Managerial skills for today

PUBLISHED FOR EDUCATIONAL REASONS FOR KISHOR

In order to build and sustain an effective organisation, we need to have competent managers. Management becomes the vital link between economic progress, organisational effictiveness and peoples performance.

Senior managers play a signigficant role in their organisation and the development of their nations.

Therefore, the importance of managers in ensuring the success of an organisation is an undeniable fact.

What constitutes a competent manager in the 21st century?

What are the essential managerial skills required in managing subordinates and in planning, coordinating as well as making decisions effectively at different levels of management?

According to (Katz 1974), a manager is one who directs the activities of other persons and undertakes the resopnsibility for achieving certain objectives through their efforts. A skill signifies an ability that can be developed and not necessarily inborn.

An effective manager in the 21st century should possess eight essential skills. They are Technical skill, Human skill, Conceptual skill, Political skill, Social skill, Creative skill, and Spiritual skill.

Techinical skill:

According to (Katz 1974), technical skills signifies an understanding of and a proficency ina specific kind of activity, particularly those involving methods, processes, procedures or techniques. Technical skills encompass specialised knowledge, an analytical ability whithin that speciality and facility in the use of tools and techniques of the specific disciplines.

Human skill:

The nation of human skill refers to the manager's ability to work effectively within the team one leads (Katz, 1974). This skill is principally related to working with people. It is demonstrated in the way the individual perceives, the extent to which one is aware of one's own attitudes, assumptions and beliefs about other individuals.

Conceptual skill:

Katz describes this skill as the ability to see the enterprise as a whole, including recognizing how the various functions of the organisation depend on each other; the changes affectiong all the others; the relationship of the individual business to the industry, community as well as the political, social and economic forces of the nation as a whole.

Political skill:

According to Ferris et. al. (2000), political skill involves and interpersonal style that combines social awareness with the ability to communicate well. Political skill is not a single trait or skill. Rather, it reflects an integrated composite of internationally consistent, mutually reinforcing and compatible skills and abilities that create a synergistic social dynamic that defies precise description.

Social skill:

Ferries et. al. (2000) postulate that with the nature of jobs today, social skill plays an important part such as in facilitating, coaching, influencing and coordinationg with others. Social skill encompasses Social intelligence, emotional intelligence, ego-resilency, social self-efficiency, slef monitoring, tacit knowledge and practical intelligence.

Social intelligence:

This pertains to the ability to understand and manage people. This concept plays a vital role in political skill as well because it concerns understanding and managing people in work or organisational settings.

Emotional intelligence:

This deals with the ability to monitor onew own and others' feelings and emotions and to apply this information in one's demonstration and regulation of emotions. It can be seen as encompassing the ability to control impulses and delay gratification, to regulate one's moods and to be able to empathise.

Ego-resilency:

It is a form of social skill that basically leads to effective environmental adoptation via the capacity for self-regulation of bahaviour towards differing and shifting environmental demands and cues.

Social self-efficiency:

Relates to judgement of personal capability in social interactions and contexts. It is a fundamental belief in one's ability to control social sitautions that leads to an optimistic attitude and positive behaviour.

Self-monitoring:

It is a ability to understand what is socially appropriate in specific circumstances. It signifies the ability to control one's emotional expression and the ability to use this effectively to project desired expressions.

Tacit knowldege and practical intelligence:

Pertain to action-oriented relevant knowledge that permits people to achieve goals they personally value. It is knowldege acquired without the assistance of others, pertaining to practical intelligence based on unspoken rules a the workplace.

Creative skill:

This skill is essential for competent manager in the 21st century because one needs to deal with a highly competitive business environment which requires one to overcome one's own challenges creatively before one can achieve competitive advantage over competitors.

Adversity skill:

This skill is associated with the ability to overcome any obstacle encountered by any person. Such an ability is also essential for a competent manager in this century because one must be able to surpass any difficulty to reach one's target.

Spiritual skill:

Finally, spiritual skill is essential for competent manager in the 21st century because one must possess the spiritual strength to handle a complex and swiftly changing environment; otherwise the manager might succumb to pressure and become incapacitated.

In a nutshell, these eight managerial skills are essential for a competent manager in the 21st century to ensure that one has all the basic skills to deal with a highly competitive, complex and fast shifting business environment.

What all managers have to learn is that to be successful, they must manage in a manner that fits each of their unique personalities.

Source: The star, 30/01/2006