Management Skills

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

1. A conceptual skill is the ability of managers (mainly of top managers) to see the “general picture” of an organization, plan “super goals” and develop proper strategies. Managers of different levels must understand how their duties fit together to get the required results

2. A decision making skill is the ability of a manager to choose the best course of actions of two or more alternatives. In short, managers are responsible for the most important deci­sions which are required to carry out any organizational activity:

1) What objectives and goals must be reached?

2) What strategy must be implemented?

3) What resources must be used and how they must be distrib­uted?

4) What kind of control is needed?

3. 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.

4. An administrative skill is the ability of a manager to keep to the rules specified for the production process, within a limited budget, and coordinate the flow of information and paper work.

5. A communicational skill is the ability of manager to share his or her ideas and opinions with other people both orally and in writing. It enables managers to hold meet­ings, write clear letters and explanatory notes, make reports, etc. This skill is a decisive factor of a manager’s success. Some investigations show that top managers and middle line managers spend approximately 80% of their work ­time in communicating with each other.

6. 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 and successful activity to implement the organizational plans.

7. 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 (2280)