CHAPTER 2

Management Skills

Introduction

Researchers and commentators have attempted to identify the skills, motivations, and behaviors that managers and administrators must have in order to effectively carry out their duties and responsibilities. The search has led to a plethora of suggestions and the challenge is to devise methods for assisting both new and experienced managers in identifying, acquiring, and practicing the tools they need in order to be successful in their managerial roles. There is no single answer since the particular skills that a specific manager may need will vary depending on whether he or she is engaged in “general” or “functional” management and where the manager fits into the overall organizational hierarchy, and other situational factors certainly play an important part in determining what might be “effective management” in a specific context. Moreover, success in formal management education does not guarantee that someone will be a strong manager and learning from experience, including mistakes, is necessary to improve existing skills and acquire new skills.

Researchers such as Fayol and Mintzberg focused their attention on the functions and roles of managers and the implicit message was that managerial skill development should concentrate on building the capacity to be effective in performing these functions and roles.1 Mintzberg’s efforts to identify some of the distinguishing characteristics of managerial work, which ultimately led to the creation of his model of “managerial roles,” were accompanied by his assessment that effective managers must recognize and master a number of important “managerial skills,” including development and nurturing of peer relationships (i.e., liaison contacts), negotiation and conflict resolution skills, the ability to motivate and inspire subordinates, establishment and maintenance of information networks, the ability to communication effectively when disseminating information, and the ability to make decisions in conditions of extreme ambiguity and allocate resources, and he argued that the entire process of identifying the various managerial roles and related skills, while not guaranteeing that a manager will be effectiveness and successful, provided a framework for setting priorities and establishing a managerial training regimen. Mintzberg’s work provided support for managerial skills posited by others: the need to deal with an unrelenting pace of activities and decisions, the need to cope with complexity; the need to manage the scarce resources of time and attention; preferences for verbal media; and the need to create and nurture communication relationships with superiors, outsiders, and subordinates. A general review of the literature expands the list of desired managerial attributes, activities, and skills to include an even wider range of things such as leadership, people focus, human resource management, communications, and interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, information processing, the ability to make decisions under ambiguous conditions, resource allocation, entrepreneurship, and introspection.

Boyatzis identified the following set of “managerial competencies” based on his “critical incident” research: efficiency orientation, particularly focusing on objectives, tasks, and achievements and setting challenging goals and supporting appropriate planning; concern with impact and demonstrating a significant interest in power and its symbols; proactivity, including a strong belief in self-control and self-driven action; self-confidence and a belief in self, values and ideas that translates into confident and decisive action; oral presentation skills and the ability to use effective language, modes of speech and body language; conceptualization, including the ability to use inductive reasoning and creative thinking to identify patterns and relationships and create models and symbols to communicate these concepts; diagnostic use of concepts, particularly the ability to concerts the products of conceptualization into practical tools and ideas to address specific problems and opportunities; use of socialized power, including the ability to develop networks of relationships that can be used to achieve specific ends; and managing group processes, ­particularly “team building” around common goals and objectives, development of group roles and the capacity to create ways for people to work together effectively.2

Traits and characteristics have been a popular method of evaluating the potential for effective and successful leadership. For example, ­Ghiselli highlighted the traits of initiative, self-assurance, individuality, supervisory ability, and intelligence.3 Other researchers identified numerous other traits, many of which were difficult to define with specificity and sometimes incapable to being acquired, such as “personality,” “image,” “charisma,” “energetic,” “worldly,” and even height. Another approach focused on “behaviors” of effective and successful managers, a concept similar to listing functions and roles, and the most commonly cited of these included controlling the organization’s environment, similar to the “proactivity” mentioned earlier; organizing and controlling, including the use of information and communications channels; information handling; providing for professional growth and development of self and subordinates; motivation; conflict resolution; and strategic problem solving and decision-making.4 Finally, Miner and Smith tried to explain that “motivation to manage” influenced managerial effectiveness and could be described by the following categories: authority acceptance (i.e., desire and willingness to accept authority of superiors); competitive games and situations, both of which were based on a desire to engage in competition with peers; assertiveness; imposing wishes (i.e., desire to tell others what to do and to influence through sanctions); distinctiveness (i.e., a desire to stand out from the group); and a desire to carry out the routine functions associated with managerial responsibilities.5

Clearly there is no lack of variety in ideas about what should be in a manager’s “skill set” and it is useful to try and simplify the analysis so that practicing managers have a better idea of what might be expected of them and educators can determine the appropriate goals and objectives of management training activities. As discussed below, Cameron and Whetten were able to distill the most commonly cited ideas of the research community down to a fairly manageable list. Other commentators suggested that effective managers are competent with respect to technical, human, and conceptual skills, a list that is sometimes expanded to include design and political skills.6 The views of business and management educators can be understood by the recommendations of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business that curricula in business schools should focus on helping students develop skills in areas such as leadership, self-objectivity, analytic and thinking, behavioral flexibility, oral and written communications, and personal impact.

