Five proven ways that qualified managers outperform peers

22 May 2015 -

As management knowledge becomes more important the higher staff rise up the ladder, evidence shows that qualified bosses are best equipped to lead

Matthew Rock

Recently, Serco won a contract to start up some new correctional and detention facilities for the Australian government. The UK-based service company had to send out staff to set things up, but none had permits to work over there; the lengthy visa application process threatened to hold up the operation.

The logjam was only broken when the Australian High Commission found out that the staff who were coming over had Level 5 management qualifications and Chartered Manager status. Within just 24 hours, they all had full working visas. On that evidence…

1. Being a professional manager opens doors

In fact, it even opens borders. Here are four other areas in which qualified managers can outperform their unqualified peers:

2. They have credibility – and they’ll make your company more credible, too

When Geoffrey Card, founder of CGL, left the geotechnical engineering consultancy in 2010, his successors decided to restructure the business. “We were a great engineering consultancy, but we also wanted to be a great business,” says managing director Ian Marychurch. To signal its growing professionalism, and to communicate the opportunity for career progression in the firm, three of CGL’s senior people have since achieved Chartered Manager status – and more applications are in progress.

Chartered Manager also gives a high degree of credibility with your market, says Alan Miller, director of Liquate. “This is super important when you are dealing with very large projects. When a lot of money is involved, people can be nervous about who they put in charge,” he says.

3. They have confidence and self-awareness

According to the latest CMI Mapping Management Excellence research, 90% of Chartered Managers say that the accreditation has improved their self-confidence; 92% say that it’s given them greater self-awareness. “Chartered Manager shows others that you’re up there,” says Rakesh Shrivastav, operrakesh shations manager at BG Group. “It becomes much easier to communicate your management skills to others.”

For Stuart Webster, an engineering manager for Emirates Steel in Abu Dhabi – which employees 2,000 people, 70% of whom are from overseas – it’s been important to adopt a management style that caters for cultural and religious diversity. “The higher up the ladder you get, technical knowledge becomes less important as the need for managerial knowledge increases.”

And the very act of writing down what you’ve done “teaches you something about yourself. You become more reflective on your day-to-day activities”.

4. They add financial value

The numbers on the impact of Chartered Managers are striking. In CMI’s 2015 survey, 535 Chartered Managers estimated that their average added value to their organisation was worth £391,443. This is achieved by contributions to: new product development, better people management, exceeding targets, improving operations and making significant savings. By contrast, unqualified “accidental managers” are a big problem for organisations. “They’re employees who get promoted because they’re good at their craft,” explains CMI chief executive Ann Francke. “Yet they lack specific management training so they don’t have the necessary skills to manage people.”

5. They perform better

Once an individual becomes Chartered, the impact on their performance is marked: 78% of managers say that gaining the accreditation has resulted in increasing their performance at work; 96% say it’s proof of their experience of leading people and managing change. And by giving senior managers a benchmark as to the level that your managers should be operating at, Chartered Manager drives up the performance of organisations as a whole.

Read the full Chartered Manager 2015 report, Mapping Management Excellence and find out how you can supercharge your organisation’s performance.