Bradley Byrne

Find out how to be an effective manager and leader with the help of a business management degree programs.

An effective manager possesses the right set of skills and knows how to use these skills over the right set of people. Effective management skills are observed by an individual from persons of authority and he learns to apply them as he matures.  A persons gains an opportunity to enhance these skills and apply them to practical functions such as business through proper education such as in a business management degree.

People in supervisory or management positions can bring out the greatest potential from their support staff using certain competencies.  Leadership is one of the most important skills that an effective manager should have.  Leadership means influencing people to work willingly towards defined business goals.

Good leaders tend to encourage high quality results and performance from the people they handle.  Effective leadership means balancing the exercise of control over one’s subordinates, and the empowerment of team members to improve collective performance.  There are three categories of leadership styles depending on the degree of control and empowerment used.

The first and most conventional category of leadership is authoritative.  This type of leadership makes use of strong control over people in relation to the performance of their tasks according to set objectives.  Authoritative leaders are bent on giving orders and directions, and are more concerned with task achievement rather than staff development.

The second category of leadership is called participative leadership.  Participative leadership is characterized by the engagement and involvement of team members in setting the direction towards the attainment of certain goals.  There is sharing of control among the leader and members of a team and tasks are achieved by fostering commitment of each member on his own role or participation.

The third and last category of leadership is called laissez-faire.  This type of leadership involves the surrender of any type of leadership responsibility or control to the group members. Laissez-faire type leaders impose minimal restrictions and little interference to the activities of their subordinates, which at times results in poor performance of tasks at hand.

An effective manager adopts a leadership role that strikes a balance between goal attainment, performance management, team empowerment and staff development.  Apart from leadership skills, an effective manager must possess good communication skills.  He must be able to conceive a message, send the message across to his team, and facilitate coordination between him and among the members of the team.

An effective manager should make use of motivational techniques to engage people and reinforce the desired performance from his entire team.  Motivational techniques can take the form of rewards and incentives to high performing staff, or imposing discipline and performance monitoring to ensure that tasks are carried out completely and on schedule.  An effective manager must be able to delegate new responsibilities to the right people, and develop new competencies whenever called for by the tasks at hand.

Effective management calls for a recognition of the different behavioral needs and expectations of people.  As groups and individuals differ in terms of capacities and management tolerance, dealing with different groups requires flexibility, and supplementing individual competencies as needed.  An adaptive management approach ensures that the productive potential of support staff is realized and productive work relationships are nurtured.

The management skills mentioned above are among the diverse collection of management theories and concepts that could be learned from business management degrees.  Even professionals who are already handling management positions may still benefit from learning new concepts and skills by earning an online business management degree.  Establishing oneself as an effective manager requires constantly updating one’s skills to keep up with the fast-changing workplace culture, and ultimately creating productive, rewarding and fulfilling work environments for any business.