The effectiveness of a competency model for leadership. Management competencies of senior managers

Before we talk about the competencies of a sales manager, we need to understand what a competency is.

So, the classic definition: competence - (from the Latin competo - I achieve; I comply, I approach). It has several meanings: 1) the range of powers granted by law, charter or other act to a specific body or official; 2) Knowledge, experience in a particular area.

The following definition is important for our understanding: competence- this is the personal ability of a specialist to solve a certain class of professional problems. Also, by competence we will understand the formally described requirements for the personal, professional and other qualities of the head of the sales department.

Set of competencies; the presence of knowledge and experience necessary for effective activity in a given subject area is called competence.

Competencies can be divided into:

Corporate competencies - necessary for all company employees,

Managerial competencies - necessary for company managers (all or only a certain level),

Special (specific) competencies required only by a certain category of employees ( for example: sales managers).

Let us give an example of the corporate competencies of one of the companies engaged in the wholesale trade of equipment. Regardless of their position, each employee of this company must have the following competencies:

Mastering and using new knowledge and skills, i.e. not only constant study, but also the use in work of new knowledge, skills, one’s own and others’ experience obtained as a result of such study;

Effective communication and cooperation, i.e. the ability to successfully work together with other members of the organization, to achieve coordinated actions to achieve the company’s goals;

Focusing on customer needs presupposes the employee’s desire to understand and satisfy customer needs as much as possible, and to evaluate the usefulness of the actions taken in terms of additional satisfaction of customer needs. Moreover, an employee should treat his work colleagues as internal clients;

Result-oriented, i.e. the employee’s understanding of the tasks facing him and the company and the ability to systematically achieve their implementation.

As an example of managerial competencies, we offer a set of competencies for a middle manager of one of the companies that develops and sells IT solutions:

Professionalism — possession of universal knowledge and experience in at least one of the company’s areas of activity.

Organization — distribution (control) resources : the ability to provide employees with the resources and authority necessary to achieve their goals; establish the minimum necessary control; monitor the results achieved, correlating them with the established plan.

Organization – determining personal priorities and goals that correspond to the company’s objectives; reasonable distribution of working time; productive work with documents and effective resolution of administrative issues; optimal processing of information, highlighting important points without unnecessary detail; ability to work under heavy load.

Communication – the ability to “listen and hear” messages and information, conduct pre-prepared and spontaneous presentations that are appropriate to the audience and topic and ensure the achievement of the desired results.

Development of subordinates , i.e. development of relevant skills and abilities among employees in accordance with specific professional needs; setting complex professional tasks; empowering employees to take on greater responsibility. Creating an environment that encourages people to achieve and develop their own abilities; Encouraging employees to be energetic, enthusiastic, loyal, trusting and striving for excellence.

Delegation of authority – those. transfer of part of the functions of a manager to a subordinate, subject to the transfer of responsibility for the assigned work.

External contacts – developing and maintaining constructive relationships with clients, suppliers, public and government representatives; showing special attention to the client, punctuality in the delivery of products and services. Representing the company in relations with external organizations, performing work with constant concern for the company's reputation.

Communication skills – ability to interact effectively with others; ability to win support at any organizational level.

Conflict Management - ability to understand multiple points of view, monitor stressful and crisis situations; ability to resolve conflicts and disagreements.

Constantly demonstrating and encouraging attention to quality work at all levels, both within the company and outside it; critical attitude towards mediocre results.

Achieving set goals; adoption of a system of responsibility for results and performance of work with a sense of responsibility for labor productivity.

Innovation – desire to master and apply new progressive methods of work.

Intellectual level – intelligence, ability to think logically, education.

When starting to develop a competency model for a sales manager, it makes sense to first define corporate and managerial competencies, and only then move on to developing special competencies. Special or specific competencies decipher the concept of “Professionalism” for a specific position of the head of the sales department. We will return to this type of competencies a little later, but now we will take a closer look at the managerial competencies of the head of the sales department.

It is managerial competencies that come first for the head of the sales department and ensure his effectiveness. True, often the head of the sales department forgets that he is a manager and his main task is to manage the department, and is overly carried away by personal sales. Moreover, for a better understanding of the essence of management activities, it makes sense for the head of the sales department to imagine the entire possible range of managerial competencies. The list of these competencies is quite large, so in a real document, the so-called “portrait of competencies,” you need to include not all of them, but only the most important ones for a specific position in a specific organization. This is done in order to make such a document a real working tool, since too large a list of competencies is both perceived and difficult to evaluate.

So, managerial competencies can be divided into five groups:

1) Competencies necessary to perform the role of a manager.

2) Competencies that characterize a high level of intelligence.

3) Competencies necessary to increase the efficiency of work (your own and your subordinates).

4) Competencies that determine a manager’s own development.

5) Competencies that determine customer orientation.

Let's start with the competencies required to fulfill the role of a leader. These include:

1. Leadership, that is, the ability to achieve outstanding results through people.

2. Management as achieving outstanding results through effective management of resources, systems and processes.

3. Employee development (mentoring, mentoring).

Note that sometimes the concepts of “leadership” and “management” are perceived as synonyms. This is not entirely true. Thanks to leadership, a leader leads people, inspires them, and lights them up with an idea. He may not pay much attention to how rationally the work of his employees is organized, but he will not ignore despondency and loss of enthusiasm. On the other hand, managerial qualities allow the manager to manage work processes, ensuring their rationality, thoughtfulness, and coordination.

In one company, we observed a striking example of the development of leadership qualities in one head of the sales department and the development of managerial qualities in another. The company had two sales departments divided according to product principles. One department sold one product, another department sold another. The head of the first department often spontaneously gathered his managers and enthusiastically described to them the prospects for the company's work, showing them the exciting horizons of ever-new victories. He also often held personal conversations and encouraged employees. True, he left the specific steps (what and how to do) to their discretion. He believed that the main thing is the desire to achieve results, and what and how to do is a second question. Managers often made mistakes and worked very chaotically, but with enthusiasm, thanks to which they managed to fulfill the plan, although they often had to redo the work. The head of another department, on the contrary, assembled planning meetings strictly according to schedule, gave clear assignments, provided the necessary resources to solve the assigned tasks, monitored execution, and helped with solving complex problems. But I didn’t consider it necessary to say anything about the necessity of the work they were doing. He believed that this was already clear, so why waste time on it. As a result, his subordinates worked quite smoothly, achieved good results, but did not strive for special achievements and treated work as an inevitable necessity. It is obvious that both managers had reserves for development, one for managerial qualities, the other for leadership.

Now let’s look at the competencies that characterize a manager’s high level of intelligence.

This is, firstly, such competence as "Analysis and Problem Solving", that is, achieving mutually acceptable solutions through identifying problems, reaching out to affected parties, developing multiple solutions, and resolving conflicts.

The second competency is "Goal Orientation" or focusing aspirations on achieving a goal, mission, or task.

Third competency – "Making decisions", Why is it important to choose the best sequence of actions based on an analysis of the situation.

And finally, the fourth competence - "Creativity or Innovation". This competency is characterized by the adaptation of traditional or development of new approaches, concepts, methods, models, images, processes, technologies and systems.

Sales managers often have to deal with problems that do not have a clear solution. It is in such cases that the competencies of this group are required.

