The short answer is yes. The transition from being a regular employee to a general manager is a challenging career change. The skills and competencies that made you a successful employee might not be the same as those required for you to be a successful manager. To advance as a manager, you need additional skills in human resources, finances, and business. A great way to attain these skills is to get an MBA.
What Are Some of the Challenges Faced by Managers?
Managers face a lot of challenges that you might not face in a regular position. For instance, as a manager, you will need to motivate employees and lead teams, whereas all you need to do as an employee is to be good at your job and stay motivated. Managers are also required to come up with strategic plans and manage human resources. These are important skills that you can acquire by undertaking an MBA degree program.
As a manager, you will have the responsibility to implement ethics and create a vision for the department or group that you lead. These are just a few of the challenges that managers face on a daily basis. You can see how entering into a managerial position can be a whole new world that’s separate from your previous experiences.
Benefits of Having an MBA as a Manager
There are so many ways you can benefit from having an MBA if you are transitioning into the role of manager. Even if you have been a manager for a while, an MBA can enhance your managerial skills in a variety of ways. Here are some of the ways an MBA can impact your role as a manager.
Finance
Managers are responsible for developing business plans. As a manager, you will need to understand the economics behind the products or services offered by your organization. You also need to understand how to weave economics into supply chains and marketing. You will, therefore, benefit a lot if you understand the basics of continuous improvement.
An MBA can equip you with the ability to manage employees and make difficult decisions that impact the company’s bottom line. MBAs teach concepts that enable you to understand the impact of labor costs, delays, competitors’ pricing, interruptions in the supply chain, and the influence of stakeholders. Subjects like accounting, finances, and business are at the core of MBA programs.
Strategic Planning
As a manager, you need to fully understand strategic planning. You need to understand how to align your department with the vision, mission, and values of your organization. In general, you need to understand the bigger picture. This means making decisions about the right team members in the right positions. It’s the manager’s duty to come up with an interdisciplinary team that can effectively tackle projects and meets goals.
Most MBA programs have a hands-on approach that equips managers with skills like visioning, finance, project and people management, and communication. You can then take those skills and apply them on the job the next day. This is also possible if you are doing an online MBA program. You can think of it as a “learn today-use tomorrow” approach.
Leadership
A manager is a leader. Therefore, it would greatly benefit you if you learned some leadership skills. An MBA program can teach you things like character, collaboration, and competency. While these might seem intangible, they can help you become a competent manager. There are lots of skills that are usually missing from technical education. These include soft skills that are essential for the success of managers.
For instance, an undergraduate program might not teach you solid communication skills and how to work with people from different backgrounds effectively. Apart from learning these things, an MBA will teach you how to understand the challenges of a global team and make your department continue to support the organization as a whole. If these skills are worth adding to your resume, then you should consider an online MBA analytics program.
Online MBA programs can usually include real-world learning concepts that you can apply immediately to your managerial tasks and become a better manager instantly.
