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trend 9/2007 – Developing strategies, making decisions, delegating tasks and motivating employees

The most important rules leading to company success are the same for everyone - for the general director as well as department head. The Austrian business magazine trend asked top managers such OMV-boss Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer or Palfinger-manager Wolfgang Anzengruber to test their management competence.

»A company undergoes the most damage through badly formed management teams«, states Othmar Hill, management trainer and managing partner of personnel consultancy HILL International. »Therefore top level management and leadership abilities are of the greatest importance.«

A badly assigned post in top-management costs the company at least 1.5 to two gross annual revenues, on top of this comes millions that drain away into the sand through strategic errors and management mistakes. Jürgen Schrempp alone lost Daimler-Chrysler 50 million on the stock market. The question »Who is the right choice?« in the allocation of top management positions is thus a survival question for many companies.

The economy could save millions if one knew in advance which managers possess the right qualities for which company situations. HILL has developed a test for this purpose, in order to even better secure personnel decisions at this top level with an additional procedure: »Every answer caters to different aspects of management. Thus with just a few questions in the shortest time, comprehensive statements can be obtained on the methods and style of the respondent. This is an instrument which makes the qualities of self-management, management competence and company leadership visible from management practice«, explains Hill.

trend asked managers what the most important qualities for successful leadership are. Moreover they requested top managers to measure their management competence with the HILL Management Analysis, and met with bright enthusiasm as well as flat refusal. Some managers took part in the test and were delighted with the analysis. »Such tests are absolutely desirable, because they provide orientation and a valid form of feedback«, found OMV-boss Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, and Georg Kraft-Kinz, manager of Raiffeisenlandesbank Lower Austria-Vienna agrees: »The higher one rises in the hierarchy, the less criticism is received automatically.«

Can such a test contribute to quality assurance in personnel selection? »At any rate behavioural patterns, values and beliefs of the person can be clearly determined and thus their fit with the management profile can be assessed«, explains Hill. »If they fit well, the probability of a successful allocation is enhanced. This is both beneficial for the individual and for the company and with great certainty leads to a better level of quality in company management.«

Source: trend 9/2007, Author Martina Forsthuber