For example, a department head learns that his manager and a client’s employee are conducting dubious transactions involving another, third company. Moreover, we are talking not only about kickbacks, but also about actions that, if they are made public, will damage the reputations of both companies, and will also affect the moral climate in the team. The leader must consider the situation from all sides and determine what possible options of action are available and what consequences they can lead to. Simply dismissing an unscrupulous manager will not solve the problem, since there is also an employee of the client whose actions were no better than the manager’s actions. And you can’t just fire him. In addition, it is necessary to deal with the third company, recovering damages from it. The manager must understand that he has to solve several problems at once in this situation: not only to stop the fraud and compensate for the damage to his company, but also to prevent the possibility of their recurrence in the future, and, most importantly, to preserve the reputation of both companies. Conventional actions in such a situation are not suitable, so the manager will have to approach the issue creatively and find an unconventional way to resolve the situation.

Very important for a manager are the competencies necessary to improve work efficiency. These include competencies such as “Planning” and “Personal Efficiency”.

Planning - A systematic approach to activities, independent preparation and action in accordance with the developed plan.

This competency, according to our observations, is the most typical “growth point” for many sales managers. Many of them have great difficulty not only with drawing up an objective and fact-based plan, but also with its subsequent implementation.

The head of the sales department of a large company grew up as a salesperson and had over 15 years of sales experience. He remembered very well the times when no one planned anything, but, nevertheless, sales grew at enormous speed. Then sales began to fall, and the company’s management began to demand that he, already the head of the sales department, draw up a plan and comply with it. He resisted this as best he could: how can you plan something in our lives, he said, because you don’t know what awaits you tomorrow. But the management insisted, and there was nowhere to go. I had to make plans. But he did this solely for show and forgot about the plan the moment he handed it over to management. Naturally, with such an attitude, he did not look into the plan until the moment when it was necessary to write a report, did not control its implementation among his subordinates and did not take any actions to achieve it. The subordinates, seeing the manager’s attitude, treated planning accordingly and worked as they had to, and some simply according to their mood: if it goes well, I’ll sell, but if it doesn’t work out, there’s no point in straining yourself, you just have to wait it out.

The “Personal Efficiency” competency combines the following characteristics:

Radiating self-confidence

No less important for a leader’s activities is his own development. And here we can consider competencies that unite the manager’s desire for his own development, namely: “Continuous learning” and “Flexibility”.

The “continuous learning” competency is very important for the head of the sales department, but quite often we observe in them the so-called “stalled self-development.” In other words, a person who has reached the level of head of the sales department has already really achieved a lot professionally and at some point begins to believe that he already knows everything and can do everything. But life does not stand still. As you know, knowledge in the modern world becomes outdated very quickly. Just 10–15 years ago, knowledge became outdated every five years. Those. a specialist, if he wanted to maintain his qualifications at a high level, had to undergo training at least every five years. Today, knowledge becomes outdated every 2-3 years.

The insufficient level of development of the “continuous learning” competence is very clearly manifested in the process of various trainings, when participants, instead of perceiving new information and thinking about how it can be used in their work, declare: “but that’s not how it is with us.” This closeness to new knowledge or simply approaches leads to the fact that a specialist develops professional templates. And this in turn leads to inflexibility.

“Flexibility” as a managerial competency of the head of the sales department is especially important in the context of innovation in the company. If a leader is inflexible, it will be very difficult for him not only to understand the meaning of change, but also to choose adequate methods of behavior depending on the situation. Flexibility also implies the ability to quickly switch from one activity to another, constantly keep all the diverse affairs of the department in focus, and not forget or lose sight of details.

I would like to pay special attention to the last group of competencies – customer orientation. In this case, the client refers to both the company’s external clients and its own employees, who are internal clients. Competence "Customer Focus"- is foresight, meeting the needs, desires and expectations of the client.

However, customer focus should not be confused with an obsequious attitude towards him and a desire to please in everything, which not only does not lead to partnership and cooperation, but can have a detrimental effect on the business as a whole.

The head of the sales department of a manufacturing and trading company understood customer orientation in a very unique way. After taking office, the first thing he did was replace the standard contract with the client, which provided for prepayment, with an agreement with a deferred payment of 30 days. Naturally, the clients were only happy about this. But if earlier, when starting to discuss a contract, the bargaining process began with an advance payment, now the same bargaining began from 30 days. As a result, the average deferred payment for the company increased from 15 days to 45. This was, of course, beneficial for clients, but the company suffered significant losses.

That is why an understanding of customer orientation must take into account that one’s own company should not suffer significant losses as a result of this orientation. It is important to find common ground and mutually beneficial solutions, then cooperation will be stronger.

Actually, after this competency, we can say that for the head of the sales department it can serve as some kind of “bridge” between managerial and special (specific) competencies.

To understand the latter, you need to have a very clear idea of ​​what functions, in addition to management, the head of the sales department will perform.

In general, the following competencies are required:

Knowledge of marketing fundamentals (positioning, segmentation, assortment policy, pricing, sales channels, sales promotion)

Ability to plan sales in general and for various reasons (in terms of customer groups, assortment groups, sales territories, payment terms);

Ability to prepare package offers for various groups of clients;

Ability to manage accounts receivable;

Ability to form an optimal and balanced warehouse;

Ability to organize and control activities to develop a client base;

Ability to optimize the client base based on a new (or adjusted) marketing strategy;

Skill in forming the company’s pricing and assortment policy;

Skills in contractual work and document preparation;

Analytical skills (analysis of sales, financial indicators and promotional activities; analysis of market conditions; analysis of the customer base);

Skills in carrying out campaigns to promote priority or “stuck” products.

Negotiation skills and conflict resolution with clients;

Knowledge (at the level of an experienced user) of software such as 1C, Infin, the Bank-Client system, Consultant-Plus, etc.

If the head of the sales department works with key clients, then his special competencies may also include the following competencies:

Knowledge of the company's product line.

Ability to present any product (service).

Ability to work with customer objections.

Understanding the competitive advantages of products (services), company, personnel.

Ability to maintain long-term relationships with clients.

Work with clients on overdue accounts receivable.

Knowledge of the norms and rules of document flow in the company, storage of confidential information and others.

As an example, let’s look at the specific competencies of the head of the sales department of one of the companies.

“Portrait of competencies” (excluding corporate and managerial ones).

The head of the sales department must have practical experience (at least 3 years) in the following areas:

1. Work with the company’s clients:

search and development of potential clients in the main areas of the Company’s activities;

business correspondence;

preparing and conducting business meetings;

maintaining contact with clients after completion of work.

2. Working with documents:

preparation of documentation and submission of applications for participation in tenders;

registration of agreements and preparation of contracts;

working with accounts;

working with confidential information, its registration, recording and storage;

maintaining sales records;

analytical work with archival documents (successful and failed contracts, reasons for failure, etc.).

3. Organization of work to fulfill customer orders:

organizing the implementation of the entire range of work on existing projects in production;

dispatching the movement of goods and maintaining a database of customers;

selection of complex project co-executors and organization of interaction with them;

procurement management.

If your organization has implemented (or is implementing) a quality system, the head of the sales department must have the following specific competencies:

Skill in describing the sales business process;

Know the requirements of a quality standard (for example, ISO);

Have experience in implementing CRM or other sales management systems.

The head of the sales department may need knowledge of the basics of marketing, market research, knowledge of regional sales markets, lobbying skills, experience in building sales networks, experience in opening representative offices, branches and warehouses, and much more.

Once again, we draw your attention to the fact that it is no coincidence that these competencies are called special or even specific: they directly reflect the specifics of the business and the requirements of a particular company for the same position. As we have already said, these competencies are included in the concept of “Professionalism”.

