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Key Interpersonal Skills for Managers (Part3)

October 26, 2011 By

A second group of important interpersonal skills for managers come under the heading of INNOVATING BEHAVIOURS. These are skills that develop a positive, forward thinking, and learning organisation.

Innovative Behaviours

  • Creating an Open Environment/ensuring Multilateral Communication – This skills is about facilitating organisational communication and making sure that there are the appropriate mechanisms for people to be aware of organisational goals and where they and others fit into the overall purpose. At it’s simplest level it is about listening and responding to information from staff as well as making sure they get key information.
  • Searching for alternatives – If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got. If you want to move forward as a learning organisation and solve thorny problems then alternatives to ways of working and doing things need to be available.
  • Learning from Others – In order to learn from other there needs to be an ethos that says that mentoring and coaching is an important activity to ensure the organisation shares vision and maximises skills.
  • Encouraging reasonable risks and Managing Failure – not everything we try is successful and works, but a learning organisation that will grow and develop needs to initiate activities that may well have risk of failure involved. Helping staff to accept the risk of failure and not stop them taking reasonable risks in the future is a vital interpersonal skill.
  • Providing Constructive Feedback – this speaks for itself, it’s not just about praise for a job well done but also the important skill of giving feedback of work not quite right in order to help the person do the job more effectively – without crushing morale or denting motivation.
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Key Interpersonal Skills for Managers (Part 2)

September 30, 2011 By

Key Interpersonal Skills for Managers (Part 2)

Supporting Behaviours continued.

Supporting behaviours are the most vital interpersonal skills for managers as they are key to motivating staff and making them want to work hard for themselves and the organisation. These so-called “soft skills” are some of the very hardest to develop for some managers involving, as they do, a large measure of self control and anger management for some! Some staff will bait managers and openly seek confrontation, but creating an environment where such behaviour has no place is the managerial challenge.

  • Recognising Contribution – This skill is about making sure that staff are given positive feedback and appropriate praise for work well done. It also means that ideas and developments initiated by a particular member of staff are also attributed appropriately. Some managers will take personal credit for their staff’s own work. Teamwork is fine, but individual effort towards a team goal needs recognising.
  • Managing Disrespect – This means managing disrespect and put-downs between staff and workgroups as well as open conflict and disrespect with managers. A culture of zero tolerance for bullying and unpleasant confrontation, or underhand sneakiness or “getting away with murder” makes a superior and supportive place to work.
  • Removing Obstacles – Staff will often get thwarted in what they are expected to do because of problems with resources, or other staff, or even relationships with the manager. It is the manager’s responsibility to not only listen so that he or she is aware of obstacles getting in the way of effective working
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Key Interpersonal Skills -for Managers (Part 1)

August 13, 2011 By

All managers at whatever level in the organisation from  the most junior with responsibility for a few staff to the person at the top responsible for everyone’s wellbeing and effectiveness need some key interpersonal skills to help their staff to grow and learn as well as develop their own skills. The goal is to make the organisation not only successful but also innovative and forward-thinking.

It is possible to classify key interpersonal skills under two headings: SUPPORTING BEHAVIOURS and INNOVATING BEHAVIOURS.

Supporting behaviours

These are the most important interpersonal skills for an effective organisation

  • Building Consensus – this is about understanding the skills of managing conflict resolution and managing agreement
  • Focusing on priorities – helping staff to become more effective is not about supporting them to work harder per se. Its not about efficiency-efficiency is about doing the right job, effectiveness is about doing the right job right. A manager’s job is to make sure staff are doing the right job right.
  • Leading by example – Managers can’t expect staff to follow their leadership if it is perceived that the rules the manager want to enforce are not being followed by him/herself. This is not about doing a staff member’s job for them, it means doing the manager’s job appropriately. At its simplest it is about self discipline.
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