Free «Management Skills Improvement» Essay Sample

Introduction

Each and every manager in any given organization should have some basic management skills in order to manage an organization effectively, as well as motivate the team that he/she is managing. The main duties of any given manager in an organization should be motivate, encourage and lead workers with an aim of ensuring that they work together in order to attain the goal of the organization. Therefore, it is the role of the manager to organize, plan as well as control the various resources that an organization has, both human and capital resources. In order to carry out his/her duties in an organization successfully, the manager needs to posses some qualities and skills. This paper will figure out some of the management skills that I need to improve as a manager, in order to carry out managerial duties successfully and effectively.

One of the areas that I need to improve on as a manager is on communication skills. It is crucial for me as a manager to have excellent communication skills, in order to carry out my duties and responsibilities effectively and efficiently. Being a manager, I should have the ability to communicate effectively, so that I could communicate and explain the organization’s strategies as well as the vision to employees or members of his team. Ability of the manager to communicate effectively and efficiently is vital as it helps in ensuring that the various teams work in harmony toward the achievement of the team goals. It also plays a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness during the decision making process. The manager is not only required to posses strong communication abilities, but he/she is also required to be equipped with listening skills. He should possess the ability to respect as well as accommodate the opinions and views of the team members that he/she is leading. Excellent communication skills can aid in the building process of long term relationship among the team members. It can also help the member earn trust, as well as respect from the employees that he/she is leading. This area is extremely crucial for me as a manager, since it determines the level of growth as well the direction that the organization will take, both in the short and long run.

Another crucial area that I need to improve as a manager is the decision making skills. My managerial functions include solving various problems that an organization is facing. In order to solve these problems successfully, I have to make some crucial decisions regarding which course of action I should take. Therefore, I need decision skills in order to improve my thinking ability, as well as my critical and logical skills in order to come up with sound solutions to various problems that an organization faces.

The next area that I need to improve on is my interpersonal skills. As a manager, I need interact freely with different people. My work involves interacting and working with people from various cultural, educational, economical and social backgrounds; therefore I should be able to work and deal with different people. Therefore, I need to improve my interpersonal skills, so as to improve my team building abilities, as well as build and improve my relationship with various subordinates.

The next area that I also need to improve is on my leadership skills. I need to posses leadership skills, to be a successful manager. As a leader, I am expected to guide, motivate as well as lead my team members. It is my duty to ensure that the members of my team have the required resources in order to attain their goals successfully. It is my duty as a leader to identify the strengths, as well as the weaknesses of my team members. I am also expected to allocate various tasks to my team members, depending on their weaknesses and strengths. I need to be a strong leader, so as to empower my team members, as well as posses the ability of working independently as a situation demands. I need to improve my leadership skills so as to be successful in managerial functions.

Finally, as a manager I need to improve my conceptual skills. I need to have sharp theoretical skills. This will help me have the ability of viewing the organization from what can be termed as wide angle. As I manager, I need to have excellent conceptual skills, so as to analyze as well as study various complex situations in a deep way. This will help me come up with strategies that will help in ensuring that the organization is functioning in a smooth way. The conceptual skills will also help in improving my decision making capabilities. As a strong manager, I should be capable to foresee various changes with an organization. I should also have the ability to deal with multiple tasks, when various circumstances demand of me to do so. I need to posses these skills in order to run the organization toward the successful attainment of its goals, objective and mission.

Sources Summary

Summary 1

Communication Skills

Communication skills are techniques and ways that enable one to put their message across to others clearly and without ambiguity. They are significant to success in both professional and public life, as they empower people to speak in public with a lot of confidence and authority in every situation. I choose to improve this area of managerial skills, because communication skills are cited as the most influential and decisive factor in management of a company, as it significantly contributes to the success of any job.

