Abstract
The pattern of managerial escalator presented by the two employees at this firm shows that when given an opportunity, one can develop his career to the advanced stages without necessarily moving from one firm to the other. It also confirms the argument that leadership is learnt through experience and personal commitment. One common factor between these two individuals is that they went through the same approach to become managers at this firm.
Introduction
Management is one of the most important tasks in any organization. According to the research by Polelle (2008, p. 84), the ability of an organization to achieve success in its operations largely depends on the people who hold the positions of leadership. As a leader, it is always important to ensure that everything is done at the right time, in the right manner and with the right resources. The path to managerial positions always takes interesting twists. In the past, it was expected that people who hold managerial positions must have taken courses in management. For instance, a person with a master’s degree in business administration would be expected to be in the managerial position.
Inasmuch as this still happens in many organisations, there is a new trend where specialists are also rising to the position of management. It is common to find an engineer rising to the position of a supervisor and then to the top management after working with a firm for some time. Northouse (2010, p. 91) says that the concept of managerial escalator explains how specialists in different fields become managers. The researcher interviewed two specialists, sales and marketing specialist and an engineer, who had rose to the position of senior managers. In this paper, the researcher seeks to determine the extent to which the career paths of the two people interviewed in this study conform to the pattern of managerial escalator.
Analysis
The researcher interviewed two specialists, an engineer and sales and marketing specialists. These two specialists joined the firm as specialists. The first interviewee, Mr. John Truman, joined Company Y as a telecommunication specialist five years ago. However, his impressive work at this firm saw him promoted to a junior supervisor at this firm. He was put in charge of ten new employees within the communications department. Last year, Mr. Truman got a promotion to head the communication department following the retirement of the officer who was in charge.
One of the reasons why Mr. Truman got this promotion was his innovative ideas. He would challenge the existing systems, always trying to come up with new and better systems based on the emerging technologies. This impressed the top managers at this firm and made them believe that he had a potential to achieve even better results. He is currently sitting in the board of the mid managers at this firm. Most of his work no longer involve engineering. He is currently more of a manager than an engineer. Ms. Mary Clinton joined Company Y as a junior sales officer ten years ago. She would go to the field to sell the products of the firm.
After working with the firm for four years, she was promoted to the position of a supervisor. She was assigned a team of twenty sales officers. After working in this position for two years, the management realized that she had the ability to lead even a larger group of employees. She was promoted to the position of a junior manager after one year. She was quickly promoted to a mid management position after about six months. As a junior manager, Ms. Clinton was able to organize her team to achieve high levels of success that the top management had not anticipated. Two years later, Ms Clinton was appointed as the head of sales and marketing department. She is now a member of the top management team at this firm.
The two interviewees are currently working in the areas of management although they were specialists in different areas. Mr. Truman who is an engineer and Ms Clinton who is a sales and marketing specialist now have roles and responsibilities which are common. Their roles and responsibilities at the firm have taken a convergent pattern. They started working at this firm doing very different tasks. At that that time, Ms. Clinton could not help Mr. Truman in his duties because their tasks were so different. However, they currently share managerial roles. Although the departments they head are different, both are involved with directing employees at this firm. Mr. Truman rarely gets involved in the actual tasks concerning the machines.
He only directs other employees on what they are supposed to do. Similarly, Ms Clinton no longer goes to the field to market the products of this firm. She spends most of her time in the office, trying to coordinate the activities of various supervisors within this firm. As she noted during the interview, sometimes she develops a strong desire to go to the field and do what she used to do as a marketing officer when she joined this firm ten years ago. However, this is not possible because she has a lot to do in the office trying to coordinate all the activities within the department. She says that she may even take over five months without visiting the junior employees who are in the field.
Discussion
It is clear from the analysis above that the two people interviewed had a similar pattern of managerial escalator. According to Rees and Porter (2008, p. 51), in the current business environment, it is rare to find someone being assigned a senior managerial position without having worked in a special department. Managerial escalation offers a systematic way for an individual to rise into the senior positions from one step to the next.