Katz’s Skills of Effective Administrators

Katz was among the first to focus on the important problem of attempting to identify the skills that a person required in order to be an effective and successful manager. In a legendary article published in 1955, Katz introduced his model of “management skills” that was based on three categories: technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills.7 Katz’s model has been widely accepted in the management literature, particularly in textbooks; however, there have been some attempts to expand the number of categories. For example, the discussion below includes a fourth category, referred to as “design skills,” which was suggested by Weihrich and Koontz.8 While not included in the discussion below, commentators such as Pavett and Lau have lobbied for the inclusion of “political skills,” which would include the ability of a manager to gain power and influence within the organization.9

Technical Skills

Technical skills include knowledge of, and proficiency in, activities that involve methods, processes, and procedures. Technical skills in a particular field are developed and maintained through the use of various tools, techniques, and procedures that are specific to that field. For example, a worker engaged in mechanical activities will carry out his or her activities by using specific mechanical tools and the manager of that worker must have the technical skills and background to be able to instruct the worker about how to use those tools. Similarly, a manager or supervisor in the accounting area must be able to advise subordinates about accounting principles and practices and answer any technical questions that they might have with respect to the way they are expected to carry out their duties and responsibilities. Technical skills tend to be most important for managers at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy and tend to become less important as one moves up the hierarchy through middle management to senior management.

Human Skills

As the name implies, “human” skills are “people” skills and include the ability to work effectively with others, including subordinates and persons at the same or higher levels in the organizational hierarchy, and the ability of a manager to understand his or her own needs, strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. Specific human skills include development of self-awareness; the ability to cope with personal stress; the ability to coach, counsel, and motivate others; conflict management; and the ability to empower others to perform their jobs and improve their own skills. Someone with effective human skills is able to encourage cooperation and teamwork and the managers and administrators with the best human skills are those that are able to create an environment in which subordinates feel secure and empowered to express their opinions about the best way to organize work activities. Human skills are essential for every manager, regardless of where he or she is located in the organizational hierarchy; however, the frequency and content of interactions with others within the organization will obviously vary depending on the manager’s position and duties.

Conceptual Skills

Conceptual skills incorporate the skills associated with the ability to see and comprehend the “big picture,” including recognizing and analyzing the significant elements of a particular situation and how they fit together. In other words, conceptual skills are the ability to analyze complex situations.10 Not surprisingly, conceptual skills are most important to, and most frequently used by, members of the senior management group. For example, conceptual skills are needed by senior managers seeking to understand how the various different units of a business related to one another and fit within the overall organizational design of the business. Specific conceptual skills that are particularly important include planning and strategizing, decision-making, organizing, and controlling.

Design Skills

Design skills, the category suggested by Weihrich and Koontz, complement conceptual skills and focus on how a manager or administrator helps the organization cope with its environment by identifying and solving problems in ways that will benefit the organization. Weihrich and Koontz argued that it was not enough for a manager or administrator to use his or her conceptual skills to identify problems or threats in the organizational environment and in order for the manager or administrator to provide value he or she must be able to come up with a ­practical solution. They analogized those activities to what a good “design ­engineer” does and it is reasonable to look at the “problem solving” process as involving the various elements of organizational design, including setting the appropriate strategy, selecting the most efficient organizational structure, identifying the necessary human resources, and acquiring and implementing the technology best suited for solving the problem. Given what is involved with design skills, including input into the organizational design ­process, it is not surprising that design skills, like conceptual skills, are most important at the senior management level.

Cameron and Whetten’s Skills of Effective Managers

Characteristics of Effective Managers

Most people assuming managerial positions in their organization want more than just status and truly want to be effective in their roles and contribute to improving organizational performance. In order for this to happen it is necessary for managers to have some idea about the experiences of others and a sense of which management practices have been adopted and used by effective managers. Surveys conducted around the world are beginning to uncover universal characteristics of managers who empower their subordinates and strengthen their organizations: self-awareness; creative problem solving abilities; communication skills; effective delegation, and ability to facilitate and oversee joint decision-making; beneficial use of power to influence; conflict management skills; ability to monitor information and use and distribute it for continuous improvement; ability to set the right targets, monitor progress, and take appropriate actions to make changes when targets and outcomes are not aligned; and a focus on hiring and keeping the best employees and promoting and reward employees based on their performance and contributions.

As part of their efforts to create a model curriculum for “teaching management skills,” which are discussed in more detail below, Cameron and Whetten took on the task of identifying exactly what those skills might be.11 They argued that “skills” are different from characteristics and activities often associated with management, such as personality traits and motivations and two other issues already discussed earlier: functions and roles. They believed that skills “include cognitive knowledge of how to perform and action, but they involve more than just knowledge itself.”12 They finally settled on the following definition of “management skills”: “[a] management skill involves a sequential pattern of behaviors performed in order to achieve a designed outcome.”13 Using such a definition eliminated personal traits (e.g., honesty and loyalty), since they are not defined by a specific, sequential set of behaviors, and also eliminated functions and roles because they involve a variety of patterns of behaviors.