Capability of conveying a message across successfully means that both the sender and the receiver of the message understand the information, which is exchanged as a result of communication. Communication skills are fundamental features in the management skills of a company, because when communication is not successful, the ideas and thoughts that one conveys will not reflect his or her own ideas; thus, causing miscommunication and failures. These will create obstacles that will stand in one’s way, both professionally and personally (Craig, 2009).

Improving Communication Skills

There are various means of communication which vary from verbal, non-verbal, participatory, non-participatory to mass communication. Each communication variety has its own features, which need to be improved in order to foster the entire management of the company.

Verbal communication refers to the spoken communication. It could be verbal communication on an interpersonal level or mass communication. This is whereby one speaks to a large group of people which may involve public speaking. One is considered an effective communicator when he or she can speak fluently, audibly and clearly, as well as write and read well in the languages used in the course of communication. Effective communication also involves the capability to compose and send basic information that is necessary for the daily management of an organization.

Communication is enhanced when the recipient also improves respective skills of receiving and listening. This incorporates receiving information without making assumptions, as well as placing biases aside and listening actively and empathetically, so as to understand the message that the sender is trying to deliver. The recipient is also required to take note of the body gestures as it communicates a lot of information to the speaker. For instance, when the listener is leaning on or playing with objects in the course of the conversation, then it simply means that the listener’s attention is not concentrated on the communication message. These skills help to improve the public image of a company in situations where company’s members represent the company in a conference or meeting.

Another important aspect of verbal communication skill is the technique of public speaking. A public speaker should be able to control stage fright effectively and deal with distractions appropriately. They are also supposed to gather their ideas and information, organize required materials and plan their speech in terms of its beginning, body and conclusion, prior to delivering it. This way, they would be capable to make a fluent speech that would make an impression on the listeners. Public speaking skills are fundamental to managers as they are the ones who give speeches to their subordinates or while addressing other companies.

There are instances when a manager is required to speak to an audience consisting of the dumb. In such circumstances, the speaker is supposed to be equipped with non-verbal communication skills. This involves the use of gestures, eye contact and facial expressions while communicating. If one fails to use gestures while speaking, for example, nodding the head to indicate positive reinforcement, the speaker is perceived to be tiring and not engaging. Another instance is facial expressions. Take, for instance, the importance of smiles; it is regarded as a powerful tool that indicates happiness, friendliness, warmth and affection. Moreover, eye contact is also a key aspect of non-verbal communication. It helps keep audience continuously involved, alert and interested in the conversation.

Good communication skills act as a fundamental tool in giving a company a competitive advantage over its competitor’s. As a result, it is essential to improve the communication skills of the employees and even the management team, so as to improve the managerial area consequently. In order to ensure effective and efficient communication between employers and peers, the critical areas of effective communication should be addressed, as follows:

The power of listening; this involves paying attention to the listener to ensure that a person who receives information has a grip of the message, which is put across.

Questioning techniques; basic questions can be one of the most powerful communication devices available to use. People can predict adequate consequences in terms of what is expected of both the recipient and the sender of the message, by using questions to interact in day to day conversations (Vries, 2003).

Powers of persuasion; a speaker can use various means to convince the audience. For an example, he may deploy lies to persuade. Lies come in numerous shapes and sizes. Hence, the speaker can lie to the audience only when it is appropriate, especially when doing advertisements.

Telling stories from business life to inspire and motivate; this technique can be used by managers when addressing their subordinates, especially during motivational talks. In the course of their communication, managers can use inspiring stories of known successful people to motivate the workers and employees.

Countering communication barriers; this is a beneficial tool, as it enables a speaker to know how to converse with an audience that does not understand the language that he is speaking.

Assertive communication; this refers to a technique of communication that leads in the list for success or failure in any workplace situation. Employers, who exercise aggressive communication, receive the best response from their employees because there is a tendency of employees reciprocating to assertive commands from their bosses as compared to lenient employers.

Looking for a compromise; many times, managers are faced with the task of solving conflicts that arise in the course of their managerial duties. Instead of making one party win in the course of the argument, they should look for solutions that satisfy both parties’ needs. Compromised but focused solution is more effective than one party getting what it wants at the other party’s expense (Kleiman, 2010).

