Management refers to all the activities and one’s duties undertaken by one or more persons to plan and control the duties and activities of others to do a given goal or complete a given duty. Management also involves staffing, directing, and controlling the employees of a given company or organization (Mintzberg, H, 6). Managerial skills, on the other hand, is the ideas or knowledge that enables one to complete a given activity or role.
The knowledge could be acquired through learning or practically through experience by continually doing the given activities. The skills may also be learned through personal experiences that one has undergone in life. Some of the skills normally come through one’s talent considered as a gift of nature. All these are skills used by managers to create positive feedback with how the employees respond to doing their work. It deals with the effectiveness and efficiency of the employees (Robbins, S.P, 10).
John Ilhan was the brain behind the famous Crazy, which grew to become Australia’s most famous mobile phone company. John started the company as a small mobile shop, and through his hard work and determination, he managed to transform the company into a huge multinational company. He talked about business as risk-taking. In every business, one must take a risk to succeed, and that not all the customers being trusted as others could put your business at risk.
He used his crazy image to market his own business and to entice people into bargaining his products. He was up to date in technology, and this proved handy as it boosted his business, and the company adapted to the new technology, which enabled him to expand his business. He argued that for a business to succeed, the manager has to bring up a culture that everyone must follow to succeed and that the employees in the company be in a place to follow the rules given. Though he did not go to school, his experiences and personal ambitions enabled him to become a successful businessman this through the way he related with his customer, and that brought him immense success.
The theoretical basis used to explain the management process is the systems approach. According to this theory, the concerns about the internal functioning of an enterprise or organization are described using an open systems model that includes interactions between the organization and the external environment. This model argues that inputs from the external environment, which include people, capital, managerial skills, as well as the technical knowledge and skills of the workers, contribute to the success of the organization. It further stipulates that the purpose of the managers is to transform the inputs in an effective and efficient way to produce desirable outputs that will benefit the organization (Dahlgaard et al, 8).
Robert L. Katz, in his model, classifies the manager’s essential skills into three categories that are technical, human, and conceptual skills. In his, model Katz argues that technical skills are the most important skills at the career levels. According to him, technical skills refers to a manager’s ability to use specific knowledge in completing the given work and assignments assigned to him or her. This may include skills in accountancy, engineering, research, and many more. It may also include such things as written or oral communication, computer literacy, math, and numerals (Katz, R.L., 16)
According to Robbins et al., managerial skills include technical skills, conceptual and human, or interpersonal skills. Most of the organizations in the recent or modern world, both private and public sector, demand improved quality, cost reduction, and innovations and so the managers need to respond accurately, quickly and cost efficiently so that they may not become obsolete in the modern world.( Robbins et al.2006. 14)
The conceptual skill is another important aspect of management. His model argues that the conceptual skills are more important as people advance to higher management. This is because managers face problems at this level that are more ambiguous and more complicated and if not handled properly can result to consequences that are long-term (Bergman, 5). Katz discusses conceptual skills as the ability to see the organization entirely.
A conceptual skill in an organization enables the managers to find a particular problem in the organization and look for some of the ways to solve the problem. It involves planning and organizing some of the goals in a given organization. The skills in this case show the personal business relation existing in the organization, community and nation’s political, social and economic factors. (Katz, R.L., 42)
He further stresses on the urgency of conflicting goals and ways, methods and probabilities and not certainties. These skills are through training subordinates as the managers can divide a particular task and respond in searching for opinions and not answers.
Human relations skills also known as interpersonal skill discusses on the ability for top managers to work with other people. This entails the manager’s ways of coexisting well with employees through proper channels of communication that the organization establishes. Interpersonal skills enable managers be leaders and encourages for better completion of work. Human skills in Katz model ranks second and he argues that this is the foundation for managerial success.
For Katz model human skills is important across all levels. This is because a human skill enables managers to show awareness about the feelings and emotions of their employees hence enhancing good relations in the organization (Katz, R.L., 12). A good manager must also posses high intelligence is ways a manager to “manage ourselves and our relationships effectively.” John Ilhan who possessed good interpersonal skills connected well with people and many of his customers trusted him. His public recognition built and his moral and ethical principles were good. He did not take advantage of his customers but the trust between then brought loyalty among them.
For him, emotional intelligence (Bar-on, et al, 23) is build upon five foundations including:
- Self-awareness is about understanding moods and emotions
- Self –regulation about thinking before acting by controlling disruptive impulses
- Motivation is perseverance and hard work
- Empathy which is the ability to understand the emotions of others
- Social skills about gaining understanding and building good relationships
In management, the role of theory is to give a way of classifying important and relevant management ideas. For example in structuring an organization principles have mutual relationship and predictive values for managers. Management theory brings the understanding of what we undergo and offer what is important. It also enables communication in hard relationships with other people and thus faces challenges and learns about our world. (Eccles. R.G. & Nohria, N, 38)
Works Cited
Bar-On, et al.Handbook of Emotional Intelligence. San Francisco: Jossey –Bass, 2000. Print.
Bergman, B. & Klefsjo, B. Quality from Customer Needs to Customer Satisfaction.Lund: Studentlitteratur. 2003. Web.
Dahlgaard, et al. Fundamentals of Total Quality Management.London:Chapman & Hill. 1998. Print.
Eccles. R.G. & Nohria, N.Beyond the Hype: Rediscovering the Essence of Management. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 1991. Print.
Katz, R.L. “Skills of an Effective Administrator,”.Harvard Business Review, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1(1955), pp. 33-41. Print.
Mintzberg, H.The Nature of Managerial Work. New York: Harper & Row. 1973. Print
Robbins, S.P. Organizational Behavior, Australia,10th Edition, Prentice Hall, Sydney. 2003. Print.