What opportunities open up for us with a clear understanding of the competencies of the head of the sales department?

Firstly, this will allow the head of the organization, commercial unit or HR department to evaluate candidates for this position using uniform criteria.

Secondly, this will create an understanding of the “effective employee” and will help determine the criteria for successful performance of work. For the employee himself, this will help in identifying his strengths and weaknesses and will identify the basic needs for development and training.

Thirdly, we will be able to make objective decisions regarding the promotion of employees and their development within the company.

Are there situations when you can work calmly without building competency models? Yes. In the case when a company is at the very beginning of its development, it is sometimes formed on a “family-friendly” principle, when there is no clear division by position and all employees are almost completely interchangeable. At this stage of the organization’s formation, it is too early to talk about competencies as some kind of management tool. However, when analyzing the best experience of employees and effective work methods, already at this organizational stage it is necessary to talk about the foundation for describing corporate competencies, and over time, managerial and special ones.

Now let's dwell on the question: “How can we assess the presence of certain competencies?” Assessment methods here can be: interviews, professional testing, ranking, assessment using the 360 ​​degree method and, as the most comprehensive method, an assessment center (Assessment Center). However, if we are talking about the simplicity of the assessment, its acceptability, profitability and at the same time the correctness of its results, then we can talk about the following methods.

The most cost-effective tool in the situation of selecting candidates for a position, as experience shows, is a behavioral interview. It approaches the center of assessment in terms of correctness, while requiring one to two hours instead of one to two days, it is easier to carry out, it is less expensive and acceptable to sales managers with a different set of required competencies. As part of such an interview, you ask questions and ask to describe the applicant’s behavior in a particular situation that would correspond to the competence you are interested in.

For example, we are interested in the “Customer Focus” competency. We can ask the candidate questions like: “Tell me about your relationships with clients.” “Describe your behavior in a situation where the client had large accounts receivable.” “How did you act in a situation when a client approached you with a complaint about the behavior of your subordinates.”

In the situation of conducting an assessment or certification (for example, to nominate candidates for the position of head of the sales department) in a company, the most optimal method would be either a simple ranking of employees by competencies, or a “360 degree” assessment. This will be an assessment of a company employee based on data about his actions in real work situations and the business qualities he has demonstrated. It is based on a person's visible behavior. The employee’s competencies, professional and personal qualities are assessed. The information will be presented in the form of a rating, ranked according to various indicators (competencies). In the case of an assessment using the 360-degree method, data is obtained by questioning the employee himself, his immediate supervisor, colleagues, and in some cases, clients of the person being assessed.

Let's consider an example of assessing several employees applying for the position of head of the sales department. During the assessment, it was managerial competencies that were important, since each of the employees proved to be a good seller. For each of the managerial competencies they scored the following average scores*:

*Rating scale from 1 to 5, where:

1 - the best indicator, competence is developed

5 – worst indicator – competence is not developed

Average results for 360 degree assessment.

From the table, it is clear that there are two applicants for the position of head of the sales department - Ivanov and Petrov. To make the final choice, you need to determine the priority of each competency for this position in this particular company. If the organization is hierarchical, with prescribed regulations, then Petrov may be the most effective. If the company is innovative, striving for development, with democratic relationships, then Ivanov will be a more interesting candidate for the position of head of the sales department.

So, we looked at the options for corporate, managerial and special competencies of the head of the sales department. We touched upon the issue of methods for assessing competencies in various situations. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that it makes sense for each company to develop its own unique (albeit based on general knowledge and approaches) model of competencies for the head of the sales department. This approach will allow you to “tailor” this tool to the specific needs of the company and make it actually work.

Annex 1.

Appendix (box)

Description of managerial competencies of the head of the sales department

More detailed characteristics for each of the competencies are presented in the Appendix.

Mentoring is a model of professional relationships that involves a partnership between an experienced and a young teacher in the process of adapting to new conditions. The model is based on a constructivist approach to the process of cognition, which is understood as a process of constant analysis of a specialist’s personal experience and the specialist’s adaptation to an ever-changing reality, which is an integral and necessary component of professional self-improvement

Boss is discordant with boss (folk wisdom)

The topic is no longer new, but still relevant: the success of an organization depends on the competence of its leaders. Not only in times of crisis is it very important to rely on the ability of managers to concentrate on efficiency in achieving goals; during periods of government complications, the need for the skill of managing the emotional state of the team (emotional intelligence) is added to the skill of efficiency. These skills are important at any time, but now without them it is especially difficult to achieve any results.

And at the same time, a large percentage of managers cannot always clearly formulate a goal, let alone evaluate the effectiveness of the process of achieving it. I'm not even talking about having emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, until recently, Ukrainian companies paid little attention to the development of management skills of managers. Perhaps it's time to grow.

If you think the same, let's discuss the ideal image of a Leader that any company would like to have. Of course, there are characteristics of managers in different industries (a production manager will be different from a sales or service department manager), and the requirements for a top-level manager and a middle-level manager will be different. Therefore, I propose to discuss now only general trends using the example of a middle manager. Depending on the job level or industry requirements, this competency model can be expanded or simplified.

First of all, the manager must be a professional in his field and possess professional knowledge . It is for his professionalism that his subordinates will respect him. Therefore, it is often professionals in their field who are promoted to managers. Like, “he does well himself, he can organize others well.” Unfortunately, this rule does not always work. Because professional and managerial skills are on different levels. And sometimes the ability to organize a process well is more important than the ability to perform individual subprocesses well.

A weak leader is a potential threat to the company: Not only can he not improve the efficiency of the department, he often finds it difficult to maintain the level of productivity that was before him. Sometimes a newly appointed manager begins to use sharply authoritarian methods - issuing commands and instructions, which greatly demotivates his subordinates. Sometimes, on the contrary, the manager is afraid to complicate relations with subordinates and follows their lead. I often meet managers who are so afraid of losing the personnel transferred to them that as a result they fall under “control” through the manipulations of lower-level employees. It is clear that when a company needs to make changes, or revise processes, or reduce the number of operations (which can lead to layoffs of people), such managers actively impede the changes being carried out. Weak managers are afraid to make decisions and take responsibility and, accordingly, delay or sabotage necessary changes, which can lead to financial losses for the entire company. And finally, weak leaders are afraid of appearing weak - often they are not ready to learn from their colleagues; they rather compete and strive to show that their colleagues are wrong. This leads to an unhealthy competitive environment within the company and increases the losses described above.

How to improve the health of your team and strengthen your leaders? Firstly, we need to clearly understand what kind of managers we want to see in our company, and for this we can use a manager’s competency model.

So, in addition to mastering his profession, a good middle manager must know :

— basics of financial literacy and economics. He must understand what turnover, profit, payroll, ROI, EBITDA, etc. are...

— tools for analyzing the “present situation” and planning the “desired”

The leader must apply the following skills :

— planning skill (the depth of planning depends on the business, the structure of the company and the place of the manager in the structure) and budgeting upcoming periods;

—process organization skills achieving your goals. This skill includes, but is not limited to:

- setting goals

— control and feedback to the employee

— adjustment of plans

- making decisions

— skill of achieving expected results with optimal resource consumption. This skill also includes time management and self-management skills.

