Managing a Human Resources Department

Business Management Competencies
1
The role I would like to hold five years from now is Human Resources Operations Manager. In this role, I would oversee every function of the Human Resources department, and be the main source of support for HR staff and employees of the organization. As the HR Operations Manager, I would also be tasked with overseeing the budget process, developing and implementing company policies, and maintaining HR systems throughout the organization.
2
I have 20+ years of service in the United States armed forces. I’ve led diverse teams and managed millions of dollars overseeing budgets for our division. I’ve gained a great deal of competence as a leader. Two competencies I would like to add, however, in order to obtain my desired position are: 1) social intelligence, and 2) emotional intelligence. In the armed forces, there is a chain of command that is respected at all levels, and everyone understands that. However, in civilian life, communication often requires more finesse and skill as well as awareness of how different people require different modes of address. I would like to develop these two competencies so that I can give the right kind of support to employees. Developing my social intelligence skills would definitely help me to manage and lead a diverse work place more effectively. Developing my emotional intelligence skills would help me to be aware of others’ emotions and emotional needs so that I can demonstrate sensitivity, concern, and handle interpersonal relationships with care, consideration and judiciousness.
3
In order to develop my talent, one specific challenge I would like to experience is to take a behavioral science course so that I can learn more about human behavior and how and why people behave in certain ways. Understanding human behavior in greater detail would help me to develop my social and emotional intelligence skills by giving me deeper insight into the human character and what drives people.
Another challenge that I would like to experience is just to talk to regular working people at an organization, get to know them, and listen to their troubles just like a confidant would. I would want to do this without giving the impression that I was their superior or that I was there to judge them. I would simply want to give the impression that I was sympathetic to their needs and concerns and just wanted to listen for a while and find out how their jobs were going, how their lives were going, and what they required to help make things a little better and easier for them. I think that this is what a lot of representatives do when they are running for office—the get out into the streets and get to know the people; they listen to their stories and develop a sense of what people need so that when the representatives get back to work they can develop policies that will actually help the people. This would be a real challenge and a good one to do because I would develop my own interpersonal skills so that they are sharper, and I would also be challenged to communicate a sympathetic demeanor to people to get them to trust that I was really interested in hearing them out.
As a leader, it is important to understand your followers and part of talent management is the idea that you have a standardized process for assessing people. But unless you know people and what qualities and characteristics to look for, the standardized process will not amount to much. That is why talking to people and developing strong emotional and social intelligence skills is so critical for a leader in HR.