Operations Managers (OM is the usual acronym for them) are omnipresent. There may not be a single organization (which makes respectable revenues) that does not have someone managing daily operations.
They may not always be called Operations Managers, yet there will definitely be people who keep things moving.
And just the way we try to identify qualities of a successful Leader or of a successful CEO, this article attempts to identify what it takes to become and deliver as a good OM.
This article is largely based on a thread on LinkedIn which can be found here. (I'm a new Operations Manager looking to get advice and knowledge from experienced OMs. Please share with me!)
You may note that quite a few statements are repeated under various headers below. The repetition is intentional to ensure that each topic is treated adequately and if you read through the entire list then to reinforce those statements. If they appear so many times, they must be the most important ones! Additionally some statements apply to leadership in general which is natural, because Operations Management is a role that usually deals with People, who not only need to be managed but also to be “led”. Good leadership qualities are an important contributor to the success of an Operations Manager. We can say to a great degree of accuracy that “a successful Operations Manager is subset of a successful Leader”.
So here it goes. What are the qualities of a good Operations Manager?
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