Managerial Skills – Three Types

Do you have managerial skills to manage your own company? What are you thinking about that? Can you be a real manager with all skills necessary for you and your company?

Business owners will be entrepreneurs until they become managers. When they become managers, they will start feeling frustrated because they need to deal with really managerial problems. Management is not a simple task. Management needs knowledge and experience.Therefore, there are hierarchy, and possibilities to go through that hierarchy, rising to the top. You cannot find, or possibilities will be very low for individuals after receiving educational skill to become top managers. For entrepreneurial skills you can read more in 10 Smart Skills Every Entrepreneur Need Now.

Here, I want to obtain the three basic managerial skills as well as their connection to hierarchical structure in the company.

What are Managerial Skills?

Simply, managerial skills are knowledge to fulfill some activities or tasks. This knowledge can be learned. However, it also can be acquired through practical fulfillment of these activities. Therefore, skills can be acquired through learning and experience of individuals.

There are many definitions about skills that define it as some type of talent. Talent is something personal in an individual and represent a native gift from the nature about something in that individual. All individuals cannot be artists. Usually artists are born with the gift of art and after that they develop their talent in quality art skills through educational systems.

When we talk about managerial skills, those are skills used from managers that enable them maintaining efficiency in the way how employees complete their working tasks. Because of that managers must have skills with which they will manage people and technology to ensure an effective and efficient realization of their working tasks.

Three types of managerial skills

Robert Katz identifies three types of skills that are essential for a successful management process:

• Technical,
• Conceptual and
• Human or interpersonal managerial skills.

Technical Skills

As the name of these skills tells us, these are skills about techniques of completion of tasks. These skills are not only for working on machines or other equipment, but also they are skills need to performed sales, marketing and so on. For example, some individual work in a sales department and have skills about sales that were developed through education and experience. This person is perfect for the sales manager because he has great technical skills about sales.

Technical skills are most important for first-level managers, but for the top managers, these skills are not significant requirements. As we go through a hierarchy from the bottom to higher levels, the technical skills lose their signification.

Conceptual Skills

Conceptual skills are ability or knowledge of managers for abstract thinking that means to see the whole through analysis and diagnose of different states and to predict the future state of the business as a whole. Why are managers need these skills? Firstly, one business has more business elements or functions as selling, marketing, finance, production… All of these business elements have different goals even completely opposed as marketing and production. These skills help top managers to look outside from the goals of single business elements and make decisions that will satisfy overall business goals.

Conceptual skills are more vital for top managers, little for mid-level managers, and it is not required for first-level managers. As we go from a bottom of the managerial hierarchy to the top, significance of these skills is increasing.

Human or Interpersonal Managerial Skills

Human or interpersonal managerial skills are knowledge of managers to work with people. One of the most important tasks for managers is to work with people. Without people, there is a not necessary need for management and managers. These skills will enable managers to become leaders, to motivate employees for better completion of their tasks, to make more effective use of human potential in the business… These are most important skills for managers.

Interpersonal managerial skills are essential equally on all hierarchical levels in the company.

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These are the basic skills required for a successful management as a process. Some authors present other skills that when I am thinking about them, they are some part from these three primary skills.

Let’s take an example with skills about controlling. I think that this is one of the managerial functions, and we perform controlling through our interpersonal managerial skills that we described previously combined with other. Other additional skills that I find in the theory are skills about decision making. This is the process and not the skills. When we have conceptual skills, we will make a better decision. Furthermore, when we have technical skills, we will make a better technical decision. Because of that I think that the basic skills every manager has need are technical, conceptual and interpersonal managerial skills.

At the end, I want to note something about managerial skills and business potential energy. With bigger managerial skills our business will have larger business potential energy. Because of that this type of skills is in the category of business elements that can increase business potential energy of overall business.