Managing oneself, staying relevant are the key challenges

The manager-aspirant should develop the ability to manage himself/herself before he/she can manage others in professional career. The next important lesson is to remain willing to continuously learning.

One has to learn these personality skills at very young age to make a mark in his/her profession, according to Mr R. Venugopal, General Manager/Centre Head, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Ltd, Coimbatore.

Speaking on the topic ‘Challenges of future leaders' under the banner of Business Line Club lecture series presented to the MBA students of Maharaja Prithvi Engineering College at Avinashi on Thursday, Mr Venugopal highlighted the need for one knowing about himself and his personal traits like his/her emotional make-up, his ability/suitability to a particular job environment etc.

“People around you unfortunately will not tell you about these aspects and they will only react. Only you should be clever enough to understand as to how they perceive about you,” he maintained.

Time management

The knowledge-driven professional path in the post-IT/Communication era has denied the present day managers the advantage of having enough time to learn/correct themselves as available to those in the 1970s/80s when organisations practicing the traditional ‘linear' models accommodated people joining at lower level rising to higher levels.

This brings the challenges of time management too. If one failed to pick at the first chance may not get the second chance in the IT-exposed world where social media watches people rather closely and they are judged in many ways.

Staying relevant

Besides one cultivating the ability to continuously learning, the modern day managers has the challenges of the differential learning, namely between those gained as student and the knowledge he has to gain after achieving a position in a profession.

“Once into a profession no one will tell what you have to learn, but you have to find yourself what you have to learn to keep you relevant to the position you hold. This is one reason why the speed at which jobs becoming obsolete is greater today.

Managing relationship

The modern day manager's third biggest challenge is acquiring the ability of managing relationship, which gives them the agility to cooperate with others in the profession as a team even while not losing sight of external competition his organization has to meet.

The meet was attended among others by Dr A.S. Ramkumar, Principal of the college, and Mr P. Vijaya Kumar, Assistant Regional Manager, The Hindu , Coimbatore.

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