social context, so it's not
surprising that these characteristics are so important for
effective leadership. Women lawyers need to keep this in mind.
All too often women are urged to "act like men" in working toward
leadership positions. Be encouraged to learn that the most
effective leaders demonstrate traits most often attributed to
women.

18. DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A SUPPORT
SYSTEM

Taking the time to maintain supportive and close
connections with others is necessary to attain and sustain the
energy and well-being you need to achieve career success. At
home, you'll need a partner who will agree to negotiate and share
family work with you. Be clear with your significant others that
you need their help in order to reach your goals. Being
overloaded with family responsibility is as much of an obstacle
to women reaching positions of leadership as is the "glass
ceiling" at work. You'll also need the support of people you
supervise – your support staff, paralegals, junior associates,
etc. It's easier to recruit such support if you understand their
needs and goals and treat them with compassion and respect.
Compassion and encouragement motivate people much more than
impatience and harshness. Learn to delegate well. Remember,
leaders don't do all the work themselves: They effectively match
people to tasks based on knowledge of their subordinates'
strengths and aspirations. They are clear about their
expectations when giving assignments. But don't allow
perfectionism to derail good delegating. If you're not satisfied
with the finished product, resist the urge to do it over
yourself. Instead, return the work to the person who produced it
and make sure that he or she understands your expectations. That
way, you won't feel overburdened and you'll help the other person
increase their own competence.

19. MAINTAIN INTEGRITY

Integrity may be the single most important
characteristic of competent leadership; it's the sine qua non of
a trusted advisor and effective leader. People are willing to be
led by someone who follows through – someone they trust. Do
what you say you will do. Don't promise to do what you can't.
People without integrity may gain power, but they don't truly
lead.

20. PERSEVERE

Persistence in the face of adversity is one of the
cornerstones of resilience. Take responsibility for your own
fate. Stay resolute in your values and goals and remain
determined and self-disciplined in your efforts to achieve them.
Persistence doesn't mean you never feel discouraged. Rather, it
means maintaining your focus on the goal in spite of your
feelings of discouragement. Like a marathon runner, you keep
going because you believe in what you're doing. You simply will
not give up. If your goal is to become a leader to help the legal
profession become a truly diverse, welcoming and equitable
profession, then don't give up. Your leadership is most
needed. 

What Do Managers
Who Are Both Successful and Effective Do?

The most obvious concluding question is what those who
were found to be both successful and effective really do. This
"combination" real manager, of course, is the ideal – and has
been assumed to exist in American management over the
years.

Since there was such a difference between successful and
effective managers in our study, we naturally found relatively
few (less than 10% of our sample) that were both among the top
third of successful managers and the top third of effective
managers. Not surprisingly, upon examining this special group, we
found that their activities were very similar to real managers as
a whole. They were not like either the successful or effective
real managers. Rather, it seems that real managers who are both
successful and effective use a fairly balanced approach in terms
of their activities. In other words, real managers who can strike
the delicate balance between all four managerial activities may
be able to get ahead as well as get the job done.

Important is the fact that we found so few real managers
that were both successful and effective. This supports our
findings on the difference between successful and effective real
managers, but limits any generalizations that can be made about
successful and effective managers. It seems that more important
in explaining our organizations' present performance problems,
and what to do about them, are the implications of the wide
disparity between successful and effective real
managers.

Implications of
the Successful versus Effective Real Managers
Findings

If, as our study indicates, there is indeed a difference
between successful and effective real managers, what does it mean
and what should we do about it? First of all, we need to pay more
attention to formal reward systems to ensure that effective
managers are promoted. Second, we must learn how effective
managers do their day-to-day jobs.

The traditional assumption holds that promotions are
based on performance. This is what the formal personnel policies
say, this is what new management trainees are told and this is
what every management textbook states should happen. On the other
hand, more "hardened" (or perhaps more realistic) members and
observers of real organizations (not textbook organizations or
those featured in the latest best sellers or videotapes) have
long suspected that social and political skills are the real key
to getting ahead, to being successful. Our study lends support to
the latter view.

