How Modern Managers Are Different From Old Managers

The Role of Organizational Behavior and Leadership Traits

One can argue that the modern managers are very much different from the old managers. I agree that the old managers were expected to achieve the organization goals have been turbocharged, but the modern managers need to act smart.  Many organisations have changed their way of doing things in this century unlike before where managers were the sole decision makers. Modern managers involve their employees in the process of decision making. In addition, they’ve  also have turned to team work within the work force due to rapidly advanced technology and the unfolding global forces. The purpose of this paper is to provide a view on how the modern manager is very different from the old manager. There are a number of issues that shall be analyzed such as the role of the organizational behaviour and leadership personality traits. It also describes the role of performance appraisals and other practical motivational methods that managers apply.

Kaifi and Noori, (2011, p. 88) argued that the last two decade technology has changed greatly. They also pointed out that the modern organizations needs very strong managers who can successfully control the organizational behaviour. The modern managers are those that clearly understand what organizational behaviour entails and responds positively to the external and internal environmental forces. The current managers understand human resource management and strategic management much. They are able to even get the most difficult tasks done with optimal use of resources. It’s noted that the modern manager is one that’s concerned with “job performance, organizational commitment, and quality of work life” which Kaifi and Noori, (2011) describe as the three fundamental outcomes of organizational behaviour. Today’s manager is more concerned with diversity, interactions, feedback, and use of modern technologies to enhance achievement of the organizational goals among other things.

The managers are required to have the conceptual skills, technical skills and the human skills as Quinn, (2010) identified. Conceptual skills mean the ability for the manager to look at the big picture. This is one of the things which managers use to communicate and drive the mission and vision of the firm. The technical are those that are attained through learning. In the modern times, a manager needs to be competent and have wide experience in the management. They also need to have human skills to enable them work effectively with people so as to achieve organizational objectives. The old managers could possess one of those three skills but in the current century the successful manager have all the three skills. Robbins and Judge, (2013, p. 8) add that there can be an effective manager and a successful manager. The old managers that were effective employed the traditional management approach which mainly involves planning, decision making and controlling. Both the old and new managers also employ communication and human resource management (motivation, discipline, conflict management, staffing and training) but the new manager does it better. The old manager didn’t have networking skills and successful managers these days seem to spend much of their time on this approach.

Performance Appraisals and Motivational Methods

Another thing that’s very different is that in the current globalized economy, managers through the aid of technology (the internet in specific) need to effectively transfer information globally. In the old days, such technologies were not there and globalization wasn’t fully developed. The concept of knowledge management wasn’t seen as very important. Omotayo, (2015) argues that we are living in a globalized knowledge-based economy where information is what drives the economy. He noted that in the current globalized economy, organizations do not compete only on the basis of products or financial but they lay much emphasis on attaining knowledge as a competitive advantage. The managers are essentially adopting knowledge management in order to improve on the organizational effectiveness. We spoke of the modern manager working smart to achieve organizational effectiveness with limited resources. The current organizational environment is one that’s characterized with high strategic management which essentially is an approach of knowledge management. It’s not all about achieving the goals but how to deliver economic value, customer value and social value for the key stakeholders. It can be seen that with increased global competition, the managers need to have much effort in the strategic plans, the creativity and innovation, fast transfer of information and employ several competitive approaches which in all is about knowledge management

In the modern organizational environment, the team work is one topic which cannot be assumed and it contributes to organizational behaviour. Kaifi and Noori, (2011, p. 90) founded that the organizations are investing a lot in teams. The reason for this is that the managers can achieve the organizational goals without many resources but through building strong teams. McEwen et al, (2017) also added that today’s managers are greatly concerned with achieving organizational effectiveness through teams. The managers have seen the importance of increasing performance and employee interdependence. They can also overcome resistance through establishing these teams. Old managers were not successful in team management. In the modern environment, the managers are faced with the need to emphasise on the need for evaluating the impact of the personality traits on the performance. They undergo through some training regularly and test their personality traits as luck of such traits would lead to poor performance. In organizational behaviour, the concept of personality traits greatly influences the performance of the leaders. Judge et al, (2008) maintained that the personality traits play a key role in job performance, the leadership, motivation, attitudes, and other factors. When we talk of personality traits, the leaders

Team Building and Knowledge Management

I believe that organizational behaviour is influenced through the personality traits in that they can affect competitiveness, creativity and innovation, and organizational performance in general. As Bakker and Schaufeli, (2008) argue that a positive organizational behaviour can result in success of the organization. In today’s work life, it’s very common to see the managers responding to the needs of the employees unlike the old managers who would only be concerned with achievement of the goals. They strive to create an environment for attracting and retaining employees. In hiring process, the managers tend to look at a number of factors.

I find it that the “old school” managers employed the passive management approach while the “new schools” managers employed the proactive management approach which is more effective. According to Adamen, (2010) the old managers with the passive management approach would not be relied upon with coming up with new ideas. They were less competent with less professional literacy and are not active participants. The modern managers are those that do research and coming with evidence to support their research. They are very active participants and are committed. They work in a timely basis with the aid of the proactive approach and helps in achieving the shareholder’s value.

Another thing that is quite different between the old and new managers is the increased need for corporate governance. According to Daidj, (2017) in the current globalized economy the corporate governance has changed a lot. There’s high need for independence, avoidance of the conflict of interest and high transparency in information. Ljubojevic et al, (2013) in the current times, organizations are concerned with corporate management skills since they help in preventing corporate scandals and in achieving competitive advantage. This goes hand in hand with the strategic capability of the manager, increased competitive and high compliance to the regularities. The old school managers didn’t also focus much on corporate social responsibility or the essence of companies going green. In the present-day CSR as Ismail, (2009) maintains, the managers see CSR as an obligation and many managers see the importance of going green (reducing the negative environmental impact on the society). There’s also greater emphasis on the concept of economic social responsibility by being profitable so as to improve the well-being of the key-stakeholders of the firm. Old managers didn’t see this as an obligation. The modern managers also think ethically. As Goel and Ramanathan, (2014) founded that with the increased globalization and international trade, the modern manager experience complexities in business operations and compliance issues are quite a burden. They therefore act ethically which affects the image of the firm.

Corporate Governance, Social Responsibility and Business Ethics

Conclusion

Based on the discussion, the new managers are way better than the old managers. It can be noted that the old managers are considered as effective managers while the current managers are both effective and successful. From the organizational behaviour approach, the modern managers are concerned with increasing competitive advantage, increasing performance and productivity, and achieving effectiveness in a fast manner. The kinds of managers we have today are those that have attained professional competence and are proactive managers. It was also noted that the current state of high globalization has resulted in need for increased teamwork performance, organizational behaviour management, strategic management, and knowledge management among others. Essentially, the old managers were not as much creative and innovative. In conclusion, it can be strongly argued that the old managers were more concerned with attainment of the goals while the modern managers have to do several things so as to succeed.

References

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