Within the global economy, banks also face multiple challenges, starting from the great competition to the danger of diminishing the market quota and its profitability. The gradual development of the European bank system has led to the increase of the complexity of bank activity. The task of a bank manager is not only to run one any more. Mainly, the task of a modern bank manager is to use all resources at his/her disposal, in order to obtain the estimated results in front of the shareholders. This work is a reflection of the conceptualization processes of the ratio between “development” and “bank management” within the context of getting to know the reality. The theme refers to the structure of the personality of the bank manager which is found in profession, style and behaviour.management, bank system; bank manager profession; management team.

Camelia-Cristina STEFANESCU

Eduard IONESCU

English

Research Papers in Economics

Review of General Management                       Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011          105
PROFESSION AND CAREER IN THE BANK 
MANAGEMENT 
Camelia-Cristina ùTEFĂNESCU
*, 
Eduard IONESCU
** 
 
 
 
Abstract: Within the global economy, banks also face multiple challenges, 
starting from the great competition to the danger of diminishing the market 
quota and its profitability. The gradual development of the European bank 
system has led to the increase of the complexity of bank activity. The task of a 
bank manager is not only to run one any more.  
Mainly, the task of a modern bank manager is to use all resources at his/her 
disposal, in order to obtain the estimated results in front of the shareholders. 
This  work  is  a  reflection  of  the  conceptualization  processes  of  the  ratio 
between  “development”  and  “bank  management”  within  the  context  of 
getting to know the reality. The theme refers to the structure of the personality 
of the bank manager which is found in profession, style and behaviour. 
Keywords:  management,  bank  system;  bank  manager  profession;  manage-
ment team. 
JEL Classification: M10, G21, G24. 
 
1. The professional bank manager 
The bank manager is the main pawn in a bank. The good performance 
of  this  organization  depends  on  his/her  professional  and  management 
training. 
                                                           