Cameron and Whetten went on propose a list of the skills that are performed by “effective” managers, a process that began with their own study of managers at various levels of a number of public and private organizations and then was supplemented with a comparison of their results with the findings of other scholars who had proposed their own collection of characteristics of effective managers.14 The result was the following list of both personal and interpersonal skills that was limited to characteristics that had “trainable behavioral components”15:

• Self-awareness (personality, values, needs, and cognitive style)
• Managing personal stress (time management, personal goals, and activity balance)
• Creative problem solving (divergent thinking, conceptual blocks, and redefining problems)
• Establishing supportive communication (listening, empathy, and counseling)
• Improving employee performance and motivating others (needs/expectations, rewards, and timing)
• Effective delegation and joint decision-making (assigning tasks, evaluating performance, and autonomous versus joint ­decision-making)
• Gaining power and influence (sources of power, converting power to influence, and beneficial use (not abuse) of power
• Managing conflict (sources of conflict assertiveness and ­sensitivity and handling criticism)
• Improving group decision-making (chairing meetings, ­avoiding pitfalls of bad meetings, and making effective ­presentations)

Best Practices for Managers Emerge from International Study

Bloom and Van Reenen completed an exhaustive international study of patterns of management and productivity based on almost 6,000 interviews conducted at large samples of firms in 17 countries including the United States, Great Britain, a number of countries in Western Europe, Brazil, China, and Japan. The premise of their study was that effective management required knowledge, selection and use of “best practices” in three broad areas: “monitoring management,” which involves how well managers monitor what goes on inside their firms and use this information for continuous improvement; “targets management,” which involves setting the right targets for the firm, tracking the right outcomes for the firms and then taking appropriate action when targets and outcomes are inconsistent; and “incentives management,” which involves promoting and rewarding employees based on performance and trying to hire and keep the best employees. Using the dimensions employed by Bloom and Van Reenen in their survey, it is possible to suggest the following guiding principles for effective management in each of the areas mentioned earlier:

Monitoring Management:

• Effective managers are enthusiastic about introducing and adopting the full range of modern manufacturing techniques (e.g., just-in-time delivery from suppliers, automation, flexible manpower, support systems, attitudes, and behavior), and do so not because others are using them but because they can be linked to meeting business objectives like reducing costs and improving quality.
• Effective managers actively seek out process improvements for continuous improvement as part of a normal business process rather than waiting until problems arise.
• Effective managers continually track performance and communicate the result to all members of the group as opposed to relying on ad hoc and incomplete tracking systems.
• Effective managers review performance continually with an expectation of continuous improvement as opposed to ­infrequent performance reviews are based only on a success/failure scale.
• Effective managers ensure that in review/performance ­conversations the purpose, data, agenda, and follow-up steps (like coaching) are clear to all parties.

Targets Management:

• Effective managers establish and rely on a balance of financial and non-financial targets.
• Effective managers establish goals that are based on shareholder value, not accounting value, and which are defined in a way that works through business units and ultimately is connected to individual performance expectations.
• Effective managers avoid focusing mainly on the short term and instead visualize short-term targets as a “staircase” toward their main focus on long-term goals.
• Effective managers establish goals that are demanding yet attainable for all parts of the firm and avoid setting goals for “sacred cows” areas of the firm that are too easy to achieve.
• Effective managers establish performance measures that are well-defined, clearly communicated, and publicly available.

Incentives Management:

• In well-managed organizations senior managers are evaluated and held accountable for attracting, retaining, and developing talent throughout the organization.
• Well-managed organizations do a better job than their ­competitors in offering strong reasons for talented people to join them.
• Effective managers establish and enforce reward ­systems in which rewards are related to performance and effort rather than distributed equally irrespective of the ­performance level.
• Effective managers establish and enforce promotion systems that emphasize active identification, development, and promotion of top performers and avoid promotion based mainly on tenure.
• Effective managers make it clear that failure to achieve agreed objectives carry consequences, which can include re-training or re-assignment to other jobs.
• Effective managers ensure that poor performers are re-trained and/or moved into different roles or out of the company as soon as the weakness is identified.
• Well-managed organizations do whatever it takes to retain top talent when they look likely to leave.

While many of the suggestions are not “new news,” the Bloom and Van Reenen study was important as a source of empirical confirmation that firms and managers that embraced the management practices described earlier would likely be rewarded with better performance on a wide range of dimensions: they were larger, more productive, grew faster, and had higher survival rates.

Sources: N. Bloom and J. Van Reenen, “Why Do Management ­Practices Differ across Firms and Countries,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(1) (Winter 2010), 203-224. A full set of questions for each ­dimension appears in N. Bloom and J. Van Reenen, “Measuring and ­Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries,” Centre for ­Economic Performance Discussion Paper 716 (2006). See the chapter on “Cross-Cultural Studies of Management Practices” in “Management: A Library of Resources for Sustainable Entrepreneurs” prepared and distributed by the Sustainable Entrepreneurship Project (www.seproject.org).

Harris’ Multi-Factor Analysis of Characteristics of Effective Managers

Harris argued that there was really no single and definitive answer as to “what makes an effective manager” and that effectiveness and success depends on a variety of factors including the management theory in use; the organizational context, including the form of organizational structure, organizational culture, and the position and level of the manager in the organizational hierarchy; the personality characteristics of the manager; and the manager’s cognitive skills based on several different measures of intelligence and creativity.16 She observed that since there was “no universal definition of the effective manager, characteristics must be matched to the context and situation to be effective.”

