Characteristics of C.I.S. banks’ managers (management styles,) that affect the change processes
Category: Bank Management
« The difficulties of C.I.S. banks come from their insufficient management know-how » (Hans Martens). In fact, we found there out-dated management practices which are incompatible with the requirements of effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. This, for instance, appeals for a necessary change of the traditional, either autocratic or bureaucratic leadership style.
There is a need to put in place a new type of management which takes into account the new aspirations of the staff and the increased demands for improved economic performance in banks. Improvements are mainly necessary concerning:
— motivation of staff,
— (convincing) internal communications,
— leadership (that does not mean demonstrating power),
— delegation of responsibilities,
This is confirmed by « our experiences in training hundreds of banks managers in the previously communist countries of central and eastern Europe, (that) told us that in these countries, the need for a better management is obvious and necessary.
Even if the western «market economy» language (i.e. profit, free prices, competition, etc.) has been adopted, there is still a huge amount of managerial challenges to meet. An inventory of what we have had to face, shows that very well. We had, quite often, to cope with:
little understanding of international operations, laws of western countries and of contract arbitration and court proceedings,
low quality of products (based on a «blase attitude» to errors),
supply uncertainty,
outdated technologies,
traditional organisational forms,
That does not mean that there is nothing good in the eastern European companies! We often found high technical expertise, a huge amount of good will, and, at least, some very interesting and useful planning practices.»
C.I.S. banks become also aware of the necessity to improve their management of change processes. For instance, « every twinning project should incorporate training and methodology for the management of change, within the recipient bank ». Management methods and techniques, but also « right attitudes and style », are often ignored. Their improvement has to be done on several levels
This topic is developed in the Ebtra’s Management Of Change module named « How to develop managerial skills and best organisation practices » and will be developed at the end of this handbook