8 Ways Successful Senior Managers Create a Story to Build the Dream

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Your Senior Management Team is the primary driver and pivotal part of your company’s growth. Being part of that team, whether you are a Managing Director, Financial Director or another senior leader, is an exciting place to be. It’s down to you to create your company’s story and build a strategic pathway to achieve its goals.  

In this article, we examine some of the ways the most successful senior managers achieve this. 

 

Start the Process 

Every company needs a business strategy to set out its desired objectives and how it plans to achieve them. Put simply; its a long-term masterplan that will enable you to boost your business and realise its goals. The strategy, or ‘story’, will help you secure a competitive position in the marketplace, satisfy your customers and stakeholders, and achieve your objectives.  

 

Build Your Strategy

There are several points to consider when planning your strategy to ensure you hit your targetsYou may wish to think about these aspects:  

  • How you can achieve effective use of your resources, in terms of staffing, materials and technology 
  • How you can uncover and utilise current marketplace opportunities 
  • How best to direct effort, working smarter and ensuring a good fit of job and employee 
  • How to maintain leadership through clear communication and motivation 
  • What you need to consider for contingency planning 

 

Understand Your Role IPivotal

As a senior-level employee, you have ultimate responsibility – not only for the day to day activity of employees across the company – but thlong-term efficiency and success of the business.  Your role encompasses ensuring delivery of various aspects of the organisation, including managing the activities and motivating other employees. 

Your direct influence has an impact on the business and everyone who works for it. Communication skills are paramount to ensure transparency across the organisation and enable you to translate information into actionable goals for your team. Explicit instruction and a sense of being part of something bigger will help motivate your team to achieve more and create a happy workplace. 

 

Be Prepared to Wear Different Hats

You are the person to take it forward. You have not just financial knowledge, but an understanding of the company as a whole, from customer relations to budgets, logistics to shareholder concernsYour perception of the bigger picture makes your position critical in assuring business success and paving the way for future achievement.  

However, its not just about being prepared to lead and inspire your team. In a world of dynamic progress, senior managers often find themselves taking on additional roles. You may have to spin several plates – coaching employees, integrating new processes and upskilling colleagues – while maintaining oversight and moving forward with your business strategy. It’s a lot to ask. 

These expanding responsibilities require you to be flexible. You may need to navigate new skill sets, and this can cause ambiguity in how you identify yourself.  Often a shift in mindset is required. 

Your ability to successfully negotiate additional responsibilities, as well as lead your team will be accelerated by your ability to embrace emotional intelligence in the workplaceEmotional Intelligence is essentially the ability to recognise your own emotions as well as those of your teams, giving you the capacity to discern between different feelings and identify them appropriately, using emotional information to guide behaviour and thinking processes across your employees. 

This skill will permit you to manage emotions and modify them to the working environment and thus achieve your overall goals.

 

Recognise Your Milestone Achievements

It’s important to have milestones in your plan. Somewhere you and your team can measure and celebrate your progress so far. Achievements along the pathway help employees feel valued. Satisfaction in a job well done, motivates staff and drives productivity. Successful senior managers recognise the positivity of praise and positive feedback as essential to developing company culture and a sense that all employees are playing a valued part in the story and helping to build the dream. 

 

Develop Your Personal Branding

Your drive and determination will be ideally matched by your understanding of clear goals and visionThese skills not only assist the business in achieving goals and expansion but enable you to achieve personal development, growth and stature as a leader. They help shape your personal brand, marketing yourself and your career and building your reputation as a professional. Your personal brand is essentially an ongoing process by which you establish yourself as a perception or emotion in the minds of others. Reinforcement of self-branding is critical, as is its visibility online through social media.   

 

Look At the Bigger Picture

Take a look at business and commerce around you. What’s happening regionally – and what is its impact on you? The Northern Powerhouse has been described by MP Jake Berry, the minister in charge of the project, as the most powerful coalition of businesses ever seen. How can you engage with the expansion and opportunities the Northern Powerhouse offers, and scale your business?  

Identifying industry trends and financial forecasts are fundamental to growth. The vision of a more prosperous north includes better jobs, roads and railways and is providing the boost needed to get businesses moving. Already there is an influx of companies moving to the North West, and the economy has grown to over £339bn – higher than that of Norway or Austria. Establishing yourself as a market leader in your industry will boost your business and enable you to take advantage of the opportunities on the horizon before your competitors.  

 

Kick-Start Your Plan

No matter the size or industry you are in, my advice is to plan well ahead. This is the perfect time to consider whether there is an opportunity to upskill your existing staff with further qualifications, to identify any apparent gaps within your team, and to analyse the most costeffective, yet strategically beneficial way to manage your people strategy and grow your company.  

In the long term, you may be considering the expansion of your business. However, how far can you go? If you’re reading this article because you are looking to build your team to help execute your strategy, we offer expert advice to get you to where you need to be.  

Contact Rebus Financial Recruitment or call us on 01282 930930 and let’s have a conversation to explore your options. With our help, you can achieve great things. 

 

Thanks,  

Rachel 

 

About Rebus Financial Recruitment

Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, which historically range from a wide variety of organisations including SME’s to large PLCs. 

 

We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs; and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly. To find out more, get in contact with one of our team today, or you can call us on 01282 930930. 

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