Developing Management Skills

Developing Management Skills

An Action Plan

Quality managers are necessary for the success of an organization. It has been shown by scientific research that the organizations that have good managers are successful and the ones that don’t suffer by comparison. The question then becomes, what makes a good manager and how can a manager improve his management skills. Developing Management Skills by David A. Whetten and Kim S. Cameron addresses that very subject in an articulate and researched style. They propose that good managers are not born that way but that there are behaviors that one can learn and improve upon if the proper time, energy and methodology are taken. Management skills are behavioral, they are controllable, they are developable, they are interrelated and overlapping, and they are contradictory and paradoxical. The authors lay out an approach which not only helps the reader learn what these management skills are, but they have great insight into how an aspiring manager can incorporate these behaviors into their lives to the point that they become part of his character. Their approach is a five step method which involves management skill assessment, learning, analysis, practice, and finally application. This paper, therefore, deals with these five areas as it relates to my own development of management skills and presents an action plan to help me improve in areas where I am the weakest. I will be using concepts taken directly from this book and course lectures given by James Vardaman, Ph.D. developing actionable steps to produce good management skills in my life. These skills do not just apply to the management of a business or organization but are life skills that will assist in living a more happy and successful life.

The text book mentioned above provides many good tests to assess my current level of proficiency in certain management skills. I have completed these tests and the results are very instructive. In the self awareness test, I ranked in the top quartile. This result does not surprise me because have spent the bulk of my adult life trying to improve this area of my character. I can honestly say that it is because of my deep faith in God and my desire to know Him more every day that my character has been sharpened in this area. I also need to thank my family, and close intimate Christian friends who have helped to shape me into the man I am today. In the area of emotional intelligence I ranked in the second quartile from the top. This shows that although I may rank highly in self awareness, I certainly have not arrived and need work in this area. The success that I do have I attribute to the character that God has molded in my life. In the locus of control test I scored in the third quartile, very near the top. I believe that the reason I did not score in the top quartile is not because I believe that things are out of