An effective executive in today’s business environment must be able to balance short-term results with long-term objectives. They also need to delegate tasks to employees and foster a sense of accountability and responsibility within an organization. This article provides tips on how to develop the skills of an effective executive and encourages you to implement these principles into your workday.
1. Know what you do best.
The effective executive knows what his job requires Mark Morabito King and Bay of him, and he tries to do that very well. He realizes that enterprises perform if top management does well, and he works to make himself as productive as possible. He does not try to do the whole job himself, he concentrates on those aspects that he will do especially well and delegates the others.
2. Organize your time.
Man is ill-equipped to judge the passage of time by himself, so effective executives measure their own activities with reliable instruments and not by memory. A large slice of time is required to address most of the things entrusted to an executive, and to do it well he must have the ability to focus human energy in one direction.
3. Plan a course of action.
An executive must first think through and decide how he will proceed with each task entrusted to him. This takes considerable concentration, and it requires a thorough examination of the desired results, probable restraints, future revisions, check-in points, and implications for how he will spend his time. A thoughtful planning exercise can eliminate a great deal of the “roll of the dice” that characterizes so many decisions.
4. Consider alternative courses of action.
After making a decision, the effective executive takes the next step. He considers other ways of reaching the same goal, and inflates possibilities and deflates potential problems. This prevents his being trapped by a single choice and increases the chances of a good outcome.
5. Learn from the mistakes that are bound to happen.
An executive must be open to learning from his experiences and those of others. He will not be effective if he is stubborn, defensive, or proud. He must be willing to admit that some of his ideas have failed, and he must accept the fact that some of his employees may not have performed to his expectations. He must constantly seek to improve himself and his management skills. In this way, he will be a model for his subordinates to follow. It’s not enough to be a great communicator or to have technical knowledge. You need to have emotional intelligence as well to become an effective executive. Learn how to develop these key leadership traits with our free white paper: “The Art of Being an Effective Executive.” Taryn Oesch is the managing editor for digital content at Training Industry, Inc. She is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and author of several books on corporate learning. She is passionate about creating an engaging learning experience for her audience, and she believes that effective learning is a collaborative effort between the learners themselves and the instructor.