— people management skills:

— formation of an efficient unit (making effective personnel decisions, selection, development, communications management)

— motivation and inspiration of subordinates, choosing the right management style

- communication skills

— for external communications: holding negotiations, meetings, presentations

— and for internal ones: holding meetings, building interpersonal relationships, interaction with other company structures

And finally a good leader has the following personal qualities :

- he is responsible – accepting a task, he takes responsibility for its implementation, for finding all the resources to complete it, he clearly outlines the deadlines for completing the task, focusing on real possibilities;

- he is proactive and result-oriented (and not on the process). This means that he is looking for ways to achieve his goals, offers new solutions and ways to implement them, at the moment when he encounters complications - he changes tactics, but does not change the goal;

- he is flexible and thinks positively , which means that in any situation he is ready to see opportunities for his development and the development of his unit. Such a person is ready for change and constant self-improvement and learning;

- he is a team player -he knows the goals of his colleagues, he prioritizes team goals above his own, is ready to establish working connections between departments, values ​​and provides mutual assistance;

- he has highly developed emotional intelligence – he understands the feelings of his colleagues, manages his emotions, choosing constructive ones for a given situation, knows how to give and receive feedback and influences the emotional state of his colleagues.

Of course, these are not all the necessary skills for a leader. Each organization may have its own additional requirements for managers. Also beyond the scope of the review were such qualities as honesty, decency, etc.

And, looking at this list of skills and personal qualities, the question naturally arises: “where can I get one like that?” In the following articles, we will look at the principles of selecting managers and ways to develop them within the company.

Expert comments:

Marina well revealed the key competencies of a leader.

I would like to add a little detail to the “professionalism” competency.

I like to call this competency a little differently – “Excitement at work.” I believe that a leader should love his work more than life. For him, the desire to realize his career should be the first priority in life. Why is that? A leader must have more energy than all his employees. He should be their “wind in their sails.”

This does not necessarily have to mean that the manager spends more than 12 hours at work. But such a leader will really think about work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Mikhail Pritula,

And about. HR- director of STB

This article perfectly reflects the general portrait of a middle manager.

I agree with the author that a manager is, first of all, a leader who knows how to think strategically and lead a team. And secondly, he is a good professional in his field. Not every highly qualified specialist will be able to competently set a task, motivate colleagues and thereby achieve positive results. To do this, he must have personal qualities that allow him to do this successfully. Is it possible to develop leadership qualities in yourself? That's another question.

Marina also emphasizes the importance of Emotional Intelligence for a leader. And in this point of view I am ready to support the author. After all, a manager, being a decision maker, regularly faces situations that require monitoring the emotional state of himself and his subordinates.

It is worth adding that the instability of the country’s current economic situation requires today’s managers to develop crisis management skills. He must have not just good analytical thinking, but the ability to quickly make decisions in difficult situations, the ability to “listen and hear” interlocutors in conflict situations and not be afraid to make unpopular tough decisions.

Yulia Kirillova

senior consultant

ANCOR Personnel Ukraine

The question of whether a manager has deep professional knowledge in his or her specialty is rhetorical and does not have a single correct solution. Perhaps it all depends on the field of activity. For example, in a leadership position in the technical or IT field, it is difficult to imagine a person who does not have deep subject knowledge. After all, on the one hand, he needs to be able to assess the effectiveness of the work of his subordinates, and this is impossible without professional knowledge, on the other hand, to gain their authority, and on the third hand, to act as an intermediary between his department and others, which, as a rule, do nothing do not understand the specifics of the work of technical specialists. Such a manager sometimes has to act as an advocate for his subordinates and explain to other departments the full significance of the work of his department. At the same time, there are functional areas in which the communication and management skills of the manager play a much greater role. In our practice, there was an example of a very successful head of the legal department, who had slightly less knowledge of the law than his subordinates. But at the same time, this manager was able to organize their work very competently, take into account the interests of all stakeholders and make sure that the internal client was satisfied, and this can be very difficult to do on the scale of a large company, where the interests of various groups and departments may contradict each other. He is the epitome of a brilliant communicator and negotiator.

In addition, it is very important that the manager is well versed in the company’s business and understands how the work of his department affects the picture as a whole. A leader must be flexible and very sensitive to any changes in the external environment. He must be ready to make non-standard and sometimes unpopular decisions in a highly competitive and rapidly changing environment.

There are several types of leaders (Adizes wrote about this and not only). Some have a very strong process-management component. This type of leader is needed by a company during a period of stable, calm growth, when it is necessary to ensure the consistency and orderliness of all processes. In others, the innovative component is very pronounced. You cannot do without such people when a company needs to reach new horizons or overcome a crisis. Based on the company's goals, the manager's competencies will be somewhat different. The scope of his leadership also leaves its mark on the requirements for a leader. For example, a sales director or financial director will have in their profile both general managerial competencies and those that will be dictated by the specifics of the profession.

Maria Mikhailyuk

Senior consultant

Recruiting agency PERSONNEL Executive

Evgeny Smirnov

# Business nuances

Managerial competencies

Experience is the basis of management competencies. Experience implies not only the presence of theoretical knowledge, but also the ability to apply it in the professional field.

Article navigation

• Types of professional competencies
• Managerial competencies of managers
• Basic and special management competencies
• Methods for improving competencies
• Professional competencies in various fields
• Professional competencies of a lawyer
• Professional competencies of an engineer
• Professional competencies of a chef
• Conclusion

Managerial competencies are a set of knowledge, skills and personal characteristics that allow a manager to effectively cope with the responsibilities of a leader. How competently he will solve operational and strategic tasks to achieve his goals depends on how high a level of job competencies a particular manager demonstrates.

Experience is the basis of management competencies. Experience implies not only the presence of theoretical knowledge, but also the ability to apply it in the professional field. These are, first of all, skills acquired by a specialist in different positions in different companies and tested in practice. In other words, management competencies are a key indicator of a manager’s professionalism, from the point of view of effective management.

Types of professional competencies

Regardless of whether a person occupies a leadership or executive position, there are two key groups of competencies:

• Basic competencies– a set of personal qualities that determine the effectiveness of a particular specialist as a whole. This group includes the volitional, intellectual, emotional and communicative characteristics of a person.
• Special competencies– this is a range of knowledge, skills and abilities that are directly related to the professional activities of a particular specialist. These competencies differ for different positions. For example, the special competence of an expert translator is the skill of simultaneous translation, and the special competence of a secretary includes competent preparation and management of the manager’s work schedule.

All employee competencies, reflecting the possibilities of his personal growth, are conditionally divided into two groups:

• technical competencies of a specialist - professional knowledge, skills and abilities that are necessary for an employee holding a specific position;
• behavioral competencies – universal competencies of an employee, including personal characteristics that characterize the effectiveness of a person as a whole.

In another way, this classification can be represented as the personal and functional characteristics of a manager. The personal competencies of a leader are in many ways the initial inclinations of a specialist. The task of a manager who wants to raise his professional bar is to develop his strengths and improve his weaknesses. While easily mastered functional competencies come during training and in the process of work, personal leadership competencies of management require strong-willed efforts in order to develop their natural inclinations and eliminate shortcomings as much as possible.

Managerial competencies of managers

A professional manager is a specialist who must possess and apply basic management competencies in his work. While, for example, the professional competencies of an electronics seller do not require serious organizational skills, for a manager the ability to manage business processes and subordinates is the basis. A leadership position has its own specifics, which is reflected in competencies. This specificity is presented below in the form of abstracts:

• The work of a manager, unlike other types of intellectual work, does not have a specific time frame. Therefore, the level and indicators of achieving intermediate results are the main guidelines in assessing a manager.
• The manager's strategies and operational actions are continuously adjusted under the influence of external market conditions. The ability to act in non-standard situations is far from the last place in the list of managerial competencies.
• The manager is responsible for the actions of his subordinates, takes into account risks and takes advantage of opportunities. A manager's professional competencies require the ability to assemble a strong team and organize an effective work process.
• The corporate culture of management and the management style practiced by them shapes the business reputation of the company. A manager at any level is a bearer of corporate values ​​that directly affect special competencies.

