An executive manager is a professional who is in charge of overseeing operations. They are often compared to CEOs in their ability to lead, motivate others, and take on strategic planning responsibilities that require leadership qualities like influencing people. They lead by example while simultaneously striving toward sustainability.
Such a manager ensures a smooth operation for their company and department. They use their leadership skills to offer strategic direction that can improve productivity and ensure efficient workflows and processes.
Learning what an executive manager does can help you make a strategic career decision and find the right role for you.
Who is an executive manager?
An executive manager is a senior leader who oversees a company’s developmental, strategic and financial decisions. They establish department goals and budgets, implement policies and procedures, manage contracts and negotiations and handle personnel decisions. They also implement strategies to increase company productivity. While they often have long hours, they don’t work over the weekend.
An executive manager works to establish goals and a vision within a company. In this career, you work throughout the entire organization or business and develop policies, procedures, and budgets. You work closely with each department’s chief or executive and ensure the company is on a path to success. As an executive manager, you stand as the chief of any particular department.
Some common types of executive managers include chief executive officers, chief operating officers, chief financial officers, city mayors, principals and fire chiefs. Non-profit organizations typically hire executive directors who have a similar role to that of an executive manager, though some of their qualifications may differ.
Though executive managers may have similar duties and skills as other professions, they typically have their own specialized tasks and abilities that relate to their specific field. For example, while executive managers and account managers both work with clients, an executive manager works with new clients and an account manager works with existing clients.
In addition, account managers focus on client accounts and helping account teams in general. Keep in mind that some companies hire one person that blends two similar roles, such as that of an executive manager and account manager. An executive manager’s role can also differ based on the industry and employer.
What does an executive manager do?
An executive manager oversees a department’s operations and activities and ensures everything runs smoothly. An executive manager can work in a variety of industries, such as manufacturing, construction or technical services. Because of this, the particular duties in this role may vary.
Here are some of an executive manager’s more common tasks:
- Implementing department policies and procedures to achieve goals
- Allocating department resources and budgets
- Collaborating with other company departments and their managers
- Handling the recruiting and firing of employees
- Helping employees with their professional development
- Creating department-wide progress reports for upper management
- Managing and negotiating contracts
- Providing managers with feedback and constructive criticism
- Ensuring their department abides by budget
- Creating long-term department goals
Duties and responsibilities
- Develop and implement strategies aiming to promote the organization’s mission and “voice”
- Create complete business plans for the attainment of goals and objectives set by the board of directors
- Build an effective team of leaders by providing guidance and coaching to subordinate managers
- Ensure adherence of the organization’s daily activities and long-term plans to established policies and legal guidelines
- Direct and oversee investments and fundraising efforts
- Forge and maintain relations of trust with shareholders, partners and external authorities
- Act as the public speaker and public relations representative of the company in ways that strengthen its profile
- Review reports by subordinate managers to acquire an understanding of the organization’s financial and non-financial position
- Devise remedial actions for any identified issues and conduct crisis management when necessary
Requirements and skills
To pursue the role of an executive manager, it’s important to have the right qualifications. Here are the common requirements for an executive manager:
Education
The education requirements for an executive manager vary based on the industry and the type of company. While you may enter the role with a bachelor’s degree, most executive managers have a Master of Business Administration or a related degree. Pursuing an advanced degree can give you an advantage over other candidates and give you a greater appeal to hiring managers.
In a healthcare or educational setting, you often have to pursue a doctoral degree.
Training
Depending on the industry, some employers require specialized training. Since it’s a leadership position, it’s important to receive training in other entry- and mid-level roles before advancing into this position. Typically, employers prefer executive manager candidates with at least five years of experience in their field.
Skills
An executive manager needs to have strong soft skills that can help with company productivity and processes, along with technical skills that can help with more specialized tasks. Executive managers often have the following skills:
- Proven experience as executive director or in other managerial positions
- Experience in developing strategies and plans
- Ability to apply successful fundraising and networking techniques
- Strong understanding of corporate finance and measures of performance
- In-depth knowledge of corporate governance principles and managerial best practices
- An analytical mind capable of “out-of-the-box” thinking to solve problems
- Outstanding organization and leadership abilities
- Excellent communication (oral and written) and public speaking skills
- MSc/MA in business administration or relevant field
What values doe executive managers bring to an organization?