Summary 2

Leadership Skills

Leadership is an indispensable skill in ensuring efficient management. Communication is a two way traffic entailing both giving and taking of information. For management to be effective, a true leader should ensure that the process of divulging information is effective and interactive. For effective communication, a strong manager ensures that the recipients of information are listening before divulging the information. This is to avoid unnecessarily repetitions and, as a result, wastage of time (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). They should also speak slowly and clearly so as to ensure that the information is not misunderstood or misinterpreted; thus, resulting in poor work done. Furthermore, an efficient manager should include the usage of diagrams, if necessary, and encourage the recipients to take notes so as to have a reference material, in case they need to confirm some details. The recipients should ensure that they listen carefully to what is being said and also ask questions, in case of not understanding.

Another critical leadership skill is planning. For effective planning that can help improve the company’s management, the following steps should be taken into consideration: First of all, managers should evaluate what they want to achieve by considering the objectives. After that, the available resources should be analyzed, and this involves the available equipment, knowledge, skills and the right attitude. Once the existing possibilities are evaluated, alternatives should be considered, and an amicable decision reached. After all these have been done, the plan should be drawn up and written down, evaluated and effectively executed.

Setting the example is another critical tool that can be used to improve management. This skill entails showing other people the proper way of conducting themselves, once they are part of the group, as well as sharing ideas with people being managed, in order to reach amicable solutions. In order to ensure they set a strong example, managers should imagine themselves as part of the group and think of the ways, in which they would like to be led; then apply these ideas in their leadership model. The essence of setting an example is to help keep the group together, in order to get the job done through set of actions of the entire group. Setting the example is a more valuable skill than any other verbal leadership skill, since human beings depend on each other, and they tend to do what their leaders are doing. As a result, they will tend to imitate their leader’s characteristics whether positive or negative. Therefore, leaders should be able to set positive and exemplary characteristics to be followed, so as to ensure efficient and effective management of their company.

Sharing leadership is the art of leaders and participants working together to achieve a common objective. When participants work together with managers they tend to be motivated to perform effectively, since they feel that they are part of management and the overall planning and decision making process. In sharing leadership participants feel that they are part of problem solving and decision making group. Authoritarian and competitive styles of leadership are less responsive to the complex challenges that society is facing today. For this reason, people being led through authoritarian leadership tend not to perform as well as those that are in a shared relationship leadership. Less experienced and insecure leaders tend to employ authoritarian leadership model as a move to improve self image and also gain respect among their members. However, this does not always happen as expected, and it even results in loosing face by these leaders. The mature and talented leaders are more flexible and are not reluctant to encourage their members to engage in group participation and even ownership of ideas. This is due to the benefit these leaders realize that a shared problem is a problem solved. Therefore for effective and efficient management leaders should adopt sharing leadership as a leadership skill.

Counseling as a leadership skill entails listening to employees’ problems, empathizing with them and even offering solutions. A decent manager should be able to recognize potential problems facing their employees both in the work place and also personal, meet with them face to face and discuss the issues involved, empathize and even offer possible solutions. If managers are to be effective leaders, they should posses counseling skills, which include the patience to listen, ability to sympathize and the perceptiveness to give individuals the power to determine solutions to their own problems, with appropriate guidance. For counseling to be effective, a manger or leader should maintain an open and friendly attitude when talking with the employees, be sympathetic to their problems and avoid being judgmental (Juneja et al, 2011).

Furthermore, a true leader should ensure that he or she follows up counseling meetings that have been held so as to find out if the employees’ problems were solved. They should also make themselves available and keep in touch with the employees in case of need or any new developments that may arise. A leader with counseling skills can relate well with his or her employees since they know the background well and, as such, can prevent the occurrence of detrimental stuff that can ruin the work output of their employees.

