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Walk beside people to lead the people; for best leaders are indiscernible.
Good leaders are those that people admire and praise. Lesser good ones
are those that people hate or are scared of. When the good leaders are
done with their jobs, people express the following words; "We have
achieved this." Leo-Tsu (1)
One of those cliche expressions of people nowadays is: "This country
urgently needs good leaders."; a good management is desperately longed
for during crisis. During crisis, 'good' managers lead the way with their
vision, ability to direct or motivate people, capabilities and ability
to ease the discomfort. The facts derived from the researches conducted
about leadership and management skills are; high tendency to achieve self
development, keeping track of innovations in every field, especially in
the field of that specific management, ability to question facts and ability
to cope with challenges, ability to share the information and ability
to take care of each employee. According to my point of view, the last
fact must be the distinctive quality of the new manager. Why?
IT Employee and IT Managers: In the
previous issue of CISN, we have talked about some basic characteristics
of an IT employee. We have stated previously that IT workers are educated,
they regard technology as not a final goal, but a means to achieve a goal,
they are highly adaptive to ever-developing nature of technology and they
are being very critical about the stability and slowness of other organizations
and institutions. It is very difficult to walk along with these people
'without being discerned'. Left alone walking along, you have to run to
be able to catch up with. Just like the conductor of an orchestra, you
have to coordinate these 'musicians' that accomplish matchless miracles
on their own, to play one piece of music within predetermined boundaries.
Though, you do not know how to play a violin, you should be able to well
comprehend its function and value among other instruments.
Borusan Philarmony Orchestra Conductor Gürer Aykal tells about a successful
orchestra conductor, "...A conductor should be as good as the members
of the orchestra if he/she expects a good performance. The same applies
to the managers of big companies. A manager has to have broad and sound
information about the responsibilities and tasks of the employees...[In
the Orchestra] every member reflects his/her own musical world. At this
stage, the orchestra conductor has to assume a significant task."
(2)
Among the management skills of a good manager, establishing a close
and warm communication with his/her employees is a must. In parallel,
one of the management techniques is defined as "Walking and Managing"
while another technique is "T-shaped Management". In "Walking
and Managing" method, the manager goes out of his/her office, walks
around the workplace and takes care of the employees. T-shaped managers
are sharing their experiences, knowledge and ideas in the whole organization
(the horizontal line of T) and at the same time they devote themselves
to enhancing the performance of their departments (the vertical line of
T). It is very difficult to promote the vertical and horizontal communication
within the organization, however, a manager of a company should be able
to achieve this harmonious compatibility, just like conductor of an orchestra
who integrates the audience to the performance while conducting all the
musicians. As apart from the general management skills, Human Resources
Managers should have some more specific skills and information.
Being a Human Resources (HR) Manager in IT Sector:
In most of the organizations, the HR departments assume strategic
and influential tasks about employees such as hiring, placement, salary
management, measurement and assessment of performance. When we consider
the fact that IT sector needs qualified employees, hunting these employees
and making them stay is a really difficult challenge for HR managers.
For this reason, a Human Resources Manager has to define the tasks of
the employees, plan about their careers & their training and assist
other department managers about them. While demanding good wages for the
value they add, IT employees also demand satisfactory working conditions
(software-hardware facilities), flexible working hours, permissive for
comfortable clothing, and a working place not predefined by strict regulations.
The technological developments in IT sector considerably influence HR
management. The ratio of one HR Employee as against 100 personnel has
now become one HR specialist to 150 personnel. This is the direct outcome
of the advancements in web technology. In this thin HR model the tasks
that demand routine administrative labor can be carried out easily and
effectively by web based systems. For example, instead of heaps of thick
dusty files that keep personnel information, web based automation systems,
which enable queries and which enable addition of modules for task specific
needs, are being used. Today, Intranets and/or web based systems enable
HR specialists to perform tasks such as hiring people, transmission of
information within the organization, creating HR information system. It
seems that this will reserve time for strategic functionalities of HR
such as planning work force, wage/performance management etc.
A Note on Being a Manager in Turkey: A
research (4) conducted about leadership types compatible with Turkish
culture shows that the popular leadership type is the paternal and autocratic
one. This 'paternal' manager has to behave like a brother towards his
employees and implement his autocracy as being sharp in character but
showing mercy at the same time. On the other side, the employees have
to show their faithfulness towards their leader and perform the requirements
of their responsibilities. However, HR Managers are mostly female. In
parallel, cannot we assume in regard to their feminine role that maternal
characteristics are attributed to them such as a mother who always has
a heart-to-heart talk with her children, solves all the problems around
and who is so close to one?
References:
1. METU Management Society Glokal Journal, Spring 2001, issue 10, p.18
2. Hürriyet (Newspaper), Human Resources Addition, December 9th, 2001,
issue: 322
3. Hansen M. and Oetinger B. "Introducing T-shaped Managers: Knowledge
Manager's Next Generation", Harward Business Review, 2001
4. Aycan Z. (editor) "Türkiye'de Yönetim, Liderlik ve Ýnsan Kaynaklarý
Uygulamalarý", The Publications of Turkish Psychologists, 2000
Resources:
1. Capital Journal, May 2001, issue: 5
2. Wilson T. "Web Powered HR", Internet Week, issue: 852, year:
2001
3. Ambler S. "Some Helpful tips for Human Resource Specialists",
Computing Canada, issue: 22, year: 1997
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