Executive managers are an organization’s backbone. While the return on investment may only sometimes be quantifiable in concrete units, there is a lot to be gained by hiring executive managers.
Here are a few reasons why businesses should think about hiring an executive manager:
Increased productivity
If you are a knowledgeable and experienced leader, you know that the productivity of your team members matters a lot. Employee productivity has a direct impact on your business and its success.
If productivity is low, you cannot expect to achieve company goals quickly and efficiently. Therefore, it’s essential not to cut corners when it comes to helping improve employee productivity.
One way to do this is by hiring an executive manager. An executive manager can boost your productivity remarkably. They can adopt strategies based on their expertise and change the whole organization. Executive managers bring value to your team by freeing up significant blocks of time through their ability to handle a variety of responsibilities.
Increased collaboration
During the Covid-19 pandemic, most businesses were empowered to adopt remote work with their team, and many are still working remotely. While remote work can certainly bring increased productivity, it also makes it more difficult for team members to collaborate as much as they used to in the office.
As a result, businesses need to provide the tools and means to encourage meaningful collaboration amongst team members, even when they are working remotely.
Adopting collaboration software to help keep track of employees, tasks, and overall communications can lead to over 50% reduction in burnouts.
Efficient problem solving
A superb executive manager is a crucial strategic partner who regularly searches for ways to improve the organization. They are familiar with many day-to-day nuances, making them exceptionally qualified to identify pain points and solutions that lead to improvement.
Executive managers may have dealt with similar scenarios when serving past clients and may know the correct solution to numerous challenges. They supply answers to some of the most difficult problems and keep a company moving forward.
Business growth
Growing a business, especially if it is large, requires a team to be fulfilled. The executive manager understands this well enough. They bring people and projects together, ensuring that everyone is working toward the same goals and, as a result, achieving them faster.
This means being able to focus on even more expansion and higher-value work. Many teams are discovering they can scale swiftly in today’s digital environment by bringing on people from across the country. This results in a stronger remote or in-presence team.
By utilizing executive recruiting firms, businesses can access specialized expertise, industry knowledge, and a broader network to identify and hire qualified executive managers who can drive growth and strategic direction for the organization.
Executive manager salary outlook
Though the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t share salary data for executive managers, it has this data for chief executives and both general and operations managers. According to the BLS, general and operations managers make a mean annual wage of $125,740.
In comparison, the BLS reports that chief executives make a median annual wage of $185,950. Your salary as an executive manager may vary based on your experience level, geographic location and employer.
The BLS also doesn’t have a job outlook for executive managers, but it has this data for top executives. Accordingly, top executives may see an 8% employment growth by 2030, a rate that’s about as fast as the average for other jobs. Typically, some of these jobs come from professionals leaving their jobs for other careers, while others may come from people leaving the workforce, such as for retirement.
Manager vs executive
A common mistake many make is confusing managers and executives. While there are overlapping duties between the two positions, these words are not interchangeable and shouldn’t be used as such.
Every single organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit, utilizes a group of executives to create policies and procedures and ensure that they are followed by the employees. This leadership team is responsible for overseeing decisions made that impact the entire organization. An executive is a type of manager in the business world. They sit at the highest level of leadership of an organization.
Some examples of project executive meaning include:
- A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) oversees all of the organization’s executives
- A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is an executive who oversees the finances of the organization
- A Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is an executive who oversees the marketing department
A manager, on the other hand, is a position that belongs to an organization’s leadership team. However, it does not have as many responsibilities as a project executive job. In the discussion of project executive vs. project manager, a project manager is someone who manages people and/or resources. There are often many managerial positions that work within the same organization but at different levels of the firm’s structure.
Even though executives and managers are different positions within an organization, the two must have a relationship for the organization to succeed. Project executive meaning is not just for executives. Managers must also know where to turn when a problem arises.
A strong relationship must exist between executives and managers because executives are not on the front lines. They must rely on managers to report back to them with successes, problems, and other issues. They also must rely on their managers to relay their messages to the employees.
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