Harris noted that conceptions and theories of the role of the manager, and thus the characteristics of what might normally be considered effective management, have evolved as time has gone by and it was possible and useful to place management theories into four time periods beginning with “pre-scientific,” before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1880s, and then continuing with “classical” (1880s through 1920s), “neo-classical” (early 1930s through 1950s), and “modern” (beginning around 1960).17 The role of the manager suggested by each of these theories varied depending upon the underlying assumptions regarding factors such as the nature of society, the locus and nature of work, management and organizational theory, assumptions about human nature, and the focus of managerial control. Changes in technology and available resource also played an important role in the evolution of management styles and practices and principles of organizational design.

During the pre-scientific period workers had little or no mobility and thus were tied to jobs that they often believed were part of their preordained stations in life. As such, the responsibilities of managers were largely confined to keeping workers in line and little attention was paid to motivational techniques or caring about the worker’s well-being or career development. Classical management theory came into fashion as machines became a large part of the workplace and theorists urged managers to view their workers as extensions of the machines and focus their efforts on developing and using reward and punishment techniques that would control and behavior of employees. While this approach was accepted for decades, mechanistic treatment of workers, which often included abusive and authoritarian practices, eventually came under sharp criticism and neo-classical theorists working and writing around 1930 called for managers to respect the human aspects of their employees and use management techniques that were based on creating and maintaining employee social systems rather than on controlling behavior.

Harris described modern management theories, which began to take shape in the early 1960s, as emphasizing “facilitation of employee development” and based on the premise that organizations were “systems composed of mutually interrelated and independent variables” and were also part of a system that was linked with the external environment. All this meant that changes initiated by managers in one part of the organization would trigger changes in other parts of the organization that needed to be taken into account. Managers thus needed to cope with greater uncertainty and also needed to deal with rapid changes in the organization’s external environment due to factors such as technological progress, globalization, cynicism and diversity in the workplace and demands of ­customers (e.g., the “quality movement” influenced production processes and managerial goals and objectives). Modern management theories also include a sharper focus on identifying and acknowledging differences in the needs and motives of individual workers with regarding to their jobs and career development.

According to Harris there were three major developments associated with the rise of modern management theory that significantly changed the roles and responsibilities of managers and influenced the behaviors expected of them in order to be successful18:

• Management science, which was explained by Harris as being the application of quantitative techniques to management and organizational problems. Among other things, managers were tasked with integrating computers into their analysis of ­operational problems and implementing wide-­ranging ­processes such as just-in-time production and total ­quality management.
• Systems theory, which called for managers to understand their organizations as a set of mutually dependent subsystems: task subsystem (i.e., the tasks that actually have to be completed); administrative/structural subsystem (i.e., the formal organizational structure); individual subsystem (i.e., the people within the organization and their specific nature and characteristics); and “emergent” subsystem (i.e., the informal organization). Among other things, systems theory requires that managers pay more attention to the people that work for them and their needs with regard to satisfaction, understanding their places in the organization and development.
• Contingency theory, which was based on the premise that there were few, if any, universal management approaches and the actions of managers needed to be tailored to the ­specific situation (i.e., the unique then-current environmental conditions and internal factors). Acceptance of contingency theory implied that effective management involved the ability to assess the situation and context and select and apply the appropriate managerial style and practices.

Another important factor that needs to be taken into account in determining the most effective type of managerial style is the structure of the organization. Harris commented that “[a] trend line of future career characteristics can be drawn using three key ideas about organization structure: organization structure dictates core managerial competencies, different organization structures require a different mix of managerial competencies, and organizational structure dictates how careers are managed.”19 Arguing that effective management characteristics must be aligned with the structure in use by the organization at a particular time, Harris provided the an overview of what researchers had found to be the most effective managerial characteristics for each of the most popular types of organizational structures20:

• In functional structures, managers typically spend most of their careers in one department focusing on developing their skills in a single technical competency. As such, technical skills are most important to them for career advancement and they rarely are exposed to learning managerial skills unless and until they progress to the top of their function.
• Divisional structures support the creation of ­independent business units, all with their own full complement of ­functional resources. A prospective manager in a divisional structure is more likely to have exposure to issues that cut across functional lines and thus will be able to develop both technical and commercial skills and competencies.
• In matrix structures employees must have both technical skills to progress in their own functional department and commercial skills to contribute to cross-functional project or program groups. Harris suggested that commercial skills are even more important to prospective mangers in a matrix structure than in a divisional structure since individuals working in a matrix organization are exposed to many different parts of the larger organization rather than being largely confined to their own business unit.
• Harris described network organizations as relying on linkages with “independent firms to provide the critical expertise needed for specific projects or products” and noted that managers working within this type of structure not only needed both technical and commercial skills for work inside their firm but also collaborative knowledge and abilities for work with outside partners that included three particular types of relationships and skills: referral skills, partnering skills, and relationship management.
• Harris suggested that the use of teams, and creation of team-based organizations, was a specialized form of the network organization that called for managers to employ a mix of a wide range of team- and task-based managerial skills. One commentator suggested that managers of effective team are adept as an internal consultant, visionary, experimenter, coach, and educator.21 Other researchers argued that team managers must have skills and abilities with respect to advising, innovating, promoting, developing, organizing, producing, inspecting, and maintaining standards and values, and must also be able to develop those skills among team members.22
• Harris described cellular organizations as being composed of multiple “cells,” which can be a team, a business unit, or a firm) with specific responsibilities to the entire organization, and which is fluid enough to continually reorganize in order to meet the changing needs of the organization. Managers in cellular organizations will need to have knowledge-based technical skills; however, they will likely need to assume more personal responsibility for acquiring and maintaining those skills and be more proactive in seeking opportunities to develop their careers. As with matrix and network organizations, commercial skills will be essential for managers in cellular organizations. Project management and collaborative skills will also be important in cellular organizations since project teams will generally be the organizing unit.

