Are you a manager or a leader?

Developing a leadership mindset, whatever your level, will get your career heading in the right direction. By Lisa Orrell, speaker and leadership coach.

The confusion between the roles of a manager and a leader has tripped up more than one business professional. Is ‘the person in charge’ automatically a leader? If you’re managing other people, are you also leading them? What is the difference between the two?

According to current wisdom, managers are principally administrators - they write business plans, set budgets, monitor progress and manage people - but sometimes without an effective leadership mindset. Leaders, on the other hand, get organisations and people to change.

Most business executives and owners have a mix of management and leadership skills. And quite often both are necessary to run a successful team.

Be a leader at any level

Here is a key point that can settle confusion for you. Even if you manage just one person, regardless of what your role or title is, you are also a leader. Even if you currently manage no one, you can still take on leadership roles such as heading up a project or volunteering to plan the company’s annual picnic. So whether you are actually in a true management role with employees, or assuming a short term leadership role, cultivating a leadership mindset is critical.

Don’t think leadership is something that only occurs once you’re in an executive role. Your leadership mindset needs to start on day one of your very first job.

Not every person in a company wants to be a senior executive or ‘lead’ the whole business. But you should embrace some fundamental, effective leadership qualities within your management style.

Have you ever heard this saying: ‘People don’t leave companies; they leave managers’? You don’t want to be the leader people choose to leave.

10 differences between a manager mindset and leadership mindset

Leadership skills are flexible, responsive to change, and future-oriented.

• leaders set a standard of excellence – managers set a standard for performance
  
  
• leaders seek employee commitment – managers seek employee compliance
  
  
• leaders are proactive – managers are reactive
  
  
• leaders create change – managers maintain the status quo
  
  
• leaders take risk – managers are risk averse
  
  
• leaders are passionate – managers are controlling
  
  
• leaders create followers – managers have subordinates
  
  
• leaders use personal charisma – managers rely on bestowed authority
  
  
• leaders give credit – managers assign blame
  
  
• leaders care about what’s right – managers care about being right.

Managers who don’t choose to embody important leadership qualities suffer. And their employees and companies suffer.

Be a manager who blends management skills with a leadership mindset, and you will succeed in any role at any level your career takes you to.

---

Lisa Orrell is a speaker and a leadership coach. This article is contributed by CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and it first appeared in Velocity, CIMA's online bi-monthly magazine for its students. Visit www.cimaglobal.com

The Importance of Emotional Intelligence

For most of us, when we think of intelligence, we actually mean IQ. We are suspicious of anything that involves emotions as traditionally, the world of business requires sound intellect and a rational mind. However, research has proved the common wisdom that intellect and technical expertise only go so far as predicting your future success. We can all remember the academically brilliant kid at school who never got anywhere in life or the one that failed every subject but is now running a profitable business. Emotional Intelligence (EI) counts for a big chunk of your performance and it seems that the higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more it matters. Memorable managers and leaders are usually inspirational, motivational, trustworthy and approachable. On the other side are those who think that training 'soft' skills is a complete waste of time and that companies are better off spending money on technical courses. They are unlikely to make good bosses. Even if their bottom line is healthy, their staff probably are not.

Emotional intelligence is not about being emotional. It certainly is not about not using your IQ. Reuven Bar-On, an EI researcher, devised a model of EI which consists of:

• Intra-personal factors – self-regard, emotional self-awareness, assertiveness, independence and self-actualisation;
• Inter-personal factors – empathy, social responsibility, intra-personal relationship, adaptability scales, reality testing, flexibility, problem-solving;
• Stress management factors – stress tolerance, impulse control;
• General mood factors – optimism, happiness.

As the above list of competencies show, EI is about knowing how to manage inter- and intra-personal relationships successfully. In order to get on in the work place, you need to know your own strengths and weaknesses, your own true beliefs and then you need to know those of other people in order to get on with them and motivate them to produce the best work they possibly can. You need to know how they perceive you and they need to be able to trust you.

Of course, there is no point in being emotionally intelligent at work for its own sake. It might make you a nicer person but that has never been the main premise of any business. The bottom line is that emotionally intelligent people make more money. It is a success that can be quantified and expressed in financial terms. For example, experienced partners in a multi-national consulting firm were assessed on the EI competencies plus three others. Partners who scored above the median on nine or more of the 20 competencies delivered $1.2 million more profit than their counterparts – 139 per cent incremental gain. Similarly, insurance sales agents who were weak in EI competencies such as self-confidence, initiative and empathy sold policies with an average worth of $54,000. Those who were strong in at least five out of eight key EI competencies sold policies with a premium of $114,000.

EI in the new economy
Did bosses 50 years ago need the same set of skills in order to succeed? Probably not. These soft skills are indispensable in the new economy. Fifty years ago, it was relatively easy for a boss to ignore his workers’ feelings. The prevalent mode of interaction was command and control, work was no place for feelings and jobs were for life. We all know how little of that applies today. People move between jobs more frequently. Employees are getting choosy. The knowledge intensive economy means that losing a member of staff or hiring someone unsuitable equals losing expertise and, therefore, money.