*   “Spiru Haret” University, Romania, Faculty of Management, Brasov, stefanescu 
camelia@ymail.com. 
** “Spiru Haret” University, Romania, Faculty of Financial Accounting Manage-
ment, Bucureúti, eionescu.fb@spiruharet.ro. Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011                     Review of General Management  106
 A bank manager should have not only thorough technical knowledge 
and knowledge of “management science”, but also native skills: 
9 The  technical  qualities  are  represented  by  the  abilities  to  use 
procedures,  techniques  or  knowledge,  specific  to  the  bank  field 
and to the business environment; 
9 The  management  qualities  are  represented  by  the  abilities  to 
coordinate and to integrate all the interests and the activities within 
the bank, using management techniques and tools; 
9 The human qualities consist in the ability to work with people, to 
understand them, to succeed in motivating them to participate in 
achieving the objectives of the organization. 
Besides the quality attributes, a successful bank manager should have 
corporate governing knowledge, to know the relation with the investors and 
the  competitive  banks,  anti-risk  management,  networking,  leadership, 
strategy,  local  financial  coordination,  the  strategy  management  for  its 
employees. 
When solving the problems they encounter, the bank managers have 
to accomplish, in different combinations (according to the hierarchical level 
they are situated), the basic functions of management: planning, organising, 
leading (coordination or leadership) and controlling.  
All these roles, which change and alternate permanently, lead to the 
strengthening  of  the  bank  manager’s  position,  followed  by  the  career 
development in the bank industry. 
The definitive characteristics of a good bank manager are: 
x  double professionalization; 
x  ability  to  develop  an  efficient  system  with  subordinates  and 
between subordinates; 
x  modelling  a  specific  behaviour  to  influence  the  subordinates’ 
behaviour and to orient them to obtain concrete results; 
x  the authority he/she is invested with – formal authority, specific to 
the position that the manager occupies in the organization; 
x  creativity,  necessary  to  face  successfully  to  the  requirements 
generated by the technical, technological and social changes; 
x  power to resist to stress; 
x  high sense of responsibility. 
The effects of the managerial work in the bank field are better and 
stronger if they act more competently on the psychological springs of the Review of General Management                       Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011          107
human consciousness, such as: conviction, wish and will to carry out tasks, 
moral  stimulation,  inventive  spirit,  intransigence  to  shortage,  sense  of 
responsibility, and concern for collaboration. 
By  holding  proper  competences  and  making  proper  decisions,  by 
choosing a certain conduct towards the employees, by giving positive or 
negative feed-back to people in a relevant manner, by also acquiring proper 
personal  knowledge  of  such  people,  the  bank  manager  can  firmly 
consolidate  his  formal  and  informal  power.  The  process  is  lengthy  and 
requires patience, work, knowledge and, more often than not, talent. 
Anyone  having  a  management  position  in  a  bank,  from  the  least 
significant to the most important, gets the task, and therefore the right and 
duty  to  conduct  or  command  those  subordinated  to  him/her,  in  the  very 
precise sense of determining them by different means (motivations, decisions, 
orders, regulations etc.) to do what they are expected to, i.e. to carry out the 
work they committed to perform. In order for the bank manager profession to 
be efficient, a sine qua non condition should be met, namely the history of the 
bank manager’s relationship with his employees should be a positive one. The 
dynamics  of  the  inter-personal  relationships  within  the  bank  can  be 
substantially influenced by the quality of the guidance imposed on the group 
by the bank manager. The bank manager should definitely be able to answer 
questions such as “What kind of ‘psychological resource’ do you represent in 
your capacity as bank manager for the people around you? What kind of 
behavioural  responses  do  you  trigger?  Do  the  people  smile,  do  they  feel 
relaxed and involved, or do they just get annoyed, smile fake smiles and work 
only as long as you keep an eye on them?”  
Bank managers differ from each other by the organisatory level where 
they are and which defines their area of responsibilities and by the nature of 
the coordinated activities: 
a)  first level managers or supervisors – make the connection between 
executors and the managers of higher level; 
b)  medium  level  managers  –  transform  the  global  strategies  and 
policies  communicated  by  top  managers  in  particular  objectives 
and programmes; 
c)  The  top  managers  establish  the  objectives,  the  strategies  and 
policies,  represent  the  bank  in  its  relationships  with  the  central 
and/or local administration and with the business partners, being 
liable with the general decision-making processes of the bank.  Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011                     Review of General Management  108
Although they proved that in the bank field the personality traits that 
are  the  most  developed  and  which  are  positively  combined  with  the 
management efficiency, are specific and defining for the transformational-
type leadership style (idealized attributes, idealized behaviour, inspirational 
motivation, intellectual stimulation, individual appreciation), we ascertained 
that the management efficiency in the bank field is positively combined also 
with  some  traits  specific  to  the  leadership  transactional  style  (situational 
reward). 
To fight or stay away from professional failures, the bank manager 
must  adopt  a  failure  avoidance  strategy.  This  basically  consists  in  the 
selection of certain values, objectives or simple methods, in getting to know 
the facts and the potential risks. Emphasis should be placed on the results 
that can be easily attained by most bank employees. Most tempted to use 
this kind of strategy are the banks that enjoy a long tradition, which use 
traditional  processes  and  means,  for  the  purpose  of  launching  standard 
banking products and/or services (Constantinescu, L., ùtefănescu, C., 2010, 
pp. 111-119). 
2. The management team in the bank system 
The  management  team  is  considered  a  means  of  achieving  the 
attributions  of  the  bank  manager,  a  work  group  that  usually  is  formed 
around the manager. There are situations when the team is created only for a 
certain period of time, for an established objective (Pânzaru, S., 2010, pp. 
117-121).  
The  management  team  is  called  to  inform,  to  bring  education,  to 
