Management Skills

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 545.

Effectiveness of a manager's activity depends on certain im­portant skills. These skills can be divided into seven different cat­egories: conceptual, decision making, analytic, administrative, communicational, interpersonal and technical.

A conceptual skill is the ability of a manager to see the "general picture" of an organization. Managers must understand how their duties and the duties of other managers fit together to plan their activity in a proper way and get the required results. This skill is very important for top managers because it helps them plan "super goals" and develop proper strategies for the whole organization.

A decision making skill is the ability of a manager to choose the best course of actions of two or more alternatives. A manager must decide the following:

• What objectives and goals must be reached?
• What strategy must be implemented?
• What resources must be used and how they must be distrib­uted?
• What kind of control is needed?

In short, managers are responsible for the most important deci­sions which are required to carry out any organizational activity.

An analytic skill is the ability to determine the most impor­tant problem of many other problems and identify the causes of each problem before implementing a proper action plan. This abil­ity is especially important for top managers because they have to solve complex problems.

An administrative skill is the ability of a manager to keep to the organizational rules specified for the production process, within a limited budget, and coordinate the flow of information and paper work in his group and in other groups.

A communicational skill is the ability of manager to share his ideas and opinions with other people both orally and in writing. This skill is a decisive factor of a manager's success. Some inves­tigations show that top managers and middle managers spend ap­proximately 80% of their work time in communicating with each other.

Thus, a communication skill enables managers to hold meet­ings, write clear letters and explanatory notes, make reports, etc.

An interpersonal skill (psychological skill) is the ability to deal effectively with other people both inside and outside the orga­nization. It is the ability to understand the needs and motives of other people. This skill is very important for a good psychological atmosphere for successful activity in the common work in future. If the interpersonal relations are good, a manager will be success­ful in getting a support in the development and implementation of organizational plans.

A technical skill is a specific competence to accomplish a task. The lower is a manager's level in the organization, the closer is his/her connection with the production process. Thus first-line managers have the closest connection with the production pro­cess. They need high technical skills to provide technical guidance for the subordinates. Top managers don't need these skills as much as first-line managers but the knowledge of the technical sphere is useful for all the managers.