Estonians doubt managers' skills

 TALLINN -- Enterprise Estonia has released the latest in a series of somewhat pessimistic assesments of the nation's managerial skills. Only 1% of the general population surveyed in the latest poll believed that Estonian managers are more skilful than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe with around 75% rating them average or worse.

According to Veigo Kell, Manager of the ManagementAwareness Programme of Enterprise Estonia, the survey shows thatEstonian managers have not been able to achieve a reputation equal tothat of European managers among the population. "I do not believe allrespondents have had real long-term contact with European managers;rather, the survey points out that the behaviour of our managers failsto meet the expectations of employees," Kell commented.

He added thatsuch an attitude may, to some extent, reflect the cultural backgroundof Estonia, where the manager is mainly seen as a ramrod. "A manager isoften not seen as a leader, and managers often do not see themselves asleaders, either," Kell noted.

Another explanation might be that the survey simply reflects an Estonian tendency towards pessimism that generally accentuates the negative while eliminating the positive.

35% of the respondents think that the leadership skillsof the Estonian and other European leading employees are on the samelevel; 40% think the leadership skills of Estonian managers are on aslightly or much lower level. In cities smaller than Tallinn, such asTartu, Pärnu, Narva and Kohtla-Järve, people are more inclined tobelieve that the skills of Estonian managers are lower than theEuropean average. A total of 52% of the residents of these cities wereof that opinion.

Non-Estonians are even more critical. Their numbers includemore of those who have a lower opinion of Estonian managers, and fewerof those who regard the Estonian managers to be on the "same level"with European ones. "If 42% of Estonians regard local managers as beingon the same level, then only 20% of non-Estonians are of the sameopinion," Kell commented on the results. According to Kell, theresponding managers were the ones who evaluated their leadership skillsat the highest level; 16% of them thought the skills of Estonianmanagers are better than those of the leading managers in Europe.

The survey was conducted by Turu-uuringute AS at therequest of Enterprise Estonia, within the framework of the ManagementAwareness Programme. It was an omnibus-survey with the size of thesample being 1000 residents of Estonia aged 15-74.