The solution is obvious, but may be virtually impossible
to implement, at least in the short run. Tying formal rewards –
and especially promotions – to performance is a must if
organizations are going to move ahead and become more productive.
At a minimum, and most pragmatically in the short run,
organizations must move to a performance-based appraisal system.
Managers that are effective should be promoted. In the long run
organizations must develop cultural values that support and
reward effective performance, not just successful socializing and
politicking. This goes hand-in-hand with the current attention
given to corporate culture and how to change it. An appropriate
goal for cultural change in today's organizations might simply be
to make effective managers successful.

Besides the implications for performance-based
appraisals and organizational culture that came out of the
findings of our study is a lesson that we can learn from the
effective real managers themselves. This lesson is the importance
they give and effort they devote to the human-oriented activities
of communicating and human resource management. How human
resources are managed – keeping them informed, communicating with
them, paying attention to them, reinforcing them, resolving their
conflicts, training/developing them – all contribute directly to
managerial effectiveness.

The disparity our study found between successful and
effective real managers has important implications for the
performance problems facing today's organizations. While we must
move ahead on all fronts in our search for solutions to these
problems, we believe the activities basic to the effective real
managers in our study – communication and human resource
management – deserve special attention.

References

*http://www.career-success-for-newbies.com/how-to-move-up-the-corporate-ladder.html

*http://www.emergingleader.com/article31

*http://www.be.wvu.edu/divmim/mgmt/blakely/homepage/BADM543Leadership/Summer07/Readings/LeadingvsManaging.htm

Author:

Post-Doctor Omar Gómez
Castañeda,Senior,Ph.D

Programa en "Business Management"(Gerencia de
Negocios) en La Salle

Extension University de Chicago,Estado de
Illinois,Estados Unidos.(1981).

La Salle Extension University
Alumni

Chicago, IL-417 South Dearborn Street

Omar Ricardo Gómez
Castañededa(Student Number 2747760-100) Class of
1981

http://www.allhighschools.com/school/la-salle-extension-university/999037902

Doctorado en Administración de
Negocios,Mención:Dirección de Negocios con el grado
de "Magna Cum Laude" de University of Aberdeen
International,Registrar Office 560, South Winchester
Blvd.,Aberdeen,South Dakota 57401.

Toll Free.(877)2192187.

Toll Free
Fax.(877)2134578.e.mail:registrar@aberdeen.edu-sd.us

Dirección
Electrónica:http://aberdeen.edu-sd.us.

Este título doctoral está
Notariado Legalmente ante la Notaria Pública del Distrito
de Columbia, Washington,D.C el 14 de Enero del 2008 por la
Notaria Pública,Amy Broxterman y certificada su firma en
la misma fecha por el Secretario del Distrito de Columbia,bajo el
expediente Nº 185715,siendo la suscrita, –

Stephanie D Scout,expidiendo
respectivamente la Apostilla de la Convención de La Haya
del 5 de Octubre de 1961 donde Venezuela está adscrita a
nivel internacional como país miembro.

Traducido y Legalizado el Título asi
como las notas en Agosto del 2008 ante la República
Bolivariana de Venezuela por el Intérprete Público
Venezolano,René Ron Pereira,G O Nº 38040,de fecha 8
de Octubre del 2004,el cual fué registrado en la Oficina
Principal del Registro Público del Distrito Capital,bajo
el Nº 232,del Protocolo 232,Tomo 7, el 27 de Julio del 2004
e inscrito en el Juzgado Segundo de Primera Instancia en lo Civil
de la Ciudad de Caracas,el día 13 de Agosto del 2004,bajo
el Número E-6251.

Autenticada la firma del Profesor
René Ron por la Dra Sara A Dávila Z,Notario
Público Trigésimo Noveno del Municipio Libertador
Interino,C.I.V.Nº 12890483, del Ministerio del Poder Popular
para Relaciones Interiores y Justicia,según planilla
162984 de fecha 5/9/2008,inserto bajo el Nº 47,Tomo 216 de
los libros de

autenticaciones,Caracas,Distrito
Metropolitano.

Registrado el Título el 11 de Septiembre del 2008
en la Oficina Principal de Registro Público del Estado
Lara bajo el Nº 2922,Folio 122,Protocolo Unico,Estado
Lara,Venezuela.

Lista de los institutos acreditados

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Autor:

Post-Doctor Omar Gómez
Castañeda,Senior,Ph.D