Effective teaching is also indispensable as part of a leadership skill. It entails the process of increasing knowledge skills and attitudes of the group and its participants, as a whole. For effective teaching to take place there should be a set of actions implemented. Learning entails, first of all, choosing of appropriate objectives, which are relevant to the task being undertaken. Secondly, it is crucial to provide a discovery experience that helps the learners understand the need in the skills, demonstrating and explaining the skill, allowing the learners to practice the skill and, finally, evaluating the process (Kleiman, 2010).

Summary 3

Decision Making Skills

Decision making skill is the art of choosing one course of action from many alternatives. These skills are truly crucial to a manager having in mind that a manager has many decisions to make in the company/firm. A manager’s ability to make the best decision will be based on many things, including his ability to do so, the knowledge he/she has and also his/her experience. Sometimes there is only one alternative and thus there is no decision making to be involved (Kaifi, 2009). However, one can still decide to take the alternative or leave it, and thus, there can still be decision making. The manager uses what he/she knows to make a decision, including the examination of the alternative, since his decision is expected to bring some definite outcome.

Decisions can be made by managers alone, or the managers may decide to involve some other people or even the entire management team. The managers decide to make decisions on their own when the decision is critical to the firm, and it needs to be kept as a top secret for the organization to succeed. Some decisions need to be made by the entire management team, since this way a better alternative can be achieved, which is beneficial for the organization.

The managers need to have various qualities in order to make ethical decisions. These qualities include creativity, innovativeness and swiftness in thinking. Lack of the above qualities makes most of the managers make poor decisions that are costly to the organizations, at the end. Other managers do not even understand the decision making process which should be followed step by step, in order for them to make the best decision for the benefit of the firm. For a manager to make the best decisions, he or she should exercise the authority to make the decision; make sure that the decision made is ethical, and all the steps of the decision making process are followed. This way, the manager can have confidence in the decision made (Kaifi, 2009).

Improving Decision Making Skills

Care should be taken when making decisions having in mind that the decisions made in the organization affects the organization critically. It is thus my chief concern on how managers can improve their decision making skills. The managers, first of all, need to understand the whole process of decision making, which is as bellow.

Step 1, you are trying to solve a problem or utilize the opportunity, when making any decision. The first step is thus recognizing the problem or opportunity.

Step 2, analysis of the situation. Try to know how the situation is and how you would like it to be. Try to be as specific as possible.

Step 3, know what you want to achieve, your goals.

Step 4, having in mind that this is decision making, look for many alternatives as possible. This will help you choose the best from the alternatives.

Step 5, evaluating of the consequences of choosing the alternatives.

Step 6, at this step, you are supposed to select the best alternative. Care should be taken at this stage.

Step 7, this step involves actions on the alternative selected.

Step 8, one is expected to accept the responsibility of the decision made, including acceptance of the consequences.

Step 9, this is the last step, and it involves evaluation of the results to see whether the expected results have been achieved.

As said earlier, the manager should understand and follow the decision making process as described above for him to be able to make the best decision. The manager also needs to understand the relationship among decisions in order to make a sound decision. Some decisions are interrelated, and one decision affects the other. Therefore, this should be of immense concern to the manager when making the pilot decision (Jones & George, 2009).

Some managers make decisions by following a certain time table, while others do not take decision making seriously, since they regard themselves as experienced based on the decisions made earlier. However, for the best alternative to be chosen, various alternatives need to be examined.

Summary 4

Interpersonal Skills

Management skills are indispensable in any setup, should it be formal or informal organization. One of the most popular management skills in the present management of an organization includes interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills can be, in many cases, defined as the creation of a good relationship between the employer and the employees; but also recently many scholars have discovered the third party which is the external surroundings. This means that for effective management skills in any business or organization structure there must be three parties, such employers, employees and external link such as customers, suppliers or government body. For effective interpersonal skills management, managers must employ different personal skills so that to increase positive relationship with organizational workers (Katz 1955). In many cases, managers are viewed as people’s representative with the ability to tackle people’s private and public issues. Managers should be able to create a healthy work environment between the executives and the subordinates. They have the responsibility to make sure that they are equipped with proper interpersonal skills so that they are able to handle daily workers relationship. One must identity the most modern and proper interpersonal skills in relation to improving the management skills of any set organization.

