What Skills Are Required for Effective Management - Assignment Example

Managers are leaders in their own right. They are in charge of people under their ity and responsibility. Leadership may be defined as a “process in which a leader attempts to influence his or her followers to establish and accomplish a goal or goals.” (from http://www.answers.com/leadership#top). It may be as simple as coming up with a group decision or as complex as establishing a group culture. Leadership is a continuous process wherein a leader tries to move from accomplishing one goal to another for the good of the whole group. Question 1: What skills are required for effective management? Analyse, with supporting examples from own experience, three personal skills and three professional skills a manager needs to be effective in his role. Explain how these contribute to meeting both organizational and personal goals and objectives. Personal Skills: 1. Confidence Without confidence, a person is unable to move forward and come up with sound decisions because he is unsure of the consequences and if he can deal with them whether positive or negative. A confident manager believes in his own capabilities and knows that his decisions are well-thought-out to benefit the whole organization. He is able to face anyone without fear and behaves appropriately at all times. 2. Encouragement & Positivism A good manager is an empowerer. He eggs on his people to be confident themselves. He makes them aware of their potentials and helps them tap these to their best advantage. In desperate times when there seems to be no hope of survival, turning to one’s faith can provide the necessary push to enliven the faltering survival instinct. A good leader makes use of his own faith and tries to transfuse his members with it so all of them look to the same direction – heavenwards. 3. Broad-mindedness A manager deals with a variety of personalities with different backgrounds. It would be easy to be judgmental if one fails to see the reasons behind one’s lapses in performance. A broad understanding of a variety of circumstances is necessary for a manager to have in order to establish harmonious relationships. Balancing understanding for both professional and personal issues aids in ironing out organizational rifts and bumps hence ensuring smooth transactions in the organization. Professional: 1. Open to learning Good managers are always open to learning something new, and not haughty enough to claim that they are already “made”. Being human and fallible is one trait that all members of the group share, and what better quality to relate to than that? Group members will even feel important enough to share the burden of thinking up solutions to problems with their leader. 2. Good communication skills The management function of communication is focused on getting personnel to do what is needed, learning information about personnel to know them better, and establishing relationships with personnel. Basically, if a manager is successful in these three, then he has better chances of gaining employee respect and support. 3. Reflective Not being able to objectively evaluate an organization’s quality in workers’ performance and delivery of service may leave the organization in the dark as to how their clientele respond to it and how the output may further be improved. Evaluation and reflection is an integral part of success in organizations. Question 1b: Conduct a personal skills audit and produce a detailed action plan which demonstrates how you intend to address areas for further management and leadership development. Explain the impact of learning styles on personal development. Personal qualities of good leaders include decisiveness, self-sacrifice, initiative, courage, persistence, encouragement and inspiration. A good leader decides what is best for his group even if painful decisions have to be made. He is ready to sacrifice his own convenience for the good of the majority. He is not after his own personal glory but the welfare and triumph of the whole group. His mettle is tested when times get difficult and everyone looks up to him to lead them out of the dark. A good leader has initiative. He tries to be a good example to his followers and treads a path where no one dares to go. He is effective in empowering others with encouragement. He boosts his member’s confidence and self-esteem. He is a source of hope and inspiration to others. The learning style of a person is learned when one spends much time with him. A good leader does so with his followers, and tries to adapt to the different learning styles of his members so all would be productive in the organization. Some people learn auditorily and like to have things explained orally and may have trouble with written instructions. Visual learners easily remember visual details and prefer to see what they are learning. They prefer to write down instructions and may have trouble following verbal instructions. Kinesthetic or tactile learners prefer activities that allow them to do what they are learning about. Tactile learners like to touch things in order to learn about them and like to move around when talking or listening. Good managers devise strategies to tap the talents and potentials of their members by adapting to their preferred learning styles. They can come up with a variety of techniques from which the members may choose from in order to carry out the tasks necessary in the organizational projects planned out. These may include but are not limited to the following: Brainstorm meetings- all members of the group are free to share their ideas during meetings and the manager accepts and acknowledges these. Then, the whole group may evaluate which ideas are worth pursuing considering the needs and resources of the organization at that particular time. Learning styles may be considered by accepting written suggestions, voiced out ideas and project presentations. Understanding employee’s needs and concerns -In every employment, employees consciously or unconsciously expect a kind of “psychological contract” apart from the expectations the job usually presents – benefits and compensation for a particular job description. This psychological contract usually includes open and honest communication, managerial support and challenging and interesting work. Employees are becoming increasingly aware of the non-monetary rewards that companies can provide them. It is generally important that the job not only fulfills their economical needs, but their socio-emotional needs as well. A good manager must be cognizant of and responsive to his employees’ perception of their psychological contracts with the company. Things such as meaningful work, recognition, creative freedom and opportunities for personal growth are desired by all employees. Invest in employees’ professional and personal development -In line with understanding employees’ needs and concerns, management should be ready to invest in their professional and personal development. Regular trainings and participation in seminars or enrollment in courses shouldered by the company (whether partial or full) may be perceived as part of the job, but it should be communicated to the employees that although application of their learnings will highly profit the company, ultimately it will redound to their own benefit. This knowledge from trainings is bound to increase their own market value. Rewarding Excellent Performance - Bonuses and merit increases should be given to employees who show evidence of excellence in the performance of their jobs. A manager might even suggest profit-sharing with exemplar employees as a motivational strategy. Keeping in mind that for some employees, rewards do not necessarily come in form of money, benefits such as more flexible work schedule, scholarships for further studies, promotions, work-life balance may be enough to motivate them to maintain their good work. References Dibble, S. (1999) Keeping Your Valuable Employees: Retention Strategies for Your Organizations Most Important Resource. John Wiley & Sons.New York. French, R., Simpson, P. & Harvey, C. (2001), “’Negative capability’: the key to creative leadership.” Presented at the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations 2001 Symposium. Retrieved on March 17, 2008 from www.sba.oakland.edu/ispso/html/2001Symposium/french.htm Imel, S. (1992). “Reflective practice in adult education”. Columbus, OH: ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education. Retrieved March 17, 2008 from http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-3/adult.htm Leadership (n.d.) Retrieved on March 17, 2008 from: http://www.answers.com/leadership#top Learning styles (n.d.) Retrieved on March 16, 2008 from http://www.wheaton.edu/intr/Moreau/courses/563/learning.pdf Lester, S. Clair, E, Kickul, J. (2001) Psychological Contracts in the 21st Century: What Employees Value Most and How Well Organizations Are Responding to These Expectations. Human Resource Planning. Volume: 24. Issue: 1. Osterman, K. F (1990) "Reflective Practice: A New Agenda for Education." EDUCATION AND URBAN SOCIETY 22, no. 2 (February 1990): 133-152. Peters, J. (1991)"Strategies for Reflective Practice." In Professional Development For Educators Of Adults. New Directions For Adult And Continuing Education, no. 51, edited by R. Brockett. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Fall. 1991 Richmond, V.P. & McCroskey, J.C. (2005) Organizational communication for survival: making work,work. Retrieved March 16, 2007 from http://www.ilstu.edu/~llipper/com329/mccroskey_chapter.pdf Read More