Tips for a top manager. The leader's burden and how to cope with it

“I want to become a top manager!” - you say to yourself, or even out loud. Your imagination pictures you of an elegant meeting - and you are at the head of the table. Or you walk down the corridor, surrounded by honor, respect and a little fear. Or you give an order to a secretary who is ready to “take” a perfectly sharpened pencil. We hasten to disappoint you: it is almost impossible to “become” a top manager (“you can only become a fairy,” and even then not right away). And it’s a completely different matter if your wish sounds like “I want to learn how to do the work of a leader.” This is constructive! And for people with a constructive approach, we have some practical advice.

Gather around you managers of the highest class “A”: in corporate management, “like leads to like” at tremendous speed! Only “A” class managers are purposeful and competent enough to surround themselves with high-quality employees! As soon as you “give some slack” and hire a middle class manager - “B”, he, for fear of losing authority in front of stronger subordinates, will surround himself with subordinates of the lowest class - “C”. Thus, the quality of human resources in the company subordinate to you will begin to inexorably decline.

There are no autonomous problems in managing a company: each problem is a consequence of another problem, and that, in turn, is the cause of a third. But the top manager, first of all, is an excellent analyst and thoughtful diagnostician: he will be able to “unravel the tangle”! To do this, you need to write in the center of a large sheet of paper what worries you most at this stage of the company's work. Now draw cause-and-effect relationships in both directions: what is the “root” - the cause of your problem, what is the “berry” - the bitter consequence? Soon the entire sheet will be covered with a whimsical “network”... and you will see what you need to start working on first!

Is your company a “process culture” or a “results culture”? Ask yourself this question! Indeed, everyone is intensely solving problems... But how many problems have been solved? Did you, as a top manager, just want “everyone to be involved”?! You wanted results. So match the efforts of each department/employee with the value they create for the business! Be equally hard on yourself: Every day when you go home, ask yourself, “What commercially valuable results have I created today?” Only by following the philosophy of efficiency can you beat the competition.

Learn the basics of project management: in the modern world, companies not only maintain ongoing work processes, but also manage important projects - IT projects, HR projects, R&D projects, data collection projects, marketing analytics, and so on. Project management is a rational and effective discipline that helps a top manager avoid making mistakes the very first time! Always appoint a project manager, draw up a project schedule, record the target results of the project in writing, create a risk plan and a plan of “milestones” - intermediate results that allow you to understand whether you are moving in the right direction - here are simple rules from AVSEO that will help you avoid annoying problems.