Managing People essay

The notion ‘manager’ embraces a number of functions and directions one can follow to become a successful manager in the particular environment. The word ‘manager’ represents quite a universal term to denote an occupation of an individual. However, such universal approach does not correspond to the essence of the occupation itself. It is emphasized that manager should not just be a good technician, but he should concentrate on people instead of being focused on tasks. Managers should be able to rely on other people instead of just relying on themselves. Being team oriented is one of the main qualities a manger should possess. A manager should be ‘an artist’ as management is ‘subjective and nuanced’ (Belker et al., 2012: 5). Haneberg (2007: 3) claims that no distinction should be made between management and leadership. Thus, a manager is actually a leader. A manager is a leader who works at his own level of the organization.  Leadership should be seen as one of the challenges of a manager. A manager is not able to mange people without applying his leadership skills. However, a number of authors make a distinction between a manager and a leader. Gualco (2010: 19) claims that a manager and a leader possess different set of skills; a rare person may have both. The author notes that leaders are responsible for choosing the direction of the organization and setting the tasks, and they choose managers to fulfil the tasks and to achieve the goals. In their turn, managers have some influence on the direction of the organization, but mostly on the way the goals are achieved.

Managing people actually corresponds to managing their activities and in such a way helping them to make their contribution into the goals of the organization (Gaynor, 2004: 8).

Success of a manger depends on his knowledge, skills and his ability to apply them in certain situations.

Discussion

Rees and Porter (2008: 1) emphasize that being a good manager presupposes meeting organizational rather than personal priorities. The authors identify a model of managerial hybrids, people who combine their managerial responsibilities with work of a specialist. The examples may be found in many organizations. The set of skills significant for managing people may vary in different sources. However, the basic skills are same and are mentioned practically by all the authors. Essential skills of manager are based on his main functions in the organization. They include planning and making decisions, organizing, controlling and leading (Griffin, 2007: 6).  Lussier (2011: 14) provides a system of skills that are involved into the main functions of manager emphasizing his activity at different level of the organization. Planning and decision making involves setting the organizational goals and deciding the best ways to achieve the goals. Organizing presupposes that a manger should be able to gather and engage necessary people and resources into achieving the goals. Leading presupposes making organization members working together following the organizational priorities. The function of controlling means monitoring of the process of goals achieving. Griffin (2007) provides a number of fundamental management skills. The list involves technical skills which presuppose understanding of the kind of work that the organization is focused on. A manager should be able to explain the issues related to the work and be responsible for training his subordinates to work effectively. Managers must be aware of how to perform the tasks which their subordinates are supposed to fulfil. Other skills that are mentioned by the author include interpersonal skills.  Managers should be able to communicate with other people, understand them and motivate them to work effectively. A manger should be able to interact with people who work at any level of the organization including his subordinates, peers and people who work at higher levels of the organization. Conceptual skills are necessary for mangers as they should be able to think in the abstract. They should be able to embrace the whole picture of the organization functioning involving all its units. A manger should see the way all the units fit each other and make further decisions. Diagnostic skills are mentioned as a manger’s ability to find the most appropriate response to a problem or a situation. It involves analytical skills and decision making skills as well. Communication skills play quite an important role for managers as they should be able both effectively to convey the information and to receive it. These skills provide their ability to instruct their subordinates about their tasks and strategy of work and to inform the people at higher levels about what is happening in the organization. Good decision-making skills correspond to a manager’s abilities to recognize the problem and to find the best solution choosing the appropriate course of actions.  Griffin (2007: 8) emphasizes that no manger is able to make proper decisions all the time, while he should be able to analyse his mistakes and to make the proper decisions most of the time. Time-management skills reflect a manager’s ability to prioritize the work in the organization and to organize and delegate the work effectively. Managers often experience different challenges and pressures, so they should be able to work effectively and to manage other people’s work under any circumstances. Fryer et al. (2004: 25) identifies one more important skill in current conditions which is information handling skill. Managers should be able to find, interpret and to judge about the importance and the accuracy of the information. The ability to sort the information, to pass it in an acceptable form has become crucial nowadays.

Daft et al. (2010: 11) pays attention to human skills which relates to a set of skills that are important for a good manager. This set of skills involves a manger’s ability to work as a team member, ‘to motivate, facilitate, coordinate, communicate and resolve conflicts’.  Hegar (2011:246) explains the importance and the principles of being able to work in team emphasizing that a manager should learn other members of his team. It is possible to interact with people in the organization effectively in case you have real relationship with the employees. It should be noted that organizations tend to loose good employees as their bosses often fail to demonstrate their concern and respect to them. A manger should control people’s interaction at all levels. Human skills mainly correspond to interpersonal skills.

DuBrin (2008: 16) identifies political skill among essential management skills.  This skills refers to a manager’s ability ’to obtain power and to prevent others from taking it away’. Bolman and Deal (2011) explain what skills a manager as a politician should possess. Managers require political skills to gain power which is necessary for achieving organizational goals. Managers with good political skills are able to establish necessary connections and to make the proper impression on the right people.

Other skills that contribute into the image of a successful leader may be conflict management skills. As conflict is a source of growth, it helps the organization to develop and to be ready for possible challenges. Conflict management is seen as a multidisciplinary, analytical and problem-solving approach (Eunson, 2012: 1). Manager should analyse the conflict and get an idea how to make people collaborate appropriately to solve the conflict situation. Conflicts are unavoidable in any organizations where many people work. Thus, managers should be ready for such situations or they should predict them and be aware how to deal with the issue. Other characteristics that make a successful manger include flexibility and creativity. Business environment is quite changeable and mangers often face the challenge of dealing with a problem within a limited period of time. Thus, they should be flexible and be able to suit any situation and environment. Armstrong (2010: 5) explains flexibility as an ability ‘to adapt and to work effectively in different situations and to carry out a variety of tasks’. Allen and Van Der Velden (2011: 244) pay special attention to the role of flexibility in professional activity of any specialist. Some authors represent flexibility as a personal openness of a manager. This view is supported by the idea that if managers are open and can be influenced by the circumstances then they will be able to react in more flexible way. Creativity is another important characteristic of a manger. Proctor (2010: 2) explains creativity as the ability to organize ideas the way that is different and unusual but still leads to even better understanding of the issue. In today’s understanding creativity reflects the way of thinking, the way of integrating visions and ideas into business. Applying creativity in decision making process and in conflict solving allows managers increasing the effectiveness of their work and encouraging other employees to think creatively. Effective managers tend to use creativity as a tool of motivation of other people. The organization which applies the policy of encouraging its employees’ creative thinking in their every day work will make them feel unique, valued and important. An effective manger should make creativity his usual way of thinking, creating a group of like-minded people in his environment.

Various sources address the problem of becoming an effective and successful manager. They try to teach how to become an effective manager applying to the success of numerous business institutions. However, it should be noted that there is a lack of correlation between scholastic interpretation of becoming a successful manager and real success in business area. Thus, what a student learns about management cannot equip him with what is necessary to achieve success in business. It should be noted that most of the skills that are crucial for any manager are only able to be obtained while practical working.

All the mentioned skills are very important for my future work as a manager. Technical skills are only possible to be developed in case you know the area you are going to work in. You should accumulate all your professional knowledge and integrate technical details which are essential for the organization you work for. It is necessary to study the process of work at every level of the organization and to learn the mechanisms of work and interaction between the units of the organization. It may be important to learn even technology in detail to be able to coordinate the work of the employees, to consult and to control them. It is necessary to understand the functioning of the organization as a whole system. Thinking in abstract can be very helpful in it. Acquiring technical skills may be started from learning the principle of work of any system. A student may take his own university as a model and try to gain technical skills related to the functioning of the university. Thus, it will be the starting pint in developing your technical skills.

Developing interpersonal skills actually starts from our childhood and continues during our life. However, it is necessary to distinguish a set of crucial interpersonal or human skills that are important for our work in future. Communication, establishing relationship with people and being able to interact with them working at any level should be seen as major skills to be developed. It is necessary to rely on your personal experience in developing this set of skills. You should start developing your interpersonal skills from communication with your family, your peer students and university staff. If we think in abstract we will realize that all these people correspond to different levels of the organization and we may experiment in communicating with them. Then we will accumulate our experience of practical communication with these people and make it the basis of our communication in our work as managers. Thus, we should try to analyse our every day interaction with people, our success and possible mistakes to develop our interpersonal/human skills.

Diagnostic skills are also important for my future professional activity. It is actually possible to start developing these skills from your every day experience. Trying to predict some situations, possible difficulties or success may become a part of your every day experience. You may apply to simple situations, however try to analyse your predictions, if your were right or wrong, if you were able to work out a strategy in case of failure or how you were able to change your direction in critical situation.

Another set of important skills to start developing now is decision-making skills. Still decision making skills are crucial not only in for our professional activity but for our every day life. We make decisions every day; we can do it consciously and automatically. However, the best way to do it for us now to involve our analytical thinking and try to think over every problem we solve, all the possible solutions, identifying the best ways out, taking into consideration all their disadvantages and benefits. For example, when we have a choice where to go with our friends today and we have to decide. In most cases we tend to choose unconsciously or under the influence of our friends.  However, we should think of our own benefits in case of going to each place and conclude about the best place to visit. It is very simple but we provide ourselves with active experiments helping to develop our decision-making skills.

Developing time-management skills is better to be started as early as possible. Wise time-management helps us not only to become successful manager but to improve our life and productivity in general. Every day student routine provides us with a number of possible active experiments for developing our time-management skills. Thinking how to manage our time properly to be able to do in time all the tasks and to have time for our free time activities is our challenge. Managing your time properly every day demonstrating a perfect productivity can become every day experiment. This experience will definitely contribute into our professional skills development. I also try to follow Weightman’ (2004: 84) technique for effective time management, I  keep a diary where I list all the activities I do when I go along and then I analyse them and try to manage my time in more effective way.

Preparing for our practical classes and tasks makes a great contribution into our information handling skills development and we learn how to manage and to convey information effectively. We learn to choose different ways of presenting information for different occasions and in different circumstances, for different people as well. It corresponds to the way we will have to work with the information in our professional activity.

In conclusion, it should be noted that most of the skills that make an effective manager should be started to be developed on theoretical basis using our every day life as active practical experience. However, an effective manager should be ready to continue developing his skills during his life.