Research & Working EQ

1. What is your working EQ?

My working EQ at the moment is — what qualities make for a successful operations manager?

2. What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write answer in thesis format. 

Any successful manager must have self-motivation and maintain honesty in their team. Yes, a leader can be well-spoken, have an authoritative presence, and lead their team in whichever direction they please. However, they are virtually nothing without motivation and honesty.

• Self-motivation is important for anything you plan to accomplish in life. You can’t wake up one day expecting something to happen without effort on your part. In the words of my mentor, an operations manager, “If you’re not self-motivated, the rest of the team will follow suit and lack the energy and enthusiasm to successfully complete the project or job.”
• Honesty. Scott Berkun’s article “The Art of Project Management: How to Make Things Happen” emphasized honesty among a number of other tasks a manager be on top of. If an employee is doing something wrong or they are mistaken, call them on it. How will they be able to learn from it otherwise, or better yet, how could the employee better improve work flow? Honesty is a huge factor in management, especially in a warehouse where you see a number of faces coming in each day; there must be that level of trust between the manager and employee that things will get done and done correctly.

3. What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ? 

I would say that the most helpful piece of research I’ve encountered “The Art of Project Management: How to Make Things Happen” by Scott Berkun. Operations management and project management may differ in principle, but both require that the manager be on top of things. Berkun emphasizes honesty, as I mentioned earlier, and how it’s important for a manager to sort the priorities for the team in order of importance. It has helped me answer my EQ in part because I know how important honesty is in a team; for example, if the employee fails to follow protocol, it’s the manager’s job to pull them aside and tell them. As such, this article is one of the few pieces of research that really captured my attention.

4. Who is your mentor, or where are you volunteering, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

My mentor is Brice Cocjin and I am continuing to volunteer at Unical Aviation, Inc. My mentor is in charge of four departments, his “main” department being in charge of EISP (Expendable Inventory Surplus Program). I have yet to see him reprimand an employee — I go in on Saturdays, the only day I can make it — but I’ve heard say how difficult it is to not only tell someone “Hey, what the heck are you doing?” but also how a manager can never know if the employees are actually working. Executive decisions would be impossible to make without motivation on the manager’s part and fulfilling the part of operations manager would be impossible without honesty.