All these factors determine the range of competencies that a manager must possess. Control over how much a specialist possesses certain professional skills is carried out by the immediate superior and HR department specialists, who enter the employee’s parameters into special tables and track progress. This format allows you to quickly identify a manager’s weaknesses and develop a program to eliminate them.

Basic and special management competencies

The basic competencies of a manager include:

1. Systematic strategic thinking. A leader who does not think ahead and does not monitor global trends is unable to be effective in the long term.
2. Knowledge of the basics of marketing. Understanding the market and the company’s place in the market, the ability to analyze information and synthesize effective marketing solutions with a limited budget - a brief description of marketing competencies.
3. Financial management skills. The manager must be able to competently distribute the company's limited resources and use effective investment mechanisms to increase income.
4. Knowledge of production, commercial and logistics processes.
5. Skills in developing new products and services.
6. Knowledge of office work and administration.
7. Understanding and application of the relevant legislative framework governing a specific business sector.
8. Developed communication and personnel management skills.
9. Understanding and applying the fundamentals of information, commercial and economic security.

As for special management competencies, they depend on the specific industry and the specifics of the position held. For example, the competencies of a chief accountant, who actually occupies a management position, differ significantly from the competencies of a commercial director or PR manager.

Management competencies can be considered not only in terms of basic and special skills. An alternative classification is the distribution of management competencies according to the nature of the manager’s actions. This includes:

• Vision is the ability to forecast and think at the tactical and strategic levels, calculating risks and taking advantage of emerging opportunities.
• Action – the ability to purposefully and effectively organize your actions and the actions of your team to achieve a specific result.
• Interaction – the ability to form effective and comfortable relationships with partners, senior management, subordinates and other people.

Methods for improving competencies

A successful manager systematically improves basic and special competencies. Professional development is carried out in several ways, which are conventionally divided into:

1. Traditional teaching methods;
2. Active learning methods;
3. On-the-job training.

Traditional teaching methods are used when a specialist needs to convey a volume of knowledge and help him master it in a short time. Traditional teaching methods include:

• lectures – one-way presentation of educational material mainly in the form of theory with minimal feedback;
• Seminars are a training format in which there is active communication between the teacher and the audience;
• educational films are a convenient format that allows for the possibility of learning new competencies remotely.

Active learning methods, compared to traditional methods, are more effective and individual approach, allowing you to increase the level of competencies in a short time. This category includes:

• trainings – condensed theoretical training with maximum practical skills development;
• computer training is a programmatic way of presenting and practicing acquired knowledge and skills;
• group discussions – oral exchange of experience in the context of solving a specific problem;
• business games – modeling and practicing situations that arise in professional practice;
• role-playing games – teaching interpersonal communications by simulating learning situations.

On-the-job training methods – full-fledged practice with real-life skills acquisition and experience exchange. These methods include:

• temporary internship in other departments of the company to strengthen horizontal corporate ties;
• drawing up an individual training program based on the results of third-party observation of the work process of the tested specialist;
• peer coaching with elements of informal mentoring for the exchange of experience between specialists in different fields;
• vertical direct mentoring under the control of senior management;
• coaching with independent search for solutions with the help of a coach;
• familiarization with the corporate culture and value competencies of the manager.

There are many methods for improving competencies. For effective training, it is important that the development of new knowledge and skills occurs slightly ahead of current trends and is focused on the comprehensive development of the company and effective interpersonal communications.

Professional competencies in various fields

The necessary personal and intellectual competencies of a professional in each field are different. For clarity, let's compare the knowledge, skills and abilities required for work by a qualified lawyer, engineer and chef.

Professional competencies of a lawyer

The main indicators of a qualified lawyer are such professional competencies as:

• knowledge of basic laws, their competent interpretation and application in practice;
• the ability to qualify events and facts from a legal point of view;
• skills in drafting legal documents, providing advice and drawing up legal opinions;
• ability to make legal decisions and act within the law;
• skills in establishing facts of offenses and taking measures to restore violated rights;
• systematic professional development;
• in-depth study of legislation and the practice of its application.

Professional competencies of an engineer

An engineer must have a wide range of technical knowledge and a number of personal qualities. His professional competencies include:

• understanding of technology and principles of production organization;
• possession of analytical skills, use of mathematical and economic calculations;
• maintaining business and engineering documentation;
• selection of qualified contractors and effective interaction with them;
• knowledge of regulatory documentation and GOST;
• advanced computer and software skills;
• responsibility and ability to make quick decisions in difficult situations;
• High communication skills with subordinates and superiors.

Professional competencies of a chef

The chef, as a person who is responsible for the operation of the establishment, must possess a large list of professional competencies, which are briefly presented below:

• understanding of the basics of merchandising and cooking techniques of national cuisines;
• the ability to correctly zone a restaurant in accordance with sanitary standards and ergonomic principles;
• maintaining finances, developing budgets and assessing the efficiency of the kitchen and the establishment as a whole;
• knowledge of personnel selection methods, formation of effective staff and establishment of communications with subordinates;
• knowledge of the legal side of the restaurant business, understanding of the rules and regulations for maintaining internal documentation.

A special feature of corporate competencies is that they are universal for all company employees - from ordinary specialists to top managers. Corporate competencies are determined by the company’s values ​​and its internal corporate culture. Therefore, this category includes the skills and personal qualities that every employee of the company should have.

It is the responsibility of management to develop corporate models and competencies. Each company has its own name for the special competencies used to evaluate employees. Examples of corporate competencies look like this:

• leadership;
• teamwork skills;
• loyalty to the company;
• customer orientation;
• result orientation.

Corporate competencies are selected by the company's management in accordance with the specifics of the activity and are usually reduced to certain models of thinking, behavior and ethics of employees. If a company focuses on a high level of service, value competencies will be formed around a client-oriented approach. If a corporation values ​​team cohesion and the release of individual creative potential, corporate competencies will be dominated by communication and organizational skills.

What is competence? Everyone puts their own meaning into this concept, but according to Wikipedia, competence is “the ability to apply knowledge and skills, to successfully act on the basis of practical experience in solving various problems.” Too streamlined to be accurately defined. However, this term has other interpretations, and they describe professional competence in much more detail. If we talk about the competence of a leader, it includes a huge number of points. The most important of them is the ability to manage other people. If a leader knows how to manage, then he is already quite competent. But this is absolutely not enough to become a successful manager. The ability to give orders in a commanding voice does not make a person a leader, despite the fact that he nominally is one.

What is competence

If we take a middle manager as an example, it turns out that his competencies largely coincide with the professional skills of higher-ranking managers. However, many similarities can also be found by comparing his competencies and the skills of managers occupying more modest positions in the company structure. What qualities does an experienced leader have, regardless of what position he works in? Both the department manager and the vice president of the firm have many of the same competencies, without which they would never become managers. They are worth taking a closer look at.

Key competencies of a manager

Professionalism– this is extensive experience and a store of universal knowledge that allows a manager to work effectively in a certain area of ​​activity of a company or organization.

