Managerial Skills and Supervisory Functions

Managerial Skills and Supervisory Functions

When companies are looking to hire managers and supervisors, they look for individuals who possess certain skills that are required in order to fulfill managerial duties. Companies need to select the correct person to ensure that managerial duties and supervisory functions are carried out efficiently and effectively as per the companies’ standards. Some of the skills companies look for in a potential manager or supervisor are technical skills, human skills, conceptual skills, motivation to manage, and last but not least communication skills.

Technical skills are the specialized procedures, techniques, and knowledge required to get the job done. These skills are more important for lower-level managers because they directly oversee those employees that are actually producing products or providing services to customers. These skills are extremely important because they are required to train employees and solve issues as they arise. Lower-level managers also need to possess technical skills in order to handle situations that regular employees are not qualified to handle.

Human skills, or intrapersonal skills, are simply skills that allow an employee to work well with others. These skills are important in management because employees will respond better to a manager who understands employee needs, listens to their viewpoints, and who communicate well with their employees rather than a manager who is cold and robotic and treats subordinates as if they were just another number in the company. These skills are applied more with upper-level managers.

Conceptual skills are the ability to be able to see the companies’ goals and objectives as the “big picture”. Managers need to be able to conceptualize exactly what the company is aiming to achieve in order to guide the employees to perform their specific duties with the companies’ main objectives in mind. Managers need to understand how different parts of the company work and affect each other and also need to take external environmental factors into consideration in order to do so. This requires high intellect.

Motivation to manage involves working well with subordinates, rewarding good behavior, punishing bad behavior, delegating, and also how well employees