As is the case with leadership, management takes on a different meaning depending upon the organizational level at which the manager is operating.23 Harris described models of managerial tasks and responsibilities that focused on similarities and differences depending on where the manager fell within the following multi-level model:

• Executive-level management responsibilities typically emphasized concern for “systems leadership,” including planning for periods extending out many years into the future. Executives needed to be have a good grasp of the tools necessary for effective strategizing.
• Middle-level managers were more involved with “organizational leadership,” which was described as the process of integrating the goals established at the executive level into the day-to-day operations of the organization.
• Front-line managers, the supervisors working directly with workers at the production and service levels, were responsible for ensuring that all the necessary day-to-day tasks relating to achievement of goals were completed.

Harris commented that as a manager moves from front-line responsibilities up toward executive leadership, he or she must learn how to cope with greater complexity and develop and broader strategies that extend for longer time periods. Harris noted that career progress requires a capacity to deal with changes in complexity and that not everyone will be successful at each level. For example, excellent front-line supervisors who are consistently able to motive their workers may struggle when asked to take on systems and organizational leadership activities. In turn, the CEO may bring exceptional vision and clarity of purpose to the organization but fail miserably if asked to oversee a small part of the production process.

Managerial style and effectiveness is also influenced by individual characteristics of the manager including personality and intelligence.24 Use of personality measures to distinguish between good and poor managers has become quite popular and indications are that certain characteristics are regularly associated with people who are considered to be successful and effective managers. Researchers using the Occupational Personality Questionnaire found that the best managers were creative people who could generate ideas and had a flair for ingenuity, who were intellectually curious and enjoyed the opportunity to deal with complex and abstract matters, and who enjoyed analyzing, as opposed to simply measuring data and applying the analysis to solving problems.25 In another survey, researchers found that “ideal” managers were strong with respect to continuous learning and sociability and scored poorly with respect to “remaining even tempered” and “eagerness to please.” In turn, common characteristics of poorer managers included “remaining even tempered” and “conforming.”26

As for “intelligence,” Harris noted that researchers believed it to be concept relevant to predicting and assessing managerial effectiveness; however, the appropriate assessment likely needed to go beyond “traditional” intelligence tests (“IQ”) and include three key elements of what Sternberg referred to as “managerial intelligence”27:

• Analytical intelligence, which consisted of meta-components (planning, monitoring, and problem solving), performance components (execution of solutions derived from meta-­components), and knowledge acquisition (skills relating learning how to solve problems)
• Practical intelligence (i.e., “common sense”), which includes the ability to adapt to and shape environments and is often measured by accessing “tacit knowledge” (described by Harris as “action-oriented knowledge acquired without direct help from others”)
• Creative intelligence, which included resources such as intellectual ability (particularly the ability to think “outside the box”), knowledge, styles of thinking, personality, motivation, and environment

Harris noted that certain areas referred earlier, such as tacit knowledge and creativity, appeared to be particularly important for managers needed to deal with increasingly complex problems and thus required further study. Accepting the utility of the concept of managerial intelligence is one thing; however, the challenge for managers is mixing and using all three forms of intelligence, accepting that there is no “one best way,” and working to identify individual strengths and weaknesses and then exploiting the strengths and working around weaknesses (e.g., seeking training for personal improvement or bringing on personnel who can provide the missing skills).28

Management Competency Models

Harris observed that insights regarding characteristics and behaviors of effective managers can be derived from a review of various management competency models and surveys designed to gather information from experts in order to create a profile of an effective manager.29 For example, McNary argued that “the main goal for a manager is to optimize the system of interdependent components through cooperation to foster organization success” and suggested that effective managers solicit informal feedback from, and engage in coaching of, the subordinates in order to foster their intrinsic motivation; employ statistical and analytical thinking when making decisions; focus on a “systems view” with a particular emphasis on improvement and innovation; and pay close attention to development and maintenance of external relationships with customers and suppliers.30 Results of a survey of managers of leading-edge companies reported by Allred et al. predicted that future managerial careers would be based on knowledge-based technical specialization, cross-functional and international experience, competencies in collaborative leadership, self-management skills and, finally, development of certain personality traits such as flexibility, integrity, and trustworthiness.31