Delegation of authority. One of the qualities of a true manager is the ability to delegate part of the work to other people. A good leader knows and can do a lot, but he understands that he cannot waste his time on solving secondary problems. His subordinates can easily handle them. Choosing the right performer who will exactly follow all the manager’s instructions is a very important skill for a successful manager.

Communication skills. A competent leader knows how to communicate with people in the “superior-subordinate” format without slipping into familiarity. The ability to keep your distance and at the same time maintain good and trusting relationships with the team is a skill that is developed over years of hard work.

Achieving your goals. One of the most important competencies of a manager. A manager must be able to turn problems into tasks, be responsible for the result and have complete control over the entire work process. Many inexperienced managers often lose their bearings while doing insignificant things. A good leader always calculates the situation several moves ahead and never loses sight of the main goal.

The core competencies of a manager also include:

• Organization
• Communication skills
• Development of subordinates
• Intellectual level
• Innovation
• Conflict Management
• Forecasting the situation
• Oratory skills
• Efficient allocation of available resources

Manager's competencies

It is customary to distinguish between corporate and managerial competencies. Since the manager works on the company’s staff, he must comply with corporate rules and be as loyal as possible to the organization’s policies. Just like other employees, he must constantly improve his skills, have good relationships with colleagues, be goal-oriented and maintain team spirit.

But along with corporate competencies, the position of leading manager imposes additional obligations on a person. To meet the level of his position, a manager must have the appropriate competencies. If this does not happen, and any manager sooner or later reaches the limit of his capabilities, both intellectual and physical, then the person risks losing his job.

And this happens quite regularly. According to the Peter Principle, in a hierarchical system any individual can rise to the level of his or her incompetence. This means that the manager will move up the career ladder until he takes a position in which he cannot cope with the responsibilities assigned to him. That is, he will turn out to be incompetent.

To prevent this from happening, the manager must constantly work on his skills. The level of competence is increased not only by constant practice - today managers must regularly attend seminars and trainings, where they can learn new approaches to personnel management. Without advanced training, it is very easy to pass the threshold of your own incompetence, since in many companies promotion is closely related to length of service. Thus, the new position may be the last in the work of a poorly prepared manager.

Leaders and managers

It is important for any manager to have a clear understanding of what type of managers he views. There are managers-leaders and managers-managers. You can become successful regardless of your psychotype - it is only important to turn your brightest character traits into tools for effective personnel management.

The disadvantages of leading managers include an overly optimistic vision of the company's future: they are excellent speakers, but their charisma often hinders them, since it is not always possible to advance far on motivation alone - they need long, painstaking work on each stage of the current project. It is difficult for a leader to concentrate on routine work; he is focused on achieving the goal as quickly as possible and is inclined to trust the solution of routine tasks to his subordinates. This approach can sometimes be flawed, as personnel who do not receive clear instructions can make many mistakes.

The manager-manager is focused mainly on work matters - for him, systematic movement forward, strict adherence to deadlines and adherence to approved instructions are much more important. It cannot be said that managers who belong to this type are in any way worse than their fellow leaders. Not at all. It's all about what business approaches the manager uses. He may not be able to speak brightly and figuratively, but he always has other tools at his disposal to motivate staff. A significant salary increase often works better than the most fiery speech.

So it doesn’t matter what type of leader he is - if he is competent enough, it will not be difficult for him to cope with all the responsibilities assigned to him. Different managers use different approaches - in business and in the art of managing people there are no clear rules and immutable laws. If the chosen strategy is correct, and the tactics work to achieve intermediate results, then such a leader has all the necessary competencies to rightfully occupy his post.

Before we talk about the competencies of a sales manager, we need to understand what a competency is.

So, the classic definition: competence - (from the Latin competo - I achieve; I comply, I approach). It has several meanings: 1) the range of powers granted by law, charter or other act to a specific body or official; 2) Knowledge, experience in a particular area.

The following definition is important for our understanding: competence- this is the personal ability of a specialist to solve a certain class of professional problems. Also, by competence we will understand the formally described requirements for the personal, professional and other qualities of the head of the sales department.

Set of competencies; the presence of knowledge and experience necessary for effective activity in a given subject area is called competence.

Competencies can be divided into:

corporate competencies - necessary for all employees of the company,

managerial competencies - necessary for company managers (all or only a certain level),

special (specific) competencies required only by a certain category of employees ( for example: sales managers).

Let us give an example of the corporate competencies of one of the companies engaged in the wholesale trade of equipment. Regardless of their position, each employee of this company must have the following competencies:

Mastering and using new knowledge and skills, i.e. not only constant study, but also the use in work of new knowledge, skills, one’s own and others’ experience obtained as a result of such study;

Effective interaction and cooperation, i.e. the ability to successfully work together with other members of the organization, to achieve coordinated actions to achieve the company’s goals;

Focus on customer needs presupposes the employee’s desire to understand and satisfy customer needs as much as possible, to evaluate the usefulness of the actions taken in terms of additional satisfaction of customer needs. Moreover, an employee should treat his work colleagues as internal clients;

Result-oriented, i.e. the employee’s understanding of the tasks facing him and the company and the ability to systematically achieve their implementation.

As an example of managerial competencies, we offer a set of competencies for a middle manager of one of the companies that develops and sells IT solutions:

Professionalism - possession of universal knowledge and experience in at least one of the company’s areas of activity.

Organization - distribution (control) resources : the ability to provide employees with the resources and authority necessary to achieve their goals; establish the minimum necessary control; monitor the results achieved, correlating them with the established plan.

Organization – determining personal priorities and goals that correspond to the company’s objectives; reasonable distribution of working time; productive work with documents and effective resolution of administrative issues; optimal processing of information, highlighting important points without unnecessary detail; ability to work under heavy load.

Communication – the ability to “listen and hear” messages and information, conduct pre-prepared and spontaneous presentations that are appropriate to the audience and topic and ensure the achievement of the desired results.

Development of subordinates , i.e. development of relevant skills and abilities among employees in accordance with specific professional needs; setting complex professional tasks; empowering employees to take on greater responsibility. Creating an environment that encourages people to achieve and develop their own abilities; Encouraging employees to be energetic, enthusiastic, loyal, trusting and striving for excellence.

Delegation of authority – those. transfer of part of the functions of a manager to a subordinate, subject to the transfer of responsibility for the assigned work.

External contacts – developing and maintaining constructive relationships with clients, suppliers, public and government representatives; showing special attention to the client, punctuality in the delivery of products and services. Representing the company in relations with external organizations, performing work with constant concern for the company's reputation.

Communication skills – ability to interact effectively with others; ability to win support at any organizational level.

Conflict Management - ability to understand multiple points of view, exercise control over stressful and crisis situations; ability to resolve conflicts and disagreements.

Constantly demonstrating and encouraging attention to quality work at all levels, both within the company and outside it; critical attitude towards mediocre results.

Achieving set goals; adoption of a system of responsibility for results and performance of work with a sense of responsibility for labor productivity.

Innovation – desire to master and apply new progressive methods of work.

Intellectual level – intelligence, ability to think logically, education.

When starting to develop a competency model for a sales manager, it makes sense to first define corporate and managerial competencies, and only then move on to developing special competencies. Special or specific competencies decipher the concept of “Professionalism” for a specific position of the head of the sales department. We will return to this type of competencies a little later, but now we will take a closer look at the managerial competencies of the head of the sales department.

