As of end September 2021, there were over 2 million Knowledge Manager jobs advertised on Indeed.com. This compares with 15,200 Finance Manager jobs
and 14,100 Operations Manager jobs at the same time on the same platform.
Your task is to prepare a report for a jobs agency director on the topic of: Preparing Candidates for the Role of Knowledge Manager. The report is intended to help prepare unemployed managers (the ‘candidates’) for a career change to Knowledge Management roles, thus increasing their potential success in finding a new job. The report should cover the following topics:
A brief explanation of the term ‘Knowledge Management’
An explanation for the fast-growing interest on the part of companies to employ Knowledge Managers
A description of what a Knowledge Manager is expected to undertake (job processes) and what s/he is expected to achieve (job objectives)
Key competencies that a Knowledge Manager should have or acquire in order to be eligible for such roles
Knowledge Management
“Knowledge management” is a concept originating in the 1960s, when academics (primarily Nonaka, Takeuchi and Davenport) developed the idea of this new discipline. Knowledge management is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge. There is a fast-growing interest on the part of companies to employ knowledge managers. This is because knowledge management enables individuals to stimulate innovation and the cultural changes needed to evolve the organization and meet changing business needs. With faster access to information and resources across the organization, knowledge workers can act quickly.
Einarsen (1999) states that a lassa-faire leadership can create friction within the groups due to the lack of leadership. Although this maybe the case, due to the small group of the crew. The MERIT team used a very autocratic leaderships due to the possible seriousness of the wounds, as this method provided clear instructions on what needed to be done without having to worry about why (Stanley, 2016). A democratic leadership style may have worked well due to it allowing the delegation of the work to varying crew members to do the tasks required (Gastil, 1994) However due to the nature of injuries to the patient, they would not have benefitted from a democratic leadership style, as Frandsen (2014) states this style takes time to collect on the information and is slow. Frandsen (2014) states a more relaxed style, such as democratic, would have been good to put the patient at ease and be able gather the opinions of everyone who was there, which can lead to better staff satisfaction as their opinions are seen as of value. Frandsen (2014) does go on to explain that this process takes a long time to process the opinions and can lead to anxiety in experienced staff. This style of leadership would not have been effective as the situation required a rapid decision process. After the patient had been transferred to the major trauma centre for further assessment, I was able to reflect on the job with the senior paramedic and the MERIT team doctor about how the incident went. Pegg (2003) described the 5C’s of the mentoring model that works Discussing the challenges that we faced when dealing with the patient, the choices that we had, the consequences of our actions, what solutions that we could create and finally what was the conclusion of all our efforts. The author goes on to name this theory as the “pulling and pushing” methods between the mentor and the mentee. This type of method is a long term ongoing development style and was helpful after the situation to be able to look at how I had performed in my first trauma situation. Conclusion Zenger, Folkman & Stinnett (2010) suggest that the best leaders are often those who are able to inspire people to do the best work are leaders who are able to connect on an emotional level. Goleman (2011) states that the best leaders, no matter what style they use or what skills they have, are able to connect on an emotional level with those around them by having “emotional intelligence”. I initially chose the authoritative role as stated by Feldman et al (201