Good workers do not automatically become effective managers when they rise through the ranks and assume management roles. As workers, they may be productive, punctual and dependable, and that's important - but the foundation a manager needs goes beyond those commendable work habits. Managers also manage themselves.

Selecting a new manager involves much more than promoting your most senior employee or the person everyone likes the best. Consider these seven key factors when hiring or promoting to management roles.

1. Vision and purpose. Staying focused on the big picture is a basic management skill. The inability to understand this is the leading reason that more than 80 percent of first-time managers fail.

Good managers possess the ability to clearly understand how their decisions affect their customers, subordinates and other departments in the organization. They clearly understand that almost every action on their part impacts other areas in the organization. Increasing your parts inventory to improve your service department's ability to turn your rental equipment around faster, for instance, requires adjustments to your budget that may mean cutting budgets in other areas.

2. Problem-solving. Problem-solvers enjoy finding win-win solutions to problems while maintaining their objectivity. They remain focused under even the most trying circumstances. Their peers and subordinates trust their judgment and willingness to seek everyone's input when exploring various solutions to a problem.

A common error is promoting good single-task workers into multi-task management positions. Many wannabe managers never grasp the importance of being able to simultaneously and conscientiously handle widely disparate situations. Most employees are productive because they are good at doing one task at a time, but managers must be able to process complex information toward developing reasonable solutions that work for everyone.

3. Grace under pressure. Managers worth their salt must be able to take the pressure that innumerable tasks and problems present every work day. A new manager's reaction when problems start multiplying like rabbits says a lot about his long-term ability to cut it as a manager. Attending to customers, vendors and staff all clamoring for personal attention is more than many aspiring managers have the wherewithal to handle effectively. Add all the paperwork that managers routinely wade through, and it may be too much for many would-be managers to take.

The ability to keep one's cool becomes strained when 10 problems hit simultaneously. In one corner is a really unhappy customer, complaining about leaky hydraulics on a lift. In another corner, an OSHA inspector is writing up your shop for a safety infraction that you thought had been taken care of. Then an employee fails to show up for work and it's one of your busiest days of the year. This is a test of management qualifications.

Without problems, there is little need for managers. Managers exist to solve problems and managers who complain with a Why me? whimper every time a difficult problem rears its ugly head are nearly worthless. Successful managers learn to love the challenge that problems present to them. They take well-justified pride in successfully negotiating viable win-win solutions under often emotionally trying situations.

Managers who cannot calmly handle this pressure with humor, grace and clear judgment fail miserably. They not only cannot do their jobs competently, they create problems and bottlenecks for everyone else.

4. Open to learning. Effective managers know they do not know everything and they are not afraid to admit it. They are open to perfecting new skills, be it mastering a new computerized accounting program or practicing advanced sales-closing techniques. A good manager, whether a Fortune 100 CEO in Manhattan or manager of XYZ Rentals in Fargo, enjoys the challenge of constantly improving his or her technical and people skills.

An openness to self-improvement is one of the traits all good leaders always possess. Such openness becomes contagious throughout an organization. Under that kind of leadership, subordinates almost naturally become more open to learning. They're encouraged to ask clarifying questions. Employees feel more comfortable because they work in a positive learning atmosphere.

5. Wise disagreement. Good managers must have the guts to say no to the person signing their paycheck when they know they are right. The art in these situations is choosing their disagreements wisely and disagreeing diplomatically.

Managers get paid to catch errors and to seek clarification when policies or actions make little or no sense. They are followers, not managers, when they cannot courteously disagree with a superior or even a subordinate. A yes-person is superfluous to any organization. If two managers always agree on everything, one of them is obviously unnecessary.

6. Leadership. When selecting first-time managers from your present organization, determine whether they have shown both on-the-job and community leadership. If a management candidate is an outstanding community leader, be it heading up a Kiwanis Club park project or serving as a motorcycle club president, that person will more likely be an effective leader at work.

Insight, empathy and sound judgment calls separate ordinary managers from those with outstanding leadership capabilities. No leader can be everything to everyone, but a manager's judgment must be respected and trusted by staff, peers, customers and superiors. People with a strong psychological need to be universally liked above everything else let this need cloud their judgment and that guarantees their failure as a manager.

Managers who lack exemplary leadership skills offer little, if any, value to organizations. They fail because they cannot accomplish the essence of what being an effective manager is all about - accomplishing tasks and reaching goals through others.

7. Desire to manage. Many workers want to be in management because all they see in the job is more pay, prestige, power and time to do what they want. Many - if not most - non-managers don't understand all that is really involved in the job - especially the need to deal with an endless deluge of frustrating day-to-day problems while keeping a steady eye on the big picture.

Finding the right person for a management position is never easy. Just because Jacob fixes machinery competently or gets along well with his customers does not necessarily make him management material. Unless he possesses a burning desire to learn how to manage people and the presence to motivate others to follow his lead, promoting him will lead to failure. In the end everyone, especially your customers, loses.

By incorporating these points during the critical selection process for a new manager, you will prevent many problems from developing down the road - problems that could cost you your best employees, your hard-earned customers and maybe even your business.