MANAGMENT SKILLS REQUIRED IN PHARMA INDUSTRY

Are you a manager or a leader?

 While it would seem that both managerial and leadership roles require the same qualities, industry expert Ama Verdi-Ashton uses her years of experience to discover whether you’re more like Barack Obama or David Brent.

The answer to this question will depend on the sort of environment you currently manage in or have done previously. Firstly, where did you progress into the role of a manager? An autocratic, task driven company that is concerned with call rates, coverage and frequency with a focus on the bottom-line will produce managers. Tasks, activities, coverage and frequency, and all the other parameters that drive towards increasing the bottom-line, are most certainly imperative to the success of a manager.

But why do certain people want to be a leader instead of simply a manager? The urge to become a leader comes from the knowledge that inspirational figures take people on journeys with them – whether it’s a human rights crusade or simply through difficult projects or periods at work. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Winston Churchill are just a few from the 20th Century. It’s known that the ability to inspire teams of staff in this way will not only result in peak performance but the greatest job satisfaction one can ever feel within the workplace.

  

                                           

The difference in pharma

In the pharmaceutical industry a leader will inspire staff to achieve the best call rates possible. A leader will empower workers to find ways to achieve the best coverage and frequency. A leader is someone who knows where to go and others follow because they want to, not because they have to. They forge new frontiers. Leaders are concerned about motivating others. They set corporate direction and layout plans for meeting or exceeding last year’s goals. They create possibilities through people. Managers, however, are concerned with ensuring the goals of the organisation are met. They have the position in the organisation that gives them the authority to accomplish objectives through others. They are excellent enforcers of established rules. In my experience, being a manager goes hand in hand with being a leader. The two must co-exist. Management skills are a subset of leadership skills – you cannot have one without the other. The only difference is in how the two approach the job via style and behaviour.

In this article I will concentrate on leadership styles and behaviours, as I believe that through my own experience pharma is good at producing effective managers. The industry naturally disseminates information to managers. Pharma is good at enabling, defining and measuring the success of individuals through facts and figures. Let me concentrate, therefore, on how brushing up on managerial leadership skills will guarantee a team that is inspired, motivated, and looks for opportunities and not limitations: a team that strives for excellence! Paraphrasing the words of Robert Kennedy, “there are those who look at things the way they are and ask why, while leaders dream of things that never were and ask why not?”

Before moving on, let’s see where you stand. Take the quick quiz (figure 3) to see if you are a manager, leader or something slightly different to the two.

Now you have an idea as to where you are, it’s time to start to building trust as a leader. In figure 1 I have highlighted under common capabilities some behaviours that you should embrace and some to avoid.

Different styles

Daniel Goleman wrote in the Harvard Business Review that leaders use six styles, each springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Figure 2 is a summary of the styles, their origin, when they work best and their impact on performance.

Key skills

There are also a number of compulsory qualities that I believe will help to develop individuals into leaders from managers:

· belief in yourself

· create a vision of the future you want for yourself and your team

· have a definite plan

· have integrity, empathy and sympathy

· demonstrate your passion through your enthusiasm.

Also, to move out of management mode and learn how to become an effective leader, educate yourself in the art of leadership. Read books such as Leading Beyond Excellence, by Lisa Williams; attend seminars and training programs geared specifically for leaders; and begin to look at the big picture and to innovate ideas. Eventually, you will find yourself assuming a more prominent role of leadership.

Your leadership success depends on your agreement with Churchill’s observation: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Ama Verdi-Ashton has 25 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Her roles have included hospital representative, head office trainer and 12 years managing primary and secondary care teams, taking her last team to the AstraZeneca Academy, the company’s highest accolade. More recently, Ama has been working as a Training Consultant.