Management Skills

A skill is an acquired and learned ability to translate knowledge into

performance. It is the competency that allows for performance to be superior
in the field in which the worker has the required skill. All managers need to
possess technical, interpersonal, conceptual, diagnostic, communicational
and political skills. While technical and diagnostic skills refer to the
knowledge and ability of understanding the processes involved and
scientifically analyzing problems and opportunities, all other skills deal with
people in one form or the other. These human skills are the most important
assets of any successful manager. It is the managers job to achieve the
organizational objectives through the proper utilization of its human and
material resources. However, since the material resources of equipment,
capital, facilities, and information and so on can only be used by humans, the
human resources are the most valuable assets of any organization.
Accordingly, a manager must be highly skilled in the art of optimally
utilizing the human resources. This art is universal in nature. In every walk
of life, human skills are necessary for success. These various skills are
briefly explained as follows:

Technical Skills:
These skills basically involve the use of knowledge, methods and techniques
in performing a job effectively. This is a specialized knowledge and
expertise which is utilized in dealing with daytoday problems and activities.
For example, engineers, accountants, computer programmers and systems
analysts, all have technical skills in their areas and these skills are acquired

through education and training. This skill is highly necessary at the lower
level of management and as one moves to higher levels of management, the
relative importance of technical skills usually diminishes. This is so because
unlike first level supervisors, managers at higher levels have less direct
contact with technical operating problems and activities.

Human skills:
Human skill is the ability to work with other people in a cooperative manner.
It involves understanding, patience, trust and genuine involvement in
interpersonal relationships. These are interpersonal skills and are necessary
at all levels of management. People with good interactory human skills build
trust and cooperation as they motivate and lead and thus become successful
managers. This skill is gaining more importance as the work place is
becoming more and more ethnically diversified and the manager has to be
aware and become adaptive to cultural differences. Furthermore, since the
businesses are more and more becoming multinational and global, managers
are required to learn new ways of dealing with people in different countries
with different cultures and value systems.

Conceptual skills:
Conceptual skill is the ability to view the organization as a whole and as a
total entity as well as a system comprised of various parts and subsystems
integrated into a single unit. This skill is specially crucial for top level
executives who must keep the whole system under focus. They must
understand the complexities of the overall organization, including how each

unit of the organization contributes towards the overall success of the entire
organization. This skill generally depends upon an organized thinking
process which deals with understanding of various functions of an
organization, their interdependence and the relationship of the organization
with the outside environment in terms of threats and opportunities.

Diagnostic skills:
This skill refers to a managers analytical ability where a manager can
logically and objectively investigate and analyze a problem or an
opportunity and use scientific approaches to arrive at a feasible and optimal
solution. It is important however that a manager gets to the root cause of the
problem so that the solution is the real and a permanent one rather than
simply a shortterm or a cosmetic one. This skill overlaps with other skills
because a manager may need to use technical, human, conceptual or political
skills to solve the problem that has been diagnosed.

Communicational skills:
Communicational skills are an important component of interpersonal skills
and are basic to all other skills and these are important and necessary at all
levels of management. A managers best ideas will have little impact if they
cannot be communicated effectively. Good communication is the foundation
of sound management. Proper communication eliminates delays,
misunderstanding, confusion, distortions and conflicts and improves
coordination and control. All the four communicational skills, namely,
writing, reading, listening and nonverbal gestures are important ingredients

of successful leadership.

Political skills:
Political skill can be described as the ability to get your own way without
seeming to be selfish or selforiented. It is the ability to get your share of
power and authority and use it without fear of losing it. It is the most
complex of skills in the sense that it is required to establish the right
connections and impressing the right people and then skillfully using these
connections to your own advantage. Political skill is most important at the
middle management level because middle managers always aspire to reach
the top levels of management and right connections help in such aspirations.