being a top manager today?
Top managers need to become people managers.
Top Manager
design sustainable opportunity spaces and cooperation arenas. They put the desire for performance in the focus of the people who make up the organisation! They convey to everyone that they can be more than winners or losers! They are the sense-makers of the organisation! Sense is not found in one sentence, but in a colourful potpourri of sentences. Sense is about getting to something positive and not running away from something. Sense stands for a going towards! The cultivation of sense is comprehensive, more collaborative and organic and thrives on images and stories. Top management is about making complexity understandable. Making it understandable where you are and where you can go, making complexity manageable and why it all matters. That is what it means to be a top manager.
"Only those who can think of the present as different from the present have the future at their disposal."
Theodor W. Adorno
Anyone who is a top manager today
sometimes has to face the fact that the organisation as a whole is facing major challenges and cannot perform well. Top managers accept these challenges. They do not shy away from the complexity in the challenges they face at all. Rather, they welcome it! They reflect on the basis of self-assessment. They determine what the results should be for the organisation and what it should focus on in order to be successful in the future. They feel responsible and use their freedom to determine what needs to be assessed and evaluated in order to save the organisation from wasting resources and to achieve meaningful results.
They do this because they know that whoever demands performance must convey meaning. They embrace their role as meaning-makers! They know that people get involved when they have the freedom to exercise control over their lives and work in a meaningful way. They don't talk about needs and wants, but about results. They create conditions for control, freedom, achievement and positive results. They set the example of having the courage to admit failure and let people learn from their mistakes.
Top managers do not accept the status quo. They see themselves as top leaders who add value by rethinking organisations.
Mastering complexity
The way forward is an unknown one, even if the direction is known. Top managers need openness, courage and creativity. The organisation as a whole faces a challenge and creates the framework conditions to achieve the defined results. This can only be achieved if regular self-assessment of performance but also external assessment by the market and customers is an elementary component. Performance should be measured continuously and the results evaluated transparently. Knowledge of the qualitative and quantitative data are the guidelines and the corrective of top management. Top managers face up to their results. Their performance! They are aware that top management is a journey into the future and only reaches its destination for a short time. The path is unknown, goal achievement and performance requires self-reflection and continuous learning.