Human Skills in Management Article

Human Skills in Management

Three prominent leaders in the field of organizational and managerial psychology authored the article Relative Importance of Managerial Skills for Predicting Effectiveness, which was published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology

Scott Tonidandel is a professor of psychology at Davidson College in North Carolina. Phillip W. Baddy and John W. Fleenor are both affiliated with the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. In their article, the authors examine four dimensions of managerial skill with regard to predicting managerial effectiveness. The dimensions explored are: administrative skill, citizenship behavior, human skill, and technical skill. Moreover, the authors discuss the relative importance of these dimensions with respect to variance by organizational level of the manager and by manager gender.

Supervisor evaluations and peer ratings of managerial skills obtained through 360-degree assessments of 733 managers enrolled in a nationally recognized leadership program constituted the data collection for this quantitative study. The research hypotheses were tested through the use of multiple regression analysis and relative weight analysis.

The ratings of managerial effectiveness, gathered from multiple resources for each study participant, indicate that all four of the dimension of managerial effectiveness play significantly important role as markers for predicting manager effectiveness.Although all of the dimensions were statistically significant, the human skills dimension was shown to be more significant than citizenship behavior and technical skill. Administrative skills were found to have the strongest (most significant) moderating impact on the relationship between effectiveness and manager skills. Moreover, gender was not found to significantly influence the effectiveness-skill dynamics, however, organizational level did prove to be a significant factor.

Discussion

Given that each of the manager skill dimensions assessed in this research was found to be significantly related to managerial effectiveness, the implications for those responsible for recruiting, hiring, developing, and supervising manager are clear. Measures specifically designed to gauge these skill dimensions should be a part of the work processes of both the managers and those who are charged with determining their performance evaluations. According to this study, particular attention should be paid to the skill levels and implementation of human skills and administrative skills -- and, as the authors note -- the higher up the organizational….....