Being an organizational manager is a role that many people desire but it is the hardest job position that one will ever desire to have, if he or she does not have the interpersonal motivation to work with other people and is not prepared to put aside his or her personal interest. There are a number of positive things than one can employ so as to increase the relationship with his or her workers. Let us look at each one and evaluate how they improve interpersonal skills with organizational workers.

Clear Definition of Duties

Clear definition of workers and managers duties will increase personal relationship among workers in the organization. This is because it will reduce the chances of organization having many roles, which sometimes collide, due to poor definition of duties of each worker. In a proper functioning organization, the key to success is that there should be a clear chain of command and every worker should be aware to whom she or he should report, in case of any complain (Knouse, 2009). Another issue is that, for better relationship in any organization, it is a smart idea for a manager to explain and identity the most critical tasks, as well as inform about it workers respectively so as to accomplish these tasks. However, managers should keep in mind some less productive task, as well, since they should be performed correctly, too.

Always Delegate Responsibilities

Delegation of tasks and other work activities in any organization will help create a constructive environment not only for managers but also for employees. This is because most people feel that they are a part of the organization, and this also improves how people relate with each other. A manager should, in many cases, delegate some tasks which are easier to complete, and also provide some clear instructions on how to complete the task so that to motivate worker in their performance.

Give others Chance to Evaluate your Performance

Managers should allow workers examine their performance, to improve interpersonal skills within the organization. This way, workers may feel that even their bosses are free to be examined in terms of their activities. Managers should give the workers a chance to feel that they are a part of the organization.

Encouraging Seminars Participation

Managers should encourage workers to participate in various seminars on how to improve productivity in an organization. This is a bright idea because workers will understand their role in the organization and also learn new ways of improve the organizational performance. Interpersonal skills will increase if workers through various seminars are thought on how to relate each other in term of working as a team (Mujtaba, 2005).

Some of other ways of improving interpersonal skills in an organization include smiling, appreciating people’s idea, resolving conflicts, communicating clearly, listening to others and working as a team.

The above tactics once used by many organization managers have proven to be effective in relation to interpersonal management.

Smile

When manager always smile with their workers, they pose a positive image and, as a result, workers feel that what they are doing is right. When managers smile, it provides a compelling interpersonal communication in any organizational system, since workers may feel free to express their idea in a right way.

Active Listening

Managers with interpersonal skills will always pay attention to what workers want, and in many cases take their time to internalize the complaints and, finally, come up with proper decisions. Other interpersonal skills, as explained in this paper, include making workers function as a team, so that they may exchange their ideas and also achieve the set objective in an effective way. Others include solving organization disputes in a clear and transparent manner, so that both parties may come into agreement. In conclusion, managers with strong interpersonal skills must be always transparent and possess strong communication skills.

Interpersonal skills in management industry are highly beneficial because they enable the organizational agents correlate, in one way or another. These skills are the most superior or essential form of management skills, since they enable all parts of organization function together. This skill requires that someone who is dedicated to his work and who is willing to work with other people. He must always be ready for positive and negative reactions from the employees and other stakeholders. Some of these interpersonal management skills include as follows:

1. Have positive mind.

2. Have the ability to influence others.

3. Have the ability to motivate others.

The journal indicates that interpersonal skills are sensitive in any firm and that clear selection should be done in terms of choosing, who should be leading an organization in terms of management. When a manager, who possesses this skill, is effectively selected it will be an added advantage for faster growth of an organization.