It is managerial competencies that come first for the head of the sales department and ensure his effectiveness. True, often the head of the sales department forgets that he is a manager and his main task is to manage the department, and is overly carried away by personal sales. Moreover, for a better understanding of the essence of management activities, it makes sense for the head of the sales department to imagine the entire possible range of managerial competencies. The list of these competencies is quite large, so in a real document, the so-called “portrait of competencies,” you need to include not all of them, but only the most important ones for a specific position in a specific organization. This is done in order to make such a document a real working tool, since too large a list of competencies is both perceived and difficult to evaluate.

So, managerial competencies can be divided into five groups:

1) Competencies necessary to perform the role of a manager.

2) Competencies that characterize a high level of intelligence.

3) Competencies necessary to improve the efficiency of work (your own and your subordinates).

4) Competencies that determine the manager’s own development.

5) Competencies that determine

Let's start with the competencies required to fulfill the role of a leader. These include:

1. Leadership, that is, the ability to achieve outstanding results through people.

2. Management as achieving outstanding results through effective management of resources, systems and processes.

3. Employee development (mentoring, ).

Note that sometimes the concepts of “leadership” and “management” are perceived as synonyms. This is not entirely true. Thanks to leadership, a leader leads people, inspires them, and lights them up with an idea. He may not pay much attention to how rationally the work of his employees is organized, but he will not ignore despondency and loss of enthusiasm. On the other hand, managerial qualities allow the manager to manage work processes, ensuring their rationality, thoughtfulness, and coordination.

In one company, we observed a striking example of the development of leadership qualities in one head of the sales department and the development of managerial qualities in another. The company had two sales departments divided according to product principles. One department sold one product, another department sold another. The head of the first department often spontaneously gathered his managers and enthusiastically described to them the prospects for the company's work, showing them the exciting horizons of ever-new victories. He also often held personal conversations and encouraged employees. True, he left the specific steps (what and how to do) to their discretion. He believed that the main thing is the desire to achieve results, and what and how to do is a second question. Managers often made mistakes and worked very chaotically, but with enthusiasm, thanks to which they managed to fulfill the plan, although they often had to redo the work. The head of another department, on the contrary, assembled planning meetings strictly according to schedule, gave clear assignments, provided the necessary resources to solve the assigned tasks, monitored execution, and helped with solving complex problems. But I didn’t consider it necessary to say anything about the necessity of the work they were doing. He believed that this was already clear, so why waste time on it. As a result, his subordinates worked quite smoothly, achieved good results, but did not strive for special achievements and treated work as an inevitable necessity. It is obvious that both managers had reserves for development, one of managerial qualities, the other of leadership qualities.

Now let’s look at the competencies that characterize a manager’s high level of intelligence.

This is, firstly, such competence as "Analysis and Problem Solving", that is, achieving mutually acceptable solutions through identifying problems, reaching out to affected parties, developing multiple solutions, and resolving conflicts.

The second competency is "Goal Orientation" or focusing aspirations on achieving a goal, mission, or task.

Third competency – "Making decisions", Why is it important to choose the best sequence of actions based on an analysis of the situation.

And finally, the fourth competence - "Creativity or Innovation". This competency is characterized by the adaptation of traditional or development of new approaches, concepts, methods, models, images, processes, technologies and systems.

Sales managers often have to deal with problems that do not have a clear solution. It is in such cases that the competencies of this group are required.

For example, a department head learns that his manager and a client’s employee are conducting dubious transactions involving another, third company. Moreover, we are talking not only about kickbacks, but also about actions that, if they are made public, will damage the reputations of both companies, and will also affect the moral climate in the team. The leader must consider the situation from all sides and determine what possible options of action are available and what consequences they can lead to. Simply dismissing an unscrupulous manager will not solve the problem, since there is also an employee of the client whose actions were no better than the manager’s actions. And you can’t just fire him. In addition, it is necessary to deal with the third company, recovering damages from it. The manager must understand that he has to solve several problems at once in this situation: not only to stop the fraud and compensate for the damage to his company, but also to prevent the possibility of their recurrence in the future, and, most importantly, to preserve the reputation of both companies. Conventional actions in such a situation are not suitable, so the manager will have to approach the issue creatively and find an unconventional way to resolve the situation.

Very important for a manager are the competencies necessary to improve work efficiency. These include competencies such as “Planning” and “Personal Efficiency”.

Planning - A systematic approach to activities, independent preparation and action in accordance with the developed plan.

This competency, according to our observations, is the most typical “growth point” for many sales managers. Many of them have great difficulty not only with drawing up an objective and fact-based plan, but also with its subsequent implementation.

The head of the sales department of a large company grew up as a salesperson and had over 15 years of sales experience. He remembered very well the times when no one planned anything, but, nevertheless, sales grew at enormous speed. Then sales began to fall, and the company’s management began to demand that he, already the head of the sales department, draw up a plan and comply with it. He resisted this as best he could: how can you plan something in our lives, he said, because you don’t know what awaits you tomorrow. But the management insisted, and there was nowhere to go. I had to make plans. But he did this solely for show and forgot about the plan the moment he handed it over to management. Naturally, with such an attitude, he did not look into the plan until the moment when it was necessary to write a report, did not control its implementation among his subordinates and did not take any actions to achieve it. Subordinates, seeing the manager’s attitude, treated planning accordingly and worked as they had to, and some simply according to their mood: if it goes well, I’ll sell, but if it doesn’t work out, there’s no point in straining yourself, you have to wait it out.

The “Personal Efficiency” competency combines the following characteristics:

No less important for a leader’s activities is his own development. And here we can consider competencies that unite the manager’s desire for his own development, namely: “Continuous learning” and “Flexibility”.

The “continuous learning” competency is very important for the head of the sales department, but quite often we observe in them the so-called “stalled self-development.” In other words, a person who has reached the level of head of the sales department has already really achieved a lot professionally and at some point begins to believe that he already knows everything and can do everything. But life does not stand still. As you know, knowledge in the modern world becomes outdated very quickly. Just 10–15 years ago, knowledge became outdated every five years. Those. a specialist, if he wanted to maintain his qualifications at a high level, had to undergo training at least every five years. Today, knowledge becomes outdated every 2-3 years.

The insufficient level of development of the “continuous learning” competence is very clearly manifested in the process of various trainings, when participants, instead of perceiving new information and thinking about how it can be used in their work, declare: “but that’s not how it is with us.” This closeness to new knowledge or simply approaches leads to the fact that a specialist develops professional templates. And this in turn leads to inflexibility.

“Flexibility” as a managerial competency of the head of the sales department is especially important in the context of innovation in the company. If a leader is inflexible, it will be very difficult for him not only to understand the meaning of change, but also to choose adequate methods of behavior depending on the situation. Flexibility also implies the ability to quickly switch from one activity to another, constantly keep all the diverse affairs of the department in focus, and not forget or lose sight of details.

I would like to pay special attention to the last group of competencies – customer orientation. In this case, the client refers to both the company’s external clients and its own employees, who are internal clients. Competence "Customer Focus"- is foresight, meeting the needs, desires and expectations of the client.

However, customer focus should not be confused with an obsequious attitude towards him and a desire to please in everything, which not only does not lead to partnership and cooperation, but can have a detrimental effect on the business as a whole.

The head of the sales department of a manufacturing and trading company understood customer orientation in a very unique way. After taking office, the first thing he did was replace the standard contract with the client, which provided for prepayment, with an agreement with a deferred payment of 30 days. Naturally, the clients were only happy about this. But if earlier, when starting to discuss a contract, the bargaining process began with an advance payment, now the same bargaining began from 30 days. As a result, the average deferred payment for the company increased from 15 days to 45. This was, of course, beneficial for clients, but the company suffered significant losses.