Davis et al. reported that Personnel Decisions, Inc. had developed assessment tools for gauging effective management behaviors that focused on measuring the following factors deemed to relevant to performance by managers at all levels in the organization32:

• Administrative skills: Structuring of activities and coordination of resources including specific skills with respect to planning, organizing, and personal organization and time management
• Leadership skills: Selection and use of leadership styles, ability to motivate others, group management skills, delegation and control, staffing and coaching, and development of others
• Interpersonal skills: Human relations skills, negotiation skills, and conflict resolution
• Communication skills: Oral and written communications skills and ability to disseminate information and listen to ideas and feedback from others
• Personal adaptability skills: Ability to respond appropriately to challenges and unforeseen issues relating to change and ambiguity in the external environment
• Personal motivation skills: Demonstrated commitment to the organization and ability to set and diligently pursue high performance standards
• Occupational/technical skills: Knowledge and skills need to do the job and oversee the work of others including technical competence in relevant fields such as engineering
• Cognitive skills: Ability to analyze problems and reach decisions, financial and quantitative skills, innovativeness and resourcefulness, and skills at identifying and managing details

Management Skills Training

Management educators have a keen interest in identifying the most “important” management skills so that they can make informed decisions about the curriculum for training both students about to enter the workplace and practicing managers looking to be more effective in their current positions and/or move up the ladder in the organizational hierarchy. It is generally agreed that managers at all levels need to have technical, human, conceptual, and design skills; however, managers at different levels in the organizational hierarchy need to be more proficient at some skills than with others and the operational function in which a manager is acting will obviously influence the skills and experience requirements he or she must satisfy. That said, human skills appear to be the most important for all managers, from the factory floor to the corner office executive suites, and thus it is not surprising that there has been a strong wave of advocacy for finding effective means for incorporating development of human skills into management training and education programs.

Tasks and Skills of Effective Managers

An effective manager engages in various tasks and activities (e.g., planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, and controlling) to design and maintain an environment in which people can work together efficiently to achieve selected organizational goals and create a “surplus” for organizational stakeholders. In order successfully complete these tasks and activities managers must cultivate and master a number of important skills including the ability to develop and nurture peer relationships, ­negotiation and conflict resolution skills, the ability to motivate and inspire subordinates, establishment and maintenance of information networks, the ability to communicate effectively when disseminating information, and the ability to make decisions and allocate resources in conditions of extreme ambiguity.

Development of management training programs must be discussed in the broader context of debates regarding the efficacy of standard programs that have traditionally been offered at business and management schools. Many have argued that educational programs that simply pour in management principles that students play back on examinations are of little use since they fail to teach “how to manage.”33 In his legendary article written in the mid-1970s, Mintzberg offered the following critique:

Management schools will begin the serious training of managers when skill training takes its place next to cognitive learning. ­Cognitive learning is detached and informational, like reading a book or listening to a lecture. No doubt much important cognitive material must be assimilated by the manager-to-be. But cognitive learning no more makes a manager than a swimmer. The latter will drown the first time he jumps into the water if his coach never takes him out of the lecture hall, gets him wet, and gives him feedback on his performance. Our management schools need to identify the skills managers use, select students who show potential in these skills, put the students into situations where these skills can be practiced, and then give them systematic feedback on their performance.34

There should be no doubt that management principles, the so-called “cognitive learning” that Mintzberg was referring to in the quote earlier, provide an important foundation for managers, including tools that can be deployed when practicing activities, such as “strategic planning,” that rely on conceptual and design skills. Technical skills are also necessary to provide immediate and personal assistance to subordinates on issues they may be having with completing their assigned tasks and activities and in building credibility when managing function-based groups. However, there is clearly a gaping hole in the curriculum that needs to be filled, a step that is even more important given the critical nature of human skills to effective management, motivated, and satisfied workers and attainment of overall productivity.

In order to address this issue, the first step is achieving a consensus on just what skills are needed. The list compiled by Cameron and Whetten and presented earlier is a good starting point. Research conducted by Luthans et al. suggested that effective managers had significantly different and better skill levels with respect to building power and influence, communication with insiders and outsiders, goal setting, managing conflict, and decision-making.35 In addition, interpersonal skills, written communication, enthusiasm, technical competence, and the ability to listen and give counsel emerged as critical skills in another study of administrators.36 Camp et al. took a different approach and identified the following major reasons why managers failed: ineffective communication skills, poor interpersonal skills, failure to clarify expectations, poor delegation, inability to develop teamwork, inability to motivate others and a lack of trust.37 Finally, Latif reviewed what he characterized as a “representative sample of studies that relied on a heterogeneous mix of respondents from a multitude of diverse industries” to compile a list of the “most frequently cited managerial skills” that included verbal communication (including listening); managing time and stress; managing individual decisions; recognizing, defining and solving problems; motivating and influencing others; delegating; setting goals and articulating a vision; self-awareness; team building; and managing conflict.38

