8. What are the differences between working in middle and top-level management?

The key difference between the responsibility of top-level and middle-level management is strategic leadership. Top managers must set strategy, and then organize middle management to implement components of the strategy. Top managers must know the capabilities of subordinates in order to properly delegate the right amount of work to middle management.

Strategy

Top management should mainly provide leadership to set company policy and strategy. This is a more high-level form of management, where a leader is analogous to an admiral of a fleet of ships. The admiral determines the best plan to defeat a rival fleet is to position forces at a particular spot, but leaves details of how to navigate and what weapons to use to subordinates. Lower-level managers can distinguish themselves by taking initiative and functioning effectively without constant supervision.

Focus

Top managers should focus on long-term profitability and creating value, while middle managers should focus on operational excellence. The top managers should represent the interests of shareholders by steering the firm towards markets that provide the greatest return on investment. Lower-level managers should focus on daily innovation to improve performance in the part of the organization for which they are responsible. Top managers should organize lower-level managers into teams to tackle individual aspects of the overall strategy. The two groups need to communicate effectively to ensure the long-term plans are realistic, and that lower-level managers are challenged but fighting important, winnable battles.

Delegation

A key difference in higher- and lower-level management is delegation. A top manager is most effective when strategy takes up the vast majority of his time. In order for this to happen, he must delegate decision-making on non-strategic issues. Delegation requires trust in subordinates. A top leader must also understand what a middle- or lower-level manager is capable of doing. It helps to have experience at a lower level to know just how much capacity a subordinate should have.

Warning

While decision-making authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot. A top-level manager should ultimately be held responsible for the performance of each division under her control. For example, when an accounting department produces financial statements, the chief executive officer must sign off that the results are accurate. If the Securities and Exchange Commission determines the statements were fraudulent, the CEO is responsible, even though a lower-level manager created the actual reports.

8. Do you think management makes people happy?

I guess it depends on a person completely. If you are an effective manager, you’ve created a close-knit (united) team and your employees respect and carry out your orders why wouldn’t you be happy? In this case a person is made for this job, it is a calling. And moreover in this case usually employees are happy as well. They work hard, their work is well-organized by an excellent manager and that’s why the team gets different perks, benefits, bonuses, so management can make all people happy. But on the other hand, this kind of work is so nerve-racking and stressful, so that we often imagine a typical manager as an exhausted, angry and always dissatisfied boss. And therefore his employees don’t feel happy at all because their manager is an example, and he should manage the team, motivate it and maintain a good mood.