That is why an understanding of customer orientation must take into account that one’s own company should not suffer significant losses as a result of this orientation. It is important to find common ground and mutually beneficial solutions, then cooperation will be stronger.

Actually, after this competency, we can say that for the head of the sales department it can serve as some kind of “bridge” between managerial and special (specific) competencies.

To understand the latter, you need to have a very clear idea of ​​what functions, in addition to management, the head of the sales department will perform.

In general, the following competencies are required:

Knowledge of marketing fundamentals (positioning, segmentation, assortment policy, pricing, sales channels, sales promotion)

Ability to plan sales in general and for various reasons (in terms of customer groups, assortment groups, sales territories, payment terms);

Ability to prepare package offers for various groups of clients;

Ability to manage accounts receivable;

Ability to form an optimal and balanced warehouse;

Ability to organize and control activities to develop the client base;

Ability to optimize the client base based on a new (or adjusted) marketing strategy;

Skill in forming the company’s pricing and assortment policy;

Skills in contractual work and document preparation;

Analytical skills (analysis of sales, financial indicators and promotion activities; analysis of market conditions; analysis of the customer base);

Skills in conducting campaigns to promote priority or “stuck” products.

Negotiation skills and conflict resolution with clients;

Knowledge (at the level of an experienced user) of software such as 1C, Infin, the Bank-Client system, Consultant-Plus, etc.

If the head of the sales department works with key clients, then his special competencies may also include the following competencies:

Knowledge of the company's product line.

Ability to present any product (service).

Ability to work with customer objections.

Understanding the competitive advantages of products (services), company, personnel.

Skills in maintaining long-term relationships with clients.

Work with clients on overdue accounts receivable.

Knowledge of the norms and rules of document flow in the company, storage of confidential information and others.

As an example, let’s look at the specific competencies of the head of the sales department of one of the companies.

“Portrait of competencies” (excluding corporate and managerial ones).

The head of the sales department must have practical experience (at least 3 years) in the following areas:

1. Work with the company’s clients:

• search and development of potential clients in the main areas of the Company’s activities;

• business correspondence;

• preparing and conducting business meetings;

• maintaining contact with clients after completion of work.

2. Working with documents:

• preparation of documentation and submission of applications for participation in tenders;

• registration of agreements and preparation of contracts;

• working with accounts;

• working with confidential information, its registration, recording and storage;

• maintaining sales records;

• analytical work with archival documents (successful and failed contracts, reasons for failure, etc.).

3. Organization of work to fulfill customer orders:

• organizing the implementation of the entire range of work on existing projects in production;

• dispatching the movement of goods and maintaining a database of customers;

• selection of complex project co-executors and organization of interaction with them;

• procurement management.

If your organization has implemented (or is implementing) a quality system, the head of the sales department must have the following specific competencies:

skill in describing the sales business process;

know the requirements of a quality standard (for example, ISO);

have experience in implementing CRM or other sales management systems.

The head of the sales department may need knowledge of the basics of marketing, market research, knowledge of regional sales markets, lobbying skills, experience in building sales networks, experience in opening representative offices, branches and warehouses, and much more.

Once again, we draw your attention to the fact that it is no coincidence that these competencies are called special or even specific: they directly reflect the specifics of the business and the requirements of a particular company for the same position. As we have already said, these competencies are included in the concept of “Professionalism”.

What opportunities open up for us with a clear understanding of the competencies of the head of the sales department?

Firstly, this will allow the head of the organization, commercial unit or HR department to evaluate candidates for this position using uniform criteria.

Secondly, this will create an understanding of the “effective employee” and will help determine the criteria for successful performance of work. For the employee himself, this will help in identifying his strengths and weaknesses and will identify the basic needs for development and training.

Thirdly, we will be able to make objective decisions regarding the promotion of employees and their development within the company.

Are there situations when you can work calmly without building competency models? Yes. In the case when a company is at the very beginning of its development, it is sometimes formed on a “family-friendly” principle, when there is no clear division by position and all employees are almost completely interchangeable. At this stage of the organization’s formation, it is too early to talk about competencies as some kind of management tool. However, when analyzing the best experience of employees and effective work methods, already at this organizational stage it is necessary to talk about the foundation for describing corporate competencies, and over time, managerial and special ones.

Now let's dwell on the question: “How can we assess the presence of certain competencies?” Assessment methods here can be: interviews, professional testing, ranking, assessment using the 360 ​​degree method and, as the most comprehensive method, an assessment center (Assessment Center). However, if we are talking about the simplicity of the assessment, its acceptability, profitability and at the same time the correctness of its results, then we can talk about the following methods.

The most cost-effective tool in the situation of selecting candidates for a position, as experience shows, is a behavioral interview. It approaches the center of assessment in terms of correctness, while requiring one to two hours instead of one to two days, it is easier to carry out, it is less expensive and acceptable to sales managers with a different set of required competencies. As part of such an interview, you ask questions and ask to describe the applicant’s behavior in a particular situation that would correspond to the competence you are interested in.

For example, we are interested in the “Customer Focus” competency. We can ask the candidate questions like: “Tell me about your relationships with clients.” “Describe your behavior in a situation where the client had large accounts receivable.” “How did you act in a situation when a client approached you with a complaint about the behavior of your subordinates.”

In the situation of conducting an assessment or certification (for example, to nominate candidates for the position of head of the sales department) in a company, the most optimal method would be either a simple ranking of employees by competencies, or a “360 degree” assessment. This will be an assessment of a company employee based on data about his actions in real work situations and the business qualities he has demonstrated. It is based on a person's visible behavior. The employee’s competencies, professional and personal qualities are assessed. The information will be presented in the form of a rating, ranked according to various indicators (competencies). In the case of an assessment using the 360-degree method, data is obtained by questioning the employee himself, his immediate supervisor, colleagues, and in some cases, clients of the person being assessed.

Let's consider an example of assessing several employees applying for the position of head of the sales department. During the assessment, it was managerial competencies that were important, since each of the employees proved to be a good seller. For each of the managerial competencies they scored the following average scores*:

*Rating scale from 1 to 5, where:

1 - the best indicator, competence is developed

5 – worst indicator – competence is not developed

Average results for 360 degree assessment.

From the table, it is clear that there are two applicants for the position of head of the sales department - Ivanov and Petrov. To make the final choice, you need to determine the priority of each competency for this position in this particular company. If the organization is hierarchical, with prescribed regulations, then Petrov may be the most effective. If the company is innovative, striving for development, with democratic relationships, then Ivanov will be a more interesting candidate for the position of head of the sales department.

So, we looked at the options for corporate, managerial and special competencies of the head of the sales department. We touched upon the issue of methods for assessing competencies in various situations. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that it makes sense for each company to develop its own unique (albeit based on general knowledge and approaches) model of competencies for the head of the sales department. This approach will allow you to “tailor” this tool to the specific needs of the company and make it actually work.

Annex 1.

Appendix (box)

Description of managerial competencies of the head of the sales department

More detailed characteristics for each of the competencies are presented in the Appendix.

Mentoring is a model of professional relationships that involves a partnership between an experienced and a young teacher in the process of adapting to new conditions. The model is based on a constructivist approach to the process of cognition, which is understood as a process of constant analysis of a specialist’s personal experience and the specialist’s adaptation to an ever-changing reality, which is an integral and necessary component of professional self-improvement