Performance Management Program

OOA Performance Attributes for Senior Managers

Revised: January 2001

Performance Attributes are defined as those qualities which all Office of Administration Senior and Program Managers are expected to develop and demonstrate in the performance of their responsibilities. Demonstration of these attributes will help to promote a culture of continuous administrative improvement where all are working toward bettering our services and environment.

Leadership

• Recognizes leadership as a shared, earned responsibility rather than as the equivalent of authority.
• Focuses the organization on what it can become, rather than on what it has been.
• Communicates respect for people at all levels and fosters a climate of mutual respect.
• In making decisions, considers the goals and good of the whole.
• Willing to be accountable for the well being of the campus by facilitating responsive and effective services and programs.

Demonstrates accountability for resource management, planning and implementation

• As stewards of public funds, ensure accountability for use of those funds, manages within approved budget and demonstrates good judgment in determining expenditure priorities.
• Carefully considers long and short term resource requirements and actively seeks ways to redirect or maximize existing resources to meet new requirements.
• Reviews and proposes resource adjustments in an open and forthright manner that results in leadership’s ability to support budget changes.
• Understands the source and purpose of allocations and assures that core services associated with each fund source are provided.
• Has a working knowledge of University budget and financial policies and procedures and serves as a model in their implementation.

Evidences strategic thinking

• Employs analytical models to develop strategies for improvement and converts strategies into effective action.
• Focuses on how to use allocated resources to best advantage, rather than by focusing on what could be done with what one does not have.
• Evaluates and acts on systemic aspects of problems, rather than immediate, superficial issues.
• Anticipates problems rather than reacting/engaging in "crisis management."
• Employs financial and non-financial measures (including search for ‘best practices’) to clarify and communicate, and implement organizational goals and strategies.

Builds and gets the best out of a diverse workforce

• Exercises care in making high quality, diverse appointments.
• Instills pride in performance, service, resourcefulness, innovation, and quality.
• De-fuses entrenched situations and rechannels them into accepted solutions and constructive outcomes.
• Understands and acts on the need of people to feel valued and competent -- to believe that they can have a positive effect.
• Consistently recognizes outstanding team and individual performance, risk taking and innovation.

Stimulates improved organizational performance

• Fosters teamwork through cooperative efforts and support for shared success.
• Rewards experimentation, responsible risk-taking, innovation, and learning from experience.
• Effectively aligns responsibility, accountability, and authority.
• Sets specific, mission-linked, and measurable performance goals for unit, teams, individuals, and improvement endeavors.
• Understands the difference between constructive and destructive competition, and manages to avoid the latter, with its undermining effect on individual self-respect.
• Invests in employees through ongoing training and development that is aligned with program priorities.

Fosters a climate of openness

• Supports and stimulates constructive criticism, forthright appraisal of problems, and tolerance of disagreement in the interests of improving organizational performance, and accepts criticism of self.
• Evidences respect for facts, data, and objective analysis.
• Faces disagreements, misunderstandings, and performance problems forthrightly and sensitively, rather than withdrawing from conflict.
• Takes an active role in identifying and correcting organizational limitations and seeks to find root causes.

[OOA Performance Management Handbook: Contents]