You Become a Manager in Your Small Business, What’s Next?

This is one of the most common problems that occur when people go through the upstairs in their career. Everyone wants to progress to become on a managerial position. Some will go usually taking one step after another: first-level, middle level and at the end become a top-level manager. However, sometimes it can also happen to skip a step, which I think is not desirable.

What I want to emphasize in this post is that career progress should also be made a distinction in some way in the mind of people who want to become managers. The fundamental distinction that needs to be done is:

• Further skills required.
• Required activities to proceed.

The distinction is to “forget” past work and to begin an entirely different thing called management.

When I say to forget, I don’t think about the complete deletion of memory, but just past knowledge about the new job will not be so necessary.

Business Skills as a Manager

The skills are part of the third layer for the success of an entrepreneur. You can read more details about skills in Three Types of Managerial Skills.

Managers should have three types of skills:

• Technical
• Conceptual and
• Human.

Technical skills are those that allow you to perform your past work. For example, a programmer in IT company is skilled in programming.

Conceptual skills are something different. A person with technical skills have skills to work something with his hands, and on his hands usually will depend only his own work. Conceptual skills mean that the specific actions at work where these skills are more required will cause effects on other jobs. This means that conceptual skills are those with which you can see the business as a whole.

Human skills are those that enable you to work in a pleasant environment with other people. Each working place is related to some practical activities performed by other people. Interaction, communication, groups, departments, colleagues, etc. These are everyday words in a business world for one employee.

Human skills are something that everyone should have. Conceptual skills are most required for managerial levels. The higher managerial level in the hierarchy of business, the more conceptual skills will be required. The technical skills are most required for first managerial level and the lowest hierarchical levels in the business.

So when you get a managerial position, you cannot enjoy the same skills in your everyday work. This means you should:

• Leave part of the technical skills, and
• Recharge that part of the technical skills with the conceptual skills.

Your Job Activities and Behaviors as a Manager

I think it is clear that except the skills, there should be left aside current activities and behaviors at work.

Skills did not exist for itself, but they are used in everyday activities. For instance, developers with programming skills will be programming only if he/she is in the initial step of the business hierarchy.

When a programmer becomes a manager, even first-line manager, the base and more essential activities will not be programming but managing.

This means that when you become managers you will need more conceptual skills and your tasks will be to:

• Plan
• Organize
• Lead
• Motivate
• Equip and
• Control.

These are basic managerial functions. So now you must plan activities, organize, manage and motivate employees in that office. On the other side, you must think about staffing with quality employees. And, of course, you must control the work of all employees in that office.