spread ideas and management plans, to contribute to the change of some 
attitudes, to sort out facts and actions, to make dynamic, to explain and to 
clarify, to attenuate conflicting situations or behaviours etc. 
The analysis of the model of operating of the management team points 
out the existence of five stages: 
9 The first stage, “Analysis of management team (MT)” starts from 
identifying the mission of the team, first pursuing the identification 
of  the  past  and  present  strategy,  in  order  to  establish  if  it 
corresponds to the present and future conditions and if it should be 
maintained, corrected or changed; Review of General Management                       Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011          109
9 The second stage, called “Perspective examinations”, based on the 
conclusions obtained in the first stage and on the analysis of the 
factors from the external and internal environment, sets up a set of 
medium and long term objectives; 
9 The third stage, “Establishing future strategic alternatives and their 
comparison”, will be performed considering the set of objectives 
established in the previous stage at the team level; 
9 The fourth stage, “Implementation of MT”, supposes the bringing 
into service of the adopted strategy, both by the clear definition of 
the  functional  strategies  and  by  the  action  on  the  organisatory 
factors; 
9 The  fifth  stage,  “Assessment  and  strategy  control”,  mainly 
supposes the analysis and the follow-up by operative controls of 
the strategy components that do not work properly. 
The  balance  between  the  bank  manager  and  the  team  represents  a 
fundamental relation in both ways, where the teamwork is the promoter of 
continuous development, the team acquiring a specific physiognomy that 
the manager must know permanently in order to influence it and use it to 
achieve the main objectives arising from the activity in each stage. 
The management team is a dynamic group, alive, in which we can find 
several  factors:  self-assertion,  esteem,  attraction,  rejection,  ascension, 
claims, suspicion etc. Within the management team, the members attract one 
another  and  reject  each  other  or  are indifferent  to  each  other,  defending 
positive or negative aspects, besides the official structure and the unofficial, 
informed aspects. 
At  the  level  of  the  management  team,  cooperation  within  the 
management  team  represents  an  intercrescence  of  perceptions, 
communications and sympathetic or preferential acts, based on the criterion 
of  actual  operation.  The  interaction  bank  manager  –  management  team 
members not only means periodical meetings, but also personal working 
contacts,  that  many  times  have  the  best  results.  For  the  manager,  such 
contacts  can  constitute  an  important  source  of  information  on  the  real 
situation from the bank and an occasion to operatively solve some problems 
arising in certain places (Petrescu, I., 2005, p. 126). 
Delegation is an essential component of the bank management and, if 
performed well, it brings great benefits for the manager and its team. He/she 
clears his/her programme, makes the member of his/her team to feel fairly  Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011                     Review of General Management  110
evaluated and to develop abilities within the organization he/she runs. A 
good delegation means more than transferring tasks to the subordinates. 
According  to  the  objectives  estimated,  the  borders  of  team 
management can be wider or narrower, containing or leaving aside some 
aspects or elements composing its specific nature. Financial motivation has 
only a short-term effect. Another important aspect is the optimum loading of 
human  resources,  the  over-assignment  or  under-assignment  resulting  in 
demotivating the team. 
The  success  of  any  activity  carried  out  within  an  organization  and 
implicitly  of  the  bank  manager’s  activity  depends  on  the  adoption  of  a 
certain attitude and stance with respect to several rules which are ultimately 
meant to lead to a fruitful collaboration with a view to fulfilling the common 
tasks: 
¾  the focus of all collaborators on the tasks ascribed to them; 
¾  the correct and complete understanding of the purpose and the use 
of one’s knowledge and skills to attain success; 
¾  each should strive for the success of the entire team and not for 
personal glory; 
¾  the opinions of the team colleagues should be met with dedication 
and respect; 
¾  each should carefully learn the art of listening to his colleague and 
respecting his involvement; 
¾  he/she  should  look  for  the  best  modality  of  integration  in  the 
group; 
¾  before approaching an issue, all aspects related thereto should be 
clarified.  
We can say that there are five different stages in the team life cycle: 
formation, agitation, assignation, efficiency and dissolution:  
1.  In the formation stage, team members join one another for the first 
time; 
2.  In  the  agitation  stage,  emotions  prevail  and  different  tensions 
occur  among  members,  regarding  tasks  and  interpersonal 
preoccupations; 
3.  In the assignation stage, interactions between teams have to be 
related to their way of collaboration; 
4.  When they reached the efficiency stage, the teams are more mature 
and more organized; Review of General Management                       Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011          111
5.  The  team  life  cycle  ends  with  the  dissolution  stage  where  the 
members should prepare to separate. 
Most  of  the  times,  the  managerial  teams’  missions  transpose  into 
projects/processes  because  these  are  easier  to  organize  and  to  put  into 
practice.  
3. The coaching process in the activity of the bank manager 
Coaching  is  not  a  theoretical  domain;  it  is  rather  a  professional 
activity  and  a  job.  Therefore,  practicing  coaching  is  not  based  on 
knowledge  from  a  certain  field,  but  it  rather  needs  certain  know-how. 
Learning coaching is therefore based more on getting some competences 
than on knowing a certain field or acquiring some knowledge. 
The  research  offered  us  the  possibility  to  establish  that,  from  the 
definition perspective, coaching represents the development method of some 
specific abilities and competences, by means of dialogue and action plans. 
Thus, regardless of the coaching moment, a good coach focuses more on 
open questions, which require descriptive answers, than on a set of closed 
questions,  which  do  not  help  the  employee  to  think  and  to  achieve  the 
objective in any way possible, or what solutions could identify in order to 
improve  their  future  performance.  The  difference  consists  in  the  way  of 
formulating the questions and in the specific words used to transform an 
open question into a closed one. 
 
