Managerial Competencies and Skills

• Managerial competencies and skills include defining managerial competency, defining skills, and identifying and evaluating competencies required by managers.

Competency

• Competency combines knowledge, skills, behavior, and attitudes for personal effectiveness.

Managerial Competencies

• Managerial competencies include the sets of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes needed to be effective in different managerial jobs and organizations.

Skills

• Skills translate knowledge into action.
• "Hard skills" refer to technical abilities and knowledge that can be measured and learned through training, like programming, or accounting.
• "Soft skills" are personal attributes like communication & teamwork, which are more difficult to quantify and often involve interpersonal interactions.

Managerial Skills

• Managerial skills include conceptual, interpersonal/human, and technical skills.

Conceptual Skill

• Conceptual skill involves the ability to think analytically and solve complex problems.
• These abilities allow an individual to understand complex scenarios and develop creative solutions, involving breaking down problems and solving them.

Interpersonal/Human Skills

• Interpersonal/Human skills involve the ability to work well with others individually and in a group.
• These skills involve the ability to communicate or interact well with other people through empathy, conflict management, emotional intelligence, positive attitude, and listening.

Technical Skills

• Technical skills include job-specific knowledge and techniques needed to proficiently perform specific tasks (e.g., accountants, engineers, doctors, attorneys, etc.).

Six Managerial Competencies

• Six competencies are essential for managerial effectiveness in an organization: communication, planning and financial management, teamwork, strategic action, global awareness, and emotional intelligence/self-management.

Communication Competency

• Communication competency involves effectively transferring and exchanging information that leads to understanding between individuals.
• Communication competency is essential to effective managerial performance.
• Managers get things done through people, using verbal, written and non-verbal communication through formal and informal channels, as well as networking, negotiating and using technology.
• Informal communication refers to casual and unofficial forms of communication.
• Formal communication represents the flow of official information through proper, predefined channels and routes.
• Negotiation involves negotiating on behalf of the team over roles & resources.

Planning and Financial Management Competency

• Planning and financial management competency requires establishing what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, what resources are required, and monitoring its implementation.
• Time management and financial knowledge is of the essence.
• This competency relies heavily on conceptual skills and technical skills.
• Involves information-gathering, analysis and problem-solving, planning and organizing projects, time management, budgeting and financial management, investment and financial decisions, and managing dividend policies.

Teamwork Competency

• Teamwork in an organizational setting allows for getting tasks and projects done collectively through the effort of a group of employees.
• Benefits associated with teamwork are improved motivation, increased morale, innovation, and product or service quality.
• Managers in organizations that utilize teams can be more effective by designing teams, creating a supportive environment, and managing team dynamics.

Strategic Action Competency

• Strategic action competency involves planning, assessing, and executing projects to help an organization achieve its goals to understanding the business environment, industry, and organization to take strategic action.
• This involves understanding the industry to analyze trends and changes in the business environment and the organization, including strategic intent, culture, structure, and strengths & weaknesses.
• Taking strategic actions involves making decisions that are consistent with the firm's mission & goals

Global Awareness Competency

• Global awareness competency involves doing managerial work, drawing on resources from multiple countries, and serving markets that span multiple cultures and regions.
• Requires diversity and cultural knowledge and understanding, as well as being open and sensitive to it.
• This includes cultural knowledge and understanding, staying informed about the business environment globally, recognizing their impact on the business, and fluency in more than one language.
• Also, cultural openness and sensitivity involve recognizing the great variation within any culture and avoiding stereotyping, and by adjusting behavior when interacting with people from various national, ethnic, & cultural backgrounds.

Emotional Intelligence and Self-Management Competency

• Emotional intelligence (EI) enables managers to process emotional information accurately and efficiently
• This competency enables a manager to perceive, assimilate, understand, and manage emotions, to avoid distracting emotions from influencing thought and actions
• This relies on emotional intelligence: recognizing one's emotions & how they affect others and self-management: understanding your emotions & how to control them & taking responsibility for your actions.
• Also involves integrity and ethical conduct, personal drive and resilience, balancing work and life issues, self-awareness and development, and spiritual intelligence.