Latif noted that the most commonly identified characteristics of effective managers were all behavioral skills and were found to be relevant regardless of industry, the level of the manager in the organizational hierarchy or the job responsibilities of the manager.39 Having identified what appears to be a reasonably acceptable pool of “skills,” the question then becomes how best to “teach” them. Latif explained some of the challenges in the following passage:

Management skills are linked to a rather complex knowledge base (more so than other skills such as those associated with a trade or a sport). In additional, management skills are inexplicably connected to the interaction of other people. As such, effective use of these skills often involves a non-standardized approach to managing human beings (unlike a standardized approach to performing trade skills such as welding).40

Latif and others have suggested that effective “skills” training must include practical application (i.e., the opportunity to “practice,” receive feedback, and apply the feedback in more practice opportunities); however, practice alone is not sufficient and students must also invest time and effort in gathering and understanding necessary “conceptual” knowledge.41 Latif argued that the “most effective” approach to teaching and developing management skills is based on Social Learning Theory and calls for a teaching model that includes conceptual knowledge, observation of how others execute the particular skills and, finally, guided direct experience with feedback (“practice”).42 For example, new sales representatives might first go through a short orientation that exposes them to the requisite body of conceptual knowledge and then spend a week or two accompanying experienced sales representatives to observe how they do their jobs and apply the skills communicated during the orientation phase. Once the observation stage is over the new sales representatives would return to headquarters and “practice” applying the skills in workshops that include exercises, simulations, and role playing and where immediate feedback can be given by trainers.

As noted earlier, Cameron and Whetten were interested in developing a model curriculum for “teaching management skills” and suggested a model that was, in fact, based on Social Learning Theory, albeit in what they referred to as a “modified form.”43 They began with a four step model that was widely used in management skill training initiatives and which included, in order, presentation of principles or behavioral guidelines derived from general theories of human behavior and empirical data on successful management practices, demonstration of the principles by the instructor using videos or written scripts, opportunities for practice relying on role playing and similar exercises and, finally, feedback on personal performance from the instructor and peers.44 They then added two more features, preassessment and an application activity at the end of the process, to come with their own “suggested skill learning approach” with five components, each of which can be briefly explained as follows relying in large part on their own words45:

• Skill Preassessment. This step occurs at the beginning of each “skill learning experience” and focuses on assessing the current level of skill competence and knowledge in order to increase the efficiency of the learning process by identifying specific deficiencies in knowledge or performance that can then be addressed directly during the training. Common preassessment tools include questionnaires, surveys, questions about cases and role playing. Preassessment is necessary to provide students with their level of skill competency and provide them with motivation to improve by learning and applying the methods covered in the following steps.
• Skill Learning. This second step involves presentation of conceptual material based on the most essential and relevant (i.e., “need-to-know” rather than “nice-to-know”) theory and research in order to teach the correct principles and explain the rationale for the behavioral guidelines recommended during the training. Written texts are supplemented by lectures and discussions during which the instructors specify which behavioral guidelines are important, rather than relying on students to pry them out of theories, cases, and examples on their own. Proponents of this model emphasize that behavioral guidelines should be rigorously derived based on sound data and empirical testing rather than anecdotes and opinions so that students have a sound rationale for accepting and attempting to apply the principles.
• Skill Analysis. The third step assesses understanding of the behavioral guidelines learned during the previous step through the analysis of case studies that include ­examples of appropriate and inappropriate skill performance. ­Students should be provided with opportunities to analyze how the behavioral principles are applicable to “real world” situations and problems. Case studies are one of the best ways to demonstrate skill analysis and can be presented in a ­number of formats including written cases, video tapes, audio ­recordings, and movies and students should be asked to critique the actions of managers depicted in the case studies in order to check their comprehension of the material and analyze a model of the skill being performed.
• Skill Practice. The fourth step shifts from observation to practicing the behavioral guidelines in a supportive atmosphere. Cameron and Whetten emphasize that students should “experiment” with the guidelines, rather than trying to mimic the style of a role model, and should be encouraged to adapt each set of behavioral principles to their particular personality and interpersonal style. Feedback should be provided not only from the instructor but also from peers, since this allows them to sharpen their own observation and perception skills and practice the important management skill of providing feedback to others. Feedback allows students to correct mistakes and experiment with alternative approaches. Skill practice activities include exercises, simulations, role playing, and group activities.
• Skill Application. The important final step of skill application focuses on transferring “classroom learning” to real-life situations, including actual practice accompanied by opportunities for feedback and continuing personal and professional development. Student are given specific assignments, both behavioral and written, to test how well they have learned the skill and how to apply it. Examples mentioned by Cameron and Whetten included teaching the skill to someone else, reporting on a personal effort to apply the principles in an appropriate setting, and confronting a problem in which performance of the skill is required. Instructors provide feedback on the assignments and assist students in their own self-analysis of their performance, thereby providing ongoing support for student efforts to refine and improve their performance.