Emotional intelligence can help you retain staff because a good company is measured not by the number of benefits the staff gets but by how fulfilled, motivated and valued they are. It can also be indispensable during the recruitment process. Many companies undertake psychometric testing and EI testing could be next. This is more likely to happen in professions such as accountancy and law, where the overall intellectual strength of the candidates is generally high. In other words, EI could be a source of competitive advantage, something that will differentiate you from the crowd. For example, when a large beverage firm started selecting on the basis of EI, only 6% of people left in two years, compared to the previous figure of 50%.

Another defining feature of the new economy is the breakdown of old hierarchies and the emergence of flattened structures and team-based work. Many have been rendered truly global and fragmented by various web-enabled tools. Because of this, it is even more important to build and maintain good staff relations – inter-personal skills are crucial. Research which concentrated on why young executives ‘crash’ showed that the problem was not their technical expertise but their inability to maintain successful relationships with others and work in a team. They also had difficulties in handling change.

It could be said that the only permanent thing in the new economy is constant change. Research has shown that emotionally intelligent people cope with it better. They are able to pinpoint exactly what they are feeling and they can appraise others’ emotions. This means that, even if the future is uncertain, they do not feel bewildered and powerless. They are, therefore, able to move faster and take others with them. Unsurprisingly, people with high EI make good leaders.

Emotional intelligence is a cornerstone of good management. It shows you how to manage by building trust, empathy and understanding in the foundations of your organisational culture.

---

This article is contributed by CIMA (The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants), the leading professional accountancy body in the world that trains and qualifies accountants in business. It offers the internationally recognised CIMA Professional Qualification in Management Accounting. Currently, CIMA has 155,000 members and students throughout the world.

source : http://www.jobstreet.com.my/learning/hr4.htm

HR and the Learning Organisation

With the job scenario now moving towards knowledge for the competitive edge, HR will now be required to develop positive values, ethics and passion for the job. These will be the key elements to cultivate the talents, skills and creativity of the workforce.

HR will now have to re-look at its function, the broader HR system and the resulting employee behaviours, and determine how these 'architectures' can help the organisation excel.

The 21st century brings with it a new economic paradigm. The focus now is on brand recognition, knowledge, innovation and most importantly, human capital.

HR now becomes a Strategic Business Partner. It must develop systems for business performance, and it must evolve from its administrative role to driving the organisation to become a learning organisation.

In order for organisational learning to occur, individuals in the organisation must be willing and prepared to reveal their individual mental models, contrast them to one another, discuss the differences, and come to a unified perception of what that system really is.

This alignment of mental models can be referred to as developing a shared vision.

At the heart of a learning organisation is a shift of mind - from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something 'out there' to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. A learning organisation is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality and how they can change it.

(References: Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Brian E. Becker, Mark A. Huselid, David Ulrich, the HR Scorecard - Linking People, Strategy, and Performance)

by Marcia Nicholas

How to Seek Jobs in Malaysia?

It is never an easy task to find jobs. It is a competitive world and you just have to outclass the rest. Having being a job seeker myself, I find that it's important to compile a to-do list when you are on a mission to find a job. Although it's written based on Malaysia, the same concept applies to any part of the world.

Here are a few simple items you should take note when seeking for jobs:

Search in Jobs directory. It is the place where career and human resources links are provided to you for your convenience. You could either apply directly via the sites or you could contact the HR departments of the hiring companies. There are a few famous Malaysia job directories which you could count on such as JobsMalaysia.info, Jobstreet, JobsDB Malaysia, Jen Jobs and Malaysia Central. You can search more in Google for terms such as Malaysia jobs directories, Job websites in Malaysia.

On the other hand, if you are interested to work with the Malaysian Government, they too have a portal specially for vacancies in the government sector. It is actually very simple to search for a job in the Government sector. Just google for "vacancies in Malaysia government".

Next on the list will be recruitment agencies. Some job seekers do not really favour recruitment agencies because they need to pay a fee to the agents. Sometimes it is a one-time flat fee and there are times where it is based on a sliding scale on the length of time the employee is attached to the hiring company. However, out out desperation, job seekers still end up opting to this choice. Some of the well-known recruitment agencies in Malaysia are Adecco Asia, ManPower Staffing, Kelly Services, JAC recruitment and PM Resources.

If you are an independent person and you believe that you would want to try all this yourself, then the best solution is to manually find the job yourself. How? Well, you could physically go to the companies and submit your applications to the Human Resources Department (but it is not very practical nowadays as you are rarely allowed to simply enter a company without any appointments).

Hence, electronic mail (e-mail) is your best chance. Just visit the company websites and go to "contact us" section. Usually they have career or hr emails listed on their websites. Remember to produce a presentable resume and email it to them. Wait for the good news! The rule of thumb is send A LOT of applications daily. Send at least 50-70 applications daily.

Last but not least, a conventional way of searching for jobs is still worth the try. A lot of companies STILL advertise job vacancies on the newspaper. If you are actively in need of jobs, purchase newspapers every day and dive into the jobs or classified sections.

Using the above methods helped me to find an online marketing vacancy for SEO Singapore so I hope the tips mentioned above on jobs searching are useful to everyone particularly Malaysian. Online, using the web, is the main resource for searching but traditional print and magazines can also be of help.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ken_Mcewan