Table 1 
Good expressions used in coaching  
compared to less good expressions 
Good expressions  Less good expressions 
I understand that!  No! You did not do well. 
It is necessary! ../ it is for you to! ..  You must!  / it is compulsory to! 
Your advantage is that! ..  Don’t  do  like  that  for  the  future!  I 
understand, but!  .. 
I’m giving you the chance to!   I understand, but! 
I appreciate that! On the other hand, let’s 
see! 
Next time, ask more questions! 
 
Over 90% from the activity of the bank manager is represented by the 
communication with the team, the high management, the clients etc. the way  Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011                     Review of General Management  112
in which communication is achieved influences directly and can change the 
fate  of  a  project.  To  maintain  the  focus  of  the  action  as  a  result  of  the 
research, we conceived five significant rules to train the team: 
1.  Praise the team and describe the performance – start the meeting 
by congratulating the team for its achievements. Thus, the team 
share experiences and find out common interests; 
2.  Discuss concretely the theme approached – if some other subjects 
occur  which  are  not  related  to  that  theme,  it  is  better  to  be 
discussed some other tome; 
3.  Identify ideas, alternatives, solutions – it is the perfect time to 
catch  the  team’s  proposals  regarding  the  chosen  theme,  to  ask 
feedback and solutions, to give them the opportunity to express 
their point of view; 
4.  Agree to action plans – establish concretely who does, what does 
and until when; 
5.  Make sure the action plan was perceived correctly and that you 
will follow their application in practice. 
4. Conclusions 
To be a good bank manager, i.e. to prove good management ability, 
does not mean to accomplish effectively the tasks or objectives belonging 
to  a  certain  activity,  but  the  work  and  the  ability  of  that  person  to 
coordinate and run a group of people that he/she should mobilize in order to 
obtain the estimated results. 
In the banking environment, at the level of clerks, there are differences 
regarding the attitude, mentality, and behaviour. The role of an efficient 
management  is  to  bring  its  contribution  at  the  level  of  changing  these 
differences and of leaning the balance toward a pro-active mentality and a 
pro-active attitude. To be a bank manager is not a quality, a thing you were 
born with, but a skill that develops and becomes better during the whole life. 
“The right man in the right place” ensures the sustainable development of a 
bank’s activity. Review of General Management                       Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2011          113
References
1.  Constantinescu,  L.,  ùtefănescu,  C.,  (2010),  Risk  Management  in  Credit 
Institutions-New Trends, in: “Review of General Management”, no. 2 
2.  Pânzaru S., (2010), Managerial decisions in business, in: “Review of General 
Management”, no. 1 
3.  Petrescu I., (2005), Profesiunea de manager în viziune europeană, Editura Lux 
Libris, Braúov 
4.  http://www.bnr.ro 
5.  http://www.financiarul.ro 
6.  http://www.en.wikipedia.org 
 
 
 
 

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