Summary 5

Conceptual Skills

Conceptual management can be termed as the process of working in various demanding situations with an aim of developing a solid plan before engaging oneself in any given project. It is one of the set of management skills that are used together with interpersonal, technical and communication skill to help a manager perform various managerial functions in an organization. In comparison to other sets of managerial skills, conceptual skills tend to be extremely hard to acquire, since this process assumes learning them from a different person. Many authors have argued that conceptual skills are more of individual traits than acquired skills. There is a need to improve conceptual skills as a manager in order to carry out managerial duties effectively and efficiently. Various studies have been carried out with an aim of understanding how conceptual skills can be improved by any given manager (Postrel, 2009). Research has shown that one needs to understand the motivation if he has to have the required conceptual skills to move the organization forward. A manager’s duty is to keep subordinates well motivated at all times.

A manager has to understand what the employees need in order to build a well motivated work force. It is extremely crucial for a manager to have a wide view of the various factors that affect the employee’s motivation, both in the present and future (Rahman & Yang, 2009). This will help him/her to have a solid frame work of dealing with emergencies when they arise, in the organization.

Secondly studies have suggested that conceptual skills can be improved through training, thus, aiming at efficiency improvement in an organization. It is the duty of the manager to develop a mechanism of accessing training, so as to improve conceptual skills. Research has shown that people who undergo some training with an aim of improving their conceptual skills tend to show some signs of improvement in the area of acquiring knowledge.

The studies have shown that the conceptual skills that were learnt are easily applied by managers at the work place. Therefore, in order to improve the conceptual skills, a manager needs to undergo some training with an aim of improving the areas where one is weak. In order to improve conceptual skills, it is necessary for a manager to strive for efficiency. The manager should ensure that he/she does everything the right way. The manager should make appropriate use of all the resources available to the organization and enhance efficiency in the way that those resources are used in the accomplishment of the organization’s goals.

Conceptual skills improvement involves enhancing the effectiveness in the organization. It is up to the manager to ensure that high levels of quality are maintained in the organization. He has to ensure that each and every employee does perform the task that he is assigned to undertake. It is crucial for the manager to ensure that he continually improves from one level to another, due to the ever changing work environment. This will play a significant role in improving the manager’s conceptual skills. Manager should be well informed of the various changes that are taking places in the world; this will help him be prepared for changes in his managerial roles, at any time. The managers’ conceptual skills of anticipating future changes are crucial as they help him to adapt to changes in the work place effectively (Pudlowski, 2009).

Finally, in order to improve conceptual skills, a manger should have self awareness. He should have an appraisal mechanism in place. A skilful manager should be self aware, and he should be appraising himself. It is the duty of the manager to serve the team, and he should be ready to hear the opinions and views of other people regarding his performance. Self awareness entails understanding one’s weaknesses and strengths, and by means of working hard aids in the improvement of the weak areas.

Improvement Development Program

Improvement Area 1-Communication Skills

Improvement constitutes coming up with a plan of implementing the above discussed ways of improving communication skills. In an organization, various measures will have to be put in place, in order to realize improvements in the manner, in which information is communicated both within and outside the organization. These include, as follows:

Training of employees - this is the area, whereby both employees and employers go through training courses, so as to improve their communication skills. The training will cover areas such as how to do presentation, including presentation formats and how managers can exercise assertive communication effectively, among other skills. Through training, the organization will be able to achieve the required improvements.

Proper selection of employees - this is accomplished when conducting interviews, whereby the communication skills of the interviewers such as the way they present themselves and their confidence in speaking are evaluated. This way, the management is capable acquiring workers who are smart and efficient in their communication.

Communication skills seminars - with today’s competitive world, effective communication is more crucial than ever as it is the foundation on which organizations and careers are built and developed. It also forms a crucial component that determines the success or failure of the organization. Allowing managers and employees to participate in communication skills seminars will help them enhance their interpersonal and presentation skill, as well as perfect their professional writing and communicating skills.

Improvement Areas 2-Leadership Skills

Having discussed the above leadership skills that can help managers improve their managerial skills and abilities, I will now divulge in a development plan that, if properly adhered to, can help ensure that an organization has committed and efficient leaders who have outstanding quality leadership skills and who are output oriented. Moreover, the following ideas can be integrated, in addition to the above skills, so as to ensure that the leadership skills are a success and also that efficient management is attained.

