A manager is paid to make decisions. This is what executives do all day long. However, if you examine the way managers at different corporate levels make decisions, you will notice an interesting trend. Research shows that managers at different levels have different decision-making styles. Furthermore, a successful manager changes their decision-making style over the course of their career. As they get promoted to more senior management positions, the way they critically analyze business processes also evolves.
When you are at the lower levels of a company, your primary responsibility is to ensure that products get out the door and any hitches are immediately resolved the moment they arise. In other words, taking action is everything. When you move higher up the ladder, your job isn’t about taking action. Now you will have to decide which products or services deserve to be created and the best method to develop them. In other words, if you intend to become an effective manager as you ascend the corporate ladder, you must learn how to change how you utilize information and analyze options.
However, there is one warning you need to heed. If an ambitious lower level manager tries to adopt the decision-making style of an upper-level executive too quickly, they will set themselves up for failure. Likewise, if a recently promoted upper-level manager gets stuck with the decision-making style of a lower level executive, they will ruin their career. The key here is to ensure a gradual and seamless transition pattern.
But how does this transition occur?
Research shows that a successful low-level supervisor uses a decision-making style that is the total opposite of a successful CEO. As a manager rises up the ranks, there seems to be a gradual progression toward a more participative approach with a greater diversity of opinion. However, the supervisor who spends most of his time on the shop floor needs to be more direct and command-oriented. They don’t have time to listen to everyone’s input because quick action is demanded of them.
This narrative makes sense because when a manager is at the top of the hierarchy, they lose touch with what is happening on the ground. Therefore, their decision-making style must be geared toward gaining as much information from multiple sources as possible. For a senior executive to be successful, they must encourage people to give them information so that they can critically analyze all the data and select the best strategy. In fact, the most successful business executives become more flexible, open, and analytical in their decision-making style as they climb up the corporate ladder.
But at what point does this shift occur?
There appears to be a “convergence zone” early in the managerial hierarchy, right between the manager and director stage. At this level, an executive will discover that the decision-making style that was effective in the past no longer works. Therefore, most managers simply try to achieve a balance by adopting new styles while still retaining much of the old ways of thinking.
But this is where things get interesting. Most successful managers are able to let go of their previous decision-making styles and adjust to new styles. This rapid evolution is what propels them forward in their careers. However, unsuccessful managers seem to get stuck in this convergence zone for too long. They notice that their decision-making style isn’t working, but for some reason, they don’t know how to deal with the situation. So they try to use a variety of styles at the same time. They try to be direct today and participative tomorrow.
They are action-oriented yet also try to be open to other options. Instead of allowing their decision style to evolve and progress up the ladder, they hold on to former ways of doing things. Unfortunately, it is in this zone that the least successful 20 percent of managers fall and stagnate for the rest of their professional careers.