Cameron and Whetten argued that their model had several important advantages over traditional teaching methods. For example, while their model relied on tried and true lecture and discussions techniques, it also incorporated personal diagnosis beginning with the pre-assessment stage and opportunities to practice the skills and obtain real-time feedback. In addition, while use of case studies was not new, their value as a teaching tool was enhanced by the other steps included in the model, particularly the insistence on presentations of behavioral guidelines that would allow students to be more astute reviewers of the situations and problems embedded in the cases. Finally, they noted that the experimental exercises and group participation used in their curriculum went beyond mere observation to become valuable opportunities to actually practice the skills that were being taught and gather suggestions on how to improve performance. Cameron and Whetten did concede that implementation of their model would require overcoming a variety of challenging issues, particularly the need for smaller class sizes and additional time during those classes to properly and effectively carry out each of the steps in the suggested model. They also noted that faculty members would themselves need to develop the skills that they are attempting to teach and model for their students and that faculty members would need to embrace “skill training” as a key activity even though it may reduce the time they might otherwise have available to devote to research activities that are important to their own careers.46

In order for their skills training to be effective and properly focused, managers must have some means to assess how they are doing. Mintzberg was clear in his belief that the managerial position was extremely complex and urged managers to take the time to be “introspective about their work” by reviewing and answering a lengthy list of 14 sets of “self-study questions.”47 The following list of the initial questions from each set provides an insight into the type of assessment that Mintzberg recommended:

• Where do I get my information, and how?
• What information do I disseminate?
• Do I tend to act before information is in?
• What pace of change am I asking my organization to tolerate?
• Am I sufficiently well-informed to pass judgment on ­subordinate’s proposals?
• What is my vision for this organization?
• How do my subordinates react to my managerial style?
• What kind of external relationships do I maintain, and how?
• Is there any system to my time scheduling, or am I just ­reacting to the pressures of the moment?
• Do I overwork?
• Am I too superficial in what I do?
• Do I spend too much time on current, tangible activities?
• Do I use the different media appropriately?
• How did I blend my personal rights and duties?

Each of the initial questions was supported by ideas for additional assessment. For example, the last question regarding blending of personal rights and duties was accompanied by suggestions that managers analyze whether their obligations consumed all their time and create opportunities to free themselves from some of those obligations so that they are able to focus on softer, yet quite important, topics such as their unique role as the organizational “entrepreneur.” The meaning of each of the questions obviously evolves over time. Consider that the question regarding appropriate use of different media was first posed in 1990, well before e-mail and the other social media tools that predominate today were introduced and widely available. At that time, Mintzberg emphasized the amount and quality of face-to-face communications engaged in by managers, including participation in meetings. The situation has changed significantly since then and managers now face new challenges in sifting through the flood of information that is now available and incorporate new technological tools into their roles as “liaison,” “disseminator,” and “spokesperson.”

Simple Assessment Tools for Managers

The list of Mintzberg’s self-study questions in the text includes only the initial question in the set of questions that he created for each of the 14 topics and reference should be made to the full list of a better understanding of the issues that he observed in a particular topical area. For example, a manager concerned about how well he or she is carrying out the informational role associated with the managerial position should carefully consider the following questions:

• Where do I get my information and how?
• Can I make greater use of my contacts?
• Can other people do some of my scanning?
• In what areas is my knowledge weakest, and how can I get others to provide me with the information I need?
• Do I have sufficiently powerful mental models of those things I must understand within the organization and in its ­environment?
• What information do I disseminate?
• How important is that information to my subordinates?
• Do I keep too much information to myself because ­disseminating it is time consuming or inconvenient?
• How can I get more information to others so they can make better decisions?
• Do I tend to act before information is in or do I wait so long for all the information that opportunities pass me by?

Mintzberg’s questions are just one of many tools that managers can use to assess their skills. Online tests are available to provide insights into what type of management style a manager is likely to demonstrate to his or her subordinates and Griffin has created a library of questionnaires for use in assessing management skills in a number of areas including self-awareness, beliefs and values, goal setting, enhancing motivation, managing diversity, mental abilities, and using and managing teams. For example, Griffin’s assessment of “skills of effective managers” asks respondents to consider how they see themselves with respect to the following statements:

• I am at ease in written and oral communication including listening
• I handle stress well and seldom have time management ­problems
• I have no trouble making decisions that affect me and/or ­others
• I can identify, analyze, and solve problems effectively
• I am effective at getting others to perform at high levels
• I delegate tasks to others to help them learn and to involve them in the activity at hand
• I set goals and establish a long-term vision for everything I do and can help others do the same
• I am keenly aware of my own strengths and weaknesses
• I work well with groups and can help others develop into effective teams
• I handle conflict well and am able to help others resolve their difference

While this type of assessment obviously does not delve into details it nonetheless can be used by managers to identify roles and skills they may have neglected and such information can be used for development of training and self-improvement plans.

Sources: Mintzberg, H. March/April 1990. “The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact.” Harvard Business Review, pp. 163–76; Griffin, R. 2002. Fundamentals of Management, 3rd ed. Independence, KY: Cengage Learning. http://college.cengage.com/business/griffin/fundamentals/3e/students/assessment/; “What is Your Management Style,” http://quotev.com/quiz/481888/What-Is-Your-Management-Style/; and “Test Your Management Style with this 6 Point Quiz,” http://training-course.org/management-style-6-point-quiz.php

---