Manager Interview Paper

Manager Interview Paper

Organizational Behavior 300 - 701

Jessica D’Ortone

November 4, 2014

For five years Anne has been the Senior Vice President of Performance Management at a well-known financial institution. She has just recently celebrated her 25-year anniversary with the bank. With myself having very little familiarity with a bank structure or what it is that higher management does in the bank hierarchy, I questioned what the title stood for. She laughed, “ it’s a lot of fancy words put together that mean I am in charge of establishing retail branch staffing requirements, designing incentive and scorecard programs for retail employees and providing analytics and consultation to senior retail executives on branch performance.”  

        “What I enjoy most about my position and being a manager is seeing my people develop and rise to new challenges.”  We all could expect good managers to answer that question in this way, the difference with Anne is that she meant it.  Managers and leaders are in organizations to help promote and foster change. Managers that care about employee growth and personal achievement are not easy to come by and organizations that foster growth are often ones for which employee retention is high.

“ The most challenging thing I find on a daily basis about my position is trying to coordinate a limited number of colleague resources against the many demands of our job.”  Trying to get the most out of the people you have is a constant balancing act for managers. Over-working and over-utilizing the employees you have can lead to them being stressed and burnt out.  On the other hand, employees that are under-utilized when there are many projects or deadlines ahead can hurt the whole team and organization.

“ One of the ways I try to create employee satisfaction is by providing job flexibility, and by providing them with the guidance they need to take on new assignments.  Giving colleagues stretching assignments helps them prove to themselves that they can do more.  Giving them jobs beyond their current capabilities and supporting them along the process, leaves them feeling successful.  I believe it is important to celebrate the small successes, as well as the big ones, to help build momentum and create more success.”

In our textbook, job satisfaction is defined as “ a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences”(McGraw-Hill p 55). This definition is not hard to comprehend but when that definition itself is broken down to the different layers of satisfaction and the theories themselves it becomes much more of a living definition. The value- precept theory in our text is the theory I most identify with and I believe it is the theory that Anne speaks about in our interview. “ Value-percept theory argues that job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies the things that you value.”

Studies have shown that employees are the most satisfied in their job when the work that they are doing is valuable and meaningful and I believe this to be true. Now, we can’t all have jobs saving the world, feeding children or healing small puppies so what does a meaningful job mean for different people? Personally, leaving at the end of the day feeling accomplished, the feeling of completing a task that seems impossible at the beginning of the day, week or month that is meaningful work. Anne said it perfectly, “feeling successful in what I am doing or a project I have completed, helps me stay satisfied with my job and the role I play in that job.” There is nothing more uplifting than when my boss asks me to complete a task that is beyond my job description and current duties because he knows that I will be able to accomplish it. When someone puts that kind of faith and encouragement into your job its hard not to feel satisfied at the end of the day.

“ I know my employees are satisfied when they are willing to take on the next assignment and they go above and beyond what is required for a particular task”. Being satisfied is the feeling of having something invested into an organization, when I have invested my time and hard work into something and positive outcomes come from that work, I only become more willing and excited to see what is next.  

“ Some people want very little direction and others need more constructive direction.   Some are more motivated to take on more when they know you are there to support them but others are demotivated by too much direction and are more motivated when given a project and set free to do it. People are motivated in different ways, my job is to find what it is that motivates each one of them and use that to push them closer to their goals.” Anne’s knowledge of her people seems not only extensive but also personal. She is aware of who her people are and what is going on in their life, which then helps her to be able to help find their motivation and satisfy it.

In our text one of the things that I found to align directly with what Anne was speaking about was the section on competence as a motivator. The book states “Competence captures a person’s belief in his or her capability to perform work tasks successfully” and “ Employees with a strong sense of competence believe they can execute the particular behaviors need to achieve success at work” (McGraw-Hill p 108).  These direct quotes are the two leading factors in what motivates me on a daily basis. Just as motivation is different for the individual the feeling of being successful means something different to everyone.

For myself, being successful in what I do pushes me to be better. Having a manager that pushes me to be better and helps push me closer to my goals is a huge motivating factor for me. I also believe that understanding me as a person and when it is time to be set me free to complete a task ,or when it is time to collaborate to come up with a solution, is an extremely important characteristic of a great manager.  When the trust is put into my hands to complete something that is important to the company, I am overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility and appreciation for the opportunity to let my skills shine and I am proud to be a part of an organization that believes in me to handle such a task. Feeling this way is extremely motivating for future work and also in my daily work duties. Sometimes the words “ I value you” or “I am happy to have you as apart of this company” only goes so far.  When those words are coupled with the action of showing my value to the company, this pushes me to fight to do everything in my power to help the company succeed because in that moment, it’s an extension of myself.