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Right now I'm a team lead in a federal agency and while I don't have any management authority my supervisor routinely delegates various management responsibilities to me. He's retiring in about one year and has encouraged me on several occasions to apply for his position when he goes.

I have a BBA in management information systems with a minor in communications but I would like to get some training under my belt that I can list on my resume to make me appear more desirable as a candidate for management. While I'd love to go to a MT conference I doubt that I could talk my management into sponsoring a non-supervisory employee to go. :( Any training I get would probably have to be provided by a local university or a traveling seminar that comes into town. Any recommendations of what I should look for?

I should note that I've already covered many of the "hard skills" through my BBA (EEO, operations, business law, etc.) and I'm looking to get better with my "soft skills."

US41's picture

Listen to every podcast.

Read the books in recommended reading

Work this program:

http://personalmba.com/manifesto/

and write up a business justification with cost estimates for you to attend a conference before you just throw your hands up in frustration and say "They would never approve of that."

Do your boss's job starting NOW. Find out who his relationships are with, find out what his objectives are, find out what he has on his desk that you can do. Take his job from him. He'll gladly give you lots of it without much quibble if he is delegating to you and on such a plan for retirement already.

ramiska's picture

What's commonly said where I am, "you won't get the job until you do the job." I think this complements US41's point of doing your boss's job NOW.

That PersonalMBA is a neat link, US41. Thanks.

cruss's picture
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[quote="ramiska"]That PersonalMBA is a neat link, US41. Thanks.[/quote]

Yah, that's very neat. I wonder if the person who put this together knows about manager tools?

IndianaRoger's picture

Josh is the brains behind the PMBA. You can read a previous thread here ( http://www.manager-tools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2482&highlight=josh+... ). I know Josh "knows" of Manager-Tools but I am not sure he is an active participant.

aasloan's picture

All good points - I'm already working my way through the podcasts and I was planning on picking up the personal MBA over the summer anyways so I'm glad to hear that it's so highly recommended.

I appreciate the perspective of not being hired for the job until you do the job. I'm working to start taking care of many of his responsibilities as his counterpart is retiring in a few months and he'll be tasked with handling both units at once - so I know any pressure I can take from him in that regard will be appreciated.