Assignment task: Please write a short reply to the paragraph below and include references:
1. What are the five most important managerial skills/characteristics in today's organizations for managers to be successful, and why did you select those as your top five?
- I believe the five most important skills are: efficiency, interpersonal skills to include emotional intelligence, leadership, communication (written and oral), and problem solving or decision making.
2. What managerial theory or theories do these skills/characteristics most align with that managers need to be able to apply to real-world situations?
- These skills fall under the human relations theory. This theory recognized that peoples' attitudes, perceptions, and desire played a role in their workplace performance. (Bright, et al, 2019). I believe that all of the skills mentioned above have the same thing in common which is being able to interact with, successfully communicate with, and manage the workforce.
3. Based on those five skills/characteristics, what are your top two in terms of strengths, and why? What are the two that you are weakest at, and why did you choose those? Provide examples
- I believe my biggest strengths out of the five skills listed are interpersonal skills coupled with emotional intelligence and leadership. I believe in leading by example and establishing connections with personnel early on. I would never ask my team to execute a task or objective that I myself would not do. An example of leading by example would be my physical fitness tests throughout my military career. In 20 years, I had one "good" score and everything else was excellent. The lowest score I ever received was 6 months after I had my first child and it was a wake up call for me to work hard to stay within excellent standards. After my second and third children were born, I made sure I was ready to score in the excellent category.
- I believe my two weakest skills of the five would efficiency and swift decision making. While I am capable of making decisions, at times I can get caught up in "analysis paralysis." The fear of making the wrong choice can lead me to over analyze a situation and in scenarios where time is a major factor, there is little to no room for over analysis. I learned to rely on my subject matter experts when I could. As far was efficiency being a weakness, this is largely due to the fact that I had a hard time delegating tasks. It was not that I didn't trust my team, it came from a "guilt" that I should be the one handling the task since I am capable. I had to learn that it is ok to delegate what I can and do what only I can do.
4. For the two skills/characteristics that are your weakest, how can you improve upon them to help ensure you would be an effective manager?
- When it comes to swift decision making or problem solving, I believe I can improve upon this by staying aware of the organizations needs, relying on subject matter experts to inform me or lend their expertise, and just letting go of the fear all together. I believe it is crucial that we do not become complacent in the work place so that we can be ready to pivot when necessary.
- I believe the same can be said about efficiency. Being able to identify my top 10% of workers that I believe can be trained and mentored to handle greater responsibility is key. Once that smaller team is established, it becomes easier to communicate why they are being asked to take on greater responsibility through delegation.
References:
Openstax, Bright, D. S., & Cortes, A. H. (2019). Managing and Performing. In Principles of management.