Promotion to the managership may come in any one of several ways. It may come by regular succession, the accountant succeeding to the higher position at the same branch. He may be appointed manager of another branch already existent; or he may be given charge of an altogether new branch to be opened by himself.

When the appointment is to a new branch, the start is made upon a clean sheet; the newly-appointed man has the business of his branch to build up from nothing. There is no predecessor, whose blunders will handicap him, or whose wise policy will help him. His failure or success will be of his own making. But the case may be different in the event of his appointment to an existent branch. A good deal will then depend upon what his predecessor has been.

Influence Of Predecessor

It happens sometimes that the former manager, through weakness of character and poor judgment, has got the branch affairs in a bad mess. He may have loaned the bank's money to people not at all entitled to consideration, and he may have got some of the bank's respectable customers into troublesome circumstances through allowing them too much credit. In this event, the new manager is likely to have a difficult and disagreeable task, for it will be his duty to retrace the false steps taken by his predecessor. He will have to press his debtors, and to liquidate and collect, where his predecessor scattered credits with too free a hand. Even when he possesses and uses consummate tact and ability, he will hardly escape unpopularity in the locality, which may result in the establishment of fresh opposition in the shape of a branch of a bank not previously represented.

On the other hand, he may fall into a seat of a totally different kind. His predecessor may have been a strong and able man, who has built up a nice business, has his customers well-trained in sound banking principles, and, moreover, well affected towards the bank. Such a man is likely to leave the branch affairs in a clean and healthy condition. The office is likely to stand well in the estimation of head office. And it behoves the newcomer to sustain its good reputation. On starting he will have the benefit of his customers' goodwill; and he will not be obliged to play the disagreeable and ungrateful role of debt-collector. Furthermore, he will have, in all probability an efficient and contented staff - a matter of no small importance to a new manager.

Dispensing Credit

The most important of the manager's functions is that of dispensing credit. He is the agent through whom the head office places the funds of the depositors and stockholders. In small transactions, he exercises his own discretion within certain limits; transactions exceeding an understood maximum must be authorized by the general manager. It is obvious that the general manager could not be expected to authorize specifically all the occasional notes for $50 or $100 discounted by the branches. If it happen that the manager of a small branch is so inexperienced that he cannot be trusted to handle these minor operations by himself, he will be put under the tutelage of some neighboring manager until he gains the necessary knowledge.