As shown in the case of Mr. Truman and Ms Clinton, leadership is learned. As people work in a given department for long, they develop deep knowledge of the concepts relevant to the running of the firm. With such experience, one can be assigned a managerial position based on his or her special skills. Ms Clinton started out as sales officer before being promoted to a supervisory position. She learned to be a leader, and through the support and trust from the top managers, she was able to advance to be a senior manager at this firm. This pattern of career development is very common in the current business environment.
Collins (2001, p. 82) says that some of the best performing firms in the world developed their own top managers. It always appears more beneficial to hire highly skilled and experienced persons to head the critical positions within the firm. What many firms do not realize is that when one is successful in company A, he may not necessarily be successful in company B. Moreover, hiring people to critical managerial positions is always a sign of luck of trust of the current workforce. Sometimes this may discourage the employees because they may feel undervalued by the employer.
When an employee is promoted through the pattern of managerial escalator, it is always very beneficial to the firm. To the promoted employee, he will realize that the employer has put trust in him, and that it is his responsibility to achieve success as an appreciation. To the other employees within the firm, this will be a clear communication that the firm recognizes any little effort that an employee puts into any responsibility given by the superiors. They will make an effort to work hard with the hope that they will also be considered for promotion. Mead (2005, p. 57) observes that when one is given such a promotion, he is able to introduce changes without disrupting the normal operations of the firm. This is so because such a manager understands the existing systems, organizational behaviour, and the individual employees within the firm.
Conclusion
In this report, the researcher interviewed two people in the managerial position who started working as junior officers. Mr. John Truman joined the firm as a telecommunication specialist. He rose among the ranks to become the head of telecommunication department. Similarly, Ms Mary Clinton joined Company Y as a sales officer but rose in the ranks to become the head of sales and marketing department. It has been confirmed that the career paths of the two interviewed people conform to the pattern of the managerial escalator.
List of References
Collins, J 2001, Level 5 leadership: The triumph of humility and fierce resolve, Harvard Business Review, Boston.
Mead, R 2005, International Management: Cross Cultural Dimensions, Blackwell Publishers, London.
Northouse, P 2010, Leadership: Theory and practice, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks.
Polelle, M 2008, Leadership: Fifty great leaders and the worlds they made, Greenwood Press, Westport.
Rees,W & Porter, C 2008, Skills of Management , Cengage, London.
Appendix 1
Questionnaire for Research
A: Background Information
Tick as is appropriate
- Gender:
- Male________
- Female_______
- Nationality:
- Ukrainian ____
- Non-Ukrainian _____
- Places Ever Worked:
- Ukraine ____
- Internationally_____
- Highest level of education:
- High School_____
- Bachelor’s______
- Master’s _______
- Doctorate_______
- Other _________
- Did you join this firm as a specialist?
- Yes
- No (Which specialist? ________________
B: Pattern in Managerial Escalator
- For how long have you been employed at this institution? _______________________________________
- What is your current position in the firm as an employee? (Tick the appropriate level)
- Non-management staff
- Middle-level management
- Top-level management
- Were you employed as a manager when you joined the firm?
- Yes
- No
- Which area did you specialize in when you joined the firm _______________________________________
- Do you believe you will take the same career path to the position of senior most managers at this firm?
- Yes
- No
- What are some of the factors that made you be considered for a position of management? Kindly explain.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- Do you believe that career escalator is the best way of identifying right people for positions of management?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The researcher highly appreciates the fact that you have taken your time to respond to the above questions. The researcher would like to assure you that the information gathered will specifically be used for academic purposes and that it will remain a confidential document that is to be shared between the researcher and the faculty only. Thank you very much!
Appendix 2
Kindly give names and contacts of your friends or family members so that when the lecturer decides to call, they can say you interviewed them.