Employees should be allowed to choose individuals who, they believe, can make strong leaders and whom they trust. This will give them the confidence that they need in their leaders. This can enable them divulge private and confidential information to them without any fear or doubt. Having the ability to choose their own leaders will also help the participants feel being part of the decision making process and, as such, boost their confidence and level of reliability in the process.

In addition to the above, the chosen leaders should ensure that they effectively focus on the problems affecting their employees and suggest possible solutions to them, without showing bias or favoritism.

Furthermore, the chosen leaders should be able to develop effective strategies to ensure that they implement the above discussed skills, as well as ensure that efficient management is obtained. The effective strategies may include educating them on the necessary management skills and ensuring that they put them into practice for effective and efficient leadership.

Improvement Area 3-Decision Making Skills

One should not fail to choose an action simply because he or she cannot recognize the possibility. An action should not be chosen, when the possible outcomes are unknown. Some unskilled managers will go ahead and choose an action when they have not considered the possible outcomes. In most cases, this brings about negative results. Choosing an action, when the possible outcome is not predictable, will mean that one does not care whether the results will be negative or positive, thus, will accept any results. This attitude, therefore, should be avoided.

On should not overestimate or underestimate certain information. This is often done by the unskilled managers, and the results of this may have a significant impact on an organization. Managers should take all the information about the alternatives seriously.

One should not collect information, which will not be necessary in the decision making process. This will increase the time spent in selecting the best alternative, and thus, slow down the entire decision making process. One should not select an alternative simply because he or she believes that everything should work, by guess. Risk taking is one of the characteristics of entrepreneurs and its part of the business. One should also know that, the higher the risk, the higher the returns expected. One should not be bias when selecting the best alternative. One needs to get the facts about the alternatives, in order to come up with the best alternative and the best decision, as well.

One should not fail to have in mind what he or she wants to accomplish when making the decision. If one does not know what he or she is striving to accomplish, then he or she may end up making the wrong decision, which will be to blame. One should not make decisions when stressed tired or under the influence of drugs. This will enable the manager to make the best decision. When making decisions, one should avoid making excuses and be ready to face the consequences of the selected alternative, having in mind that they may be predicted. One should also realize that some decisions are not reversible, and thus, when making decisions, one should take care and also try to foresee the possible consequences.

The managers should avoid the above mentioned mistakes in order to make the best decisions. There are some other things that the managers should do to try and improve their decision making skills. Some of them include:

The managers should know their abilities, authority and the nine steps of the decision making process mentioned above in this paper. The managers also should make use of workshops of improving decision making skills. This will, in one way or another, assist them improve their decision making process.

The organization should ensure that their manager has the qualities that will enable him make smart decisions. These qualities include creativity, innovativeness and swiftness in thinking. The managers should know when they should involve the rest of the management team in the decision making process and when they should not do this.

The managers should also ensure that they do not take the decision making process personal. This will be for the benefit of the manager and also the organization. When all the above is followed keenly, managers will be able to make the best selection of alternative and thus, the best decision.

Improvement Area 4- Interpersonal skills

Development plan in improvement of interpersonal skills will be immensely effective, because it will pave the way for proper or effective organizational skills. In an organization, several measures have to be taken or carried out, so that to ensure that there is a considerable improvement in the manner how workers relate in the organization. This number of measures includes proper selection of managers, training of managers, evaluating of both managers and workers, rewarding best managers and employees and promotions of workers and managers.

Proper Selection of Managers

Effective selection program should be put in place so that managers, who are employed in any organization, could prove that they have outstanding quality and qualifications, in order to prove the competence in providing excellent management of an organization. This way, the manager should be capable to provide quality leadership in the sense that he/she should be a taught person, who can understand the organization and provide reasonable interpersonal relationship, so that workers work as a team.

Training of Managers

The second step one in improving management skills should be frequent training of manager aimed at improving their interpersonal skills. This will be achieved, if managers and workers are allowed to attend workshops where experts provide some ideas on ways of positive relationships in an organization.

Evaluating Both Managers and Workers

A plan should be implemented, which will help cross monitor whether managers with the responsibility of creating a positive relationship are in balance with their mandate. In case that any deviations are discovered, proper measures should be taken to ensure that other managers with proper interpersonal skills are given the opportunity to lead workers.

Rewarding Best Managers and Employers

Rewarding system should be implemented where managers with sound interpersonal skills are rewarded, as well as workers are allowed to select managers whom they think have the best management skills.

Promotions of Workers and Managers

Promotion is one of the best ways that one should introduce so that to maintain or improve interpersonal skills. Managers or workers, who perform their tasks well and prove that they are capable of making positive change in an organization, should be promoted to a higher level of management or higher level of responsibility. This would motivate them in that service, which they provide in an organization, is accepted and recognized, and this way, the organization encourages both managers and employees in active increase of their performance.

Improvement Area Five Conceptual Skills

Manager need to put a lot of efforts in order to improve his or her conceptual skills. This part provides a detailed plan of what I should do in order to improve on my conceptual skills as a manager. Improvement of my conceptual skills is extremely crucial for an effective and efficient undertaking of my managerial functions. Therefore, this plan will act as a guideline to my improvement process, both in the short run and long run.

One of the steps, which I intend to take in order to improve my conceptual skills, is to attend as much training as relate to improving my managerial skills. These training workshops will help me gain some personal traits that will be useful in improving my conceptual skills. At these trainings, I will learn from various people how to handle various issues related to management of people in an organization.

My plan will include developing a feedback mechanism to get the opinions, as well as views of the various stakeholders in the organization on issues affecting the organization. This will help me understand the various issues that affect the organization and come up with programs to handle some of these challenges, which the organization faces. The feedback will also help me have self awareness, which will be crucial for me in identifying my strengths and weaknesses.

Conclusion

Strong management skills are highly necessary in any organization, since they offer one effective way of improving the productivity of that entity. Proper management skills should be employed as discussed above, so that to increase the performance of any company or firm. We have discussed five management skills, which are popularly used around the world, such as interpersonal skills, leadership skills, communication skills, conceptual skills and technical skills. We have discussed each skill and further evaluated how beneficial it is in terms of effective management of an organization. We also looked at effective development plan, which will enable develop the above skills so as to bring them to the next, higher level.

In conclusion, communication skills form the main area of improvement that acts as a success factor in an organization. The organization gains a position, whereby it can achieve a remarkable improvement in the general management of the organization, if the company engages itself with proper selection of workers and sufficient training of the workers and managers in terms of their communication skills.

Time management skills are essential for anyone, who works towards achieving high results in life. As they say, time is money, so it is with the management. Time management skills help one become efficient and more productive, since most of his or her working time is utilized properly and effectively. Time management comes with a detailed plan that will prioritize the tasks that one is required to undertake. These skills also equip one with the capabilities of multitasking and effective control of tasks.

In conclusion, interpersonal skills are extremely powerful in an organization, as it deals with people’s relationship in a given entity. We identified various skills, which can be employed by managers. We discovered that, for any organization to be effective, the company should employ management who tacks efforts to keep workers as a team. A proper development or improvement plan should be established that will implement the above ideas in actions, so as to achieve improved management system in any organization.

Another area, which we examined, was conceptual skills or the ways, how managers should look at the organization, at large. There are different management skills in providing both the vision and mission of an organization. These skills are mostly employed by top management or executives, and they are highly essential in defining the future of the company or organization. As discussed in this paper, management should be able to provide clear goals and establish channels or ways of establishing those goals. Finally, organizations that are famous worldwide (such as Coca Cola) have a strong structure management system, which is continuously improved as the technology changes with time.