Introduction
For managers to successfully manage and lead organizations, several managerial skills and competencies are a prerequisite. This essay seeks to briefly look at what managerial skills and managerial competencies are. Consequently, the author will nominate human skills and explain it further and show why human skill has been nominated.
Definition of Skills and Competencies
A management skill is the competence than enables a manager to come up with corporate decisions, and direct junior staff in a corporation. There are three basic management skills. These include human or interpersonal managerial skills, conceptual managerial skills and technical managerial skills. Human skills refer to the capability to connect with and mobilize the junior staff. Conceptual skills refer to the capacity to understand ideas, develop them and execute strategies. Technical skills have to do with apprehension and aptitude in a particular field or business.
Managerial competencies include the ability to communicate, appropriate response to behaviour as well as tactful negotiation.
Human or Interpersonal Skills
Human skills or the interpersonal skills have become really crucial in our times. Corporations may become even more technologically equipped; success in any organization will not solely depend on technology. The capacity of the staff to connect properly with colleagues, junior staff, supervisors, clients, suppliers and corporate partners propels organizations to succeed. In other words, human skills assist in team work, internal relations and external relations.
Team Work
Team work, properly defined, is the process by which people in a group work collaboratively to achieve certain objectives. It is a very crucial aspect in any business and assists in the success of the business, when well articulated. Team work involves using the available individual competencies, giving back constructive feedback regardless of any existing personal conflict among members of the group. In other words, it is how group members give out their best in any situation.
Group works have a common task and team work is necessary if they have to achieve the set objective. For instance, most banks that offer credit must necessarily have a credit team that may be comprised of the sales executives, the credit officers, and their supervisors and in most cases the line manager. If such a bank will achieve its credit objectives of giving out low risk loans, the team members have work as a team. The sales executives will necessarily give out the right information on potential and new clients to assist the credit officers make the right decisions.
Increased work groups as well as team work is an aspect that has lead to a higher value of human skills. If team members have to work as a team, key human skills are needed. The capacity to listen and express respect in regard to other colleagues’ opinions shows how entrenched human skills are insofar as communication is concerned. Proper attitude and the capacity to convince team members to make logical and proper decisions afford an employee a great chance to assist his team more.
External Relations
Each business has external stakeholders. These include the customers, the community, corporate partners and suppliers. Human skills assist the management as well as the junior staff to build associations with clients, lenders, supplies as well as the community at large. It is very crucial to become sincerely interested in the other people. Caring about the concerns of others is exhibited in ways like better listening, a genuine interest to serve and assist. Simple gestures like sending complementary cards to customers, participating in the welfare of the community are fruits of good human skills. The welfare is usually seen through corporate social responsibility.
Internal Relations
The presence of active workplace affiliations has an important effect on output and general enjoyment of work. Employees who receive positive feedback from senior staff are usually in high morale to produce best results. Among other things, socialization is considered a primary human need. All these are enhanced by human skills. These skills enable the staff to build concrete, durable and healthy relations among colleagues at the workplace which in turn creates a pleasant and workplace with less stress.
It is very important when proper relationships are maintained at all levels and directions at the work place. Junior staff should calculate proper relationships with their supervisors by avoiding and forgetting past grudges for example. In addition, it is good to be a good listener especially during the firm’s meetings. Looking out for your senior’s positive characteristics is paramount. Above all, it is imperative avoid disrespectful acts towards your supervisor.
All these have been gained through own experience. Having been a junior staff at various workplaces, I have endeavoured to work harmoniously with my team mates as well as my supervisors. In my career, I intend to enhance proper working relationships for the benefit of all stakeholders and the consequent growth of the corporation. When everyone in the workplace is motivated through proper human skills, growth in all departments and individuals is always evident. The Skills-Based Leadership Theory of Robert Katz emphasizes that with proper human relations skills, anyone can become a leader.
Principles of Human Relations Skills
In my picking of human skills several principles have guided me. Unlike the common assumptions, human relations are not a common sense. They are learnt over and over by understanding human behaviour. Failure to understand human behaviour has led to conflicts and loss of numerous jobs. Managers who do not take time or study human behaviour have hard time trying to supervise junior staff.
Secondly, human beings will never be irrelevant regardless numerous and dynamic technological advancements. Machines cannot assist you to ethically achieve your goals but human beings, through proper relations, can assist you. By learning human relations, you are able to surmount various challenges in future.
Third, diversity is key in enhancing human relations. Presence of different people with different backgrounds is inevitable in workplaces. Human relations skills enable one to deal with such diverse people.
In conclusion, I would like to look at the question of whether leadership is taught or it is an innate quality. Secondly, I would like to show how diversity is better than homogeny in a workplace. Lastly, I intend to show that human relations skills are the most important in comparison to conceptual and technical skills.