PART A

The three important skills required for a manager are:

A) Technical Skills

B) Conceptual Skills

C) Human Skills

Below is the tabular representation of the three skills and its contents. They are also
subjectively rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with respect to the skills I possess (1 being the
minimum and 5 being the maximum).

TECHINICAL CONCEPTUAL HUMAN

Project management (3) Analysing (3) Emotional Intelligence (5)
Software proficiency (3) Abstract thinking (4) People Management Skills (3)
Motivational (4)
Communication (3)
Leadership skills (1)
Conflict Resolution (4)
Time management (1)

A) TECHINICAL

1) Project Management - Management involves overseeing employees throughout multiple

stages of one or more projects, making the ability to coordinate activities and monitor
progress toward specific goals useful. Even those not working directly in project
management roles should understand the basic processes and resources required to plan
and execute a long-term project. The process of Project Management are as follows:

 Planning the project from conception to implementation

 Executing each phase
 Creating, allocating, and managing the budget
 Communicating among all stakeholders
 Troubleshooting any issues
 Delivering and maintaining the end product
2) Software proficiency - Basic proficiency with office software like Microsoft Office,
Adobe, Google Docs and any relevant industry-specific programs is essential for
managers. Furthermore, depending on the industry, proficiency with financial and
accounting software, data entry is also needed. A skilled manager should efficiently and
accurately gather information relevant to the continued operations of a business, analyse
the data for significant trends or potential issues and relay findings to upper management.
Depending on the position and industry, managers may be expected to be familiar with
specific data collection and analytics tools and software.

B) CONCEPTUAL SKILLS - Conceptual skills are the abilities that allow an individual to
understand complex scenarios and develop creative solutions for the same. From a
management perspective, these skills are valuable as they can help navigate complicated
workplace situations. In higher levels of management, the ability to approach a situation with
a creative and abstract approach is highly valuable. Strategizing about potential situations and
resolving them also holds considerable value.

C) HUMAN SKILLS

1) Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - This can help the manager to connect with his employees,
understand them, and empathize with them. This kind of perspective gives a well-rounded
view of people professionally and personally, as extra support may be needed.
2) People Management Skills - Each team may have many individuals with differences of
their own. In a stressful environment – there might be individuals who might need help to
cope. A manager would have to adapt to people management skills at different situations,
along with individual differences often in international environments. This also means
giving feedback, understanding values and understanding each person in a team. They are
individuals who seek different needs from the manager. So, the manager needs to have a
full range of these skills to support each member of his/ her team. Managing people is not
easy, but with the right tools and skills it can be done effectively.
3) Motivational Skills - Motivation skills can be used to increase the drive, the probability of
getting favourable results from interfacing customers, subordinates, upper management,
suppliers, donors, team members, funding sources and supervisors. This in turn increases
the efficiency as well as the productivity of the work place. In order for the work to be
completed on time and in an eminent manner, motivation is required. This comes from
 good leadership. By effectively motivating the employees with both economic as well as
non-economic rewards, accurate reinforcement , the work will be carried out by happy,
satisfied and incentivised employees. Someone once said that “The biggest motivation
for working is, Work itself “.
4) Communication Skills – A manager would have to communicate horizontally and
vertically in an organization. For example: They may need to make presentations and
communicate to the senior management and also communicate to their peers the next
minute. A manager should be able to get people to listen, remember and act on the
information that is communicated to them as well in order to achieve productivity with no
flaws.
5) Leadership skills – Strong leadership skills promote well - being among employees and
team members. It also leads to all the employees having a defined role leading to
contribution to the collective effort. Leadership skills also helps in delegating the roles
and responsibilities to employees, help maximise the efficiency as well as the efficacy
and moving towards vision and goals of the business.
6) Conflict Resolution – Dollard and Miller believed that there were three types of conflict
situations which influence one’s behavior. The approach-approach conflict results when a
choice must be made between two desirable alternatives such as monitory incentives or
gift vouchers. Avoidance-avoidance conflict results when a choice must be made between
two undesirable alternatives such as opting to work the graveyard shift or opting to work
on weekends. Approach-avoidance conflict results when a decision regarding whether to
pursue or avoid something has both positive and negative aspects. Managing conflict
appropriately can help find creative solutions to internal relationship issues, and can help
to prevent environments