Let me ask you two questions:

1. Who is the best manager that you have ever had?
2. Why did you select that person?

You might be hard pushed to think of anyone in response to the first question but if you did identify someone, I bet I know why. It wasn’t because of that person’s ‘technical’ skills as a salesman or engineer or physiotherapist or teacher. Nor was it because of that person’s self-Management discipline – always had reports out on time, always seemed capable of doing a dozen things at once, never flustered. No – the reason for your choice was that they treated you with respect, made you feel good, made you want to make that extra effort, made you feel part of the team. In short, you felt empowered.

The qualities required of a Manager fall into three skill sets.

1. Technical competence – Requires little explanation – it is simply the knowledge and skills required to undertake the role that has been given to the employee
2. Self management skills – These are the personal attributes that enable employees to effectively exploit their technical knowledge
3. Leadership skills – I prefer the term “empowerment skills” – may be defined as the ability to get the best from those for whom the manager is responsible

The Western education system focuses overwhelmingly on teaching technical competence – even at a tertiary level. University courses consist of a specific number of units that the student undertakes to acquire an academic qualification. The units by definition are ‘single and complete’ and are usually taught by a specialist in that particular discipline. Some universities are now recognising that this narrow focus on technical skills does not adequately prepare the graduate for a subsequent career. I know of at least one university that is adding what it calls a “personal edge” module to its Management Degree in the belief that its graduates will have a competitive advantage when seeking employment.

Regarding the third set of attributes – Empowerment Skills – there are indeed units on Leadership, Change Management, Teams and Teamwork etc, but these units again are taught in isolation from one another and tend to focus on concepts and theory rather than on their practical application in the workplace.

When one considers the utilisation of these skill sets in the workplace, it is evident that, during the course of a manager’s career, the emphasis on two of them undergoes significant change. At the commencement of one’s career, by far the greatest emphasis is placed on Technical Knowledge. When technical knowledge is combined with self management skills, a junior management position will result and the third skill set will be brought into play. As one’s career progresses, the ability to empower others will eventually supersede technical knowledge as the key requirement. These days, technical knowledge becomes redundant very rapidly whereas empowerment skills have remained essentially unchanged over thousands of years.

In the final analysis every organisation is judged on its ability to get things done – to achieve its goals. So a company exists to make an adequate profit; a hospital to cure the sick; a charity to aid the disadvantage; a government to enact legislation etc. Unless the organisation is extremely small, getting things done can only be achieved by a collective effort and if that effort is to be effectively harnessed, an organisational structure is required, comprising workgroups, departments, divisions etc each with a designated manager. The role of each manager, whether he or she is responsible for 5 or 5000 people, is to empower others – to get things done.

In the next blog, I will look at the sources of such empowerment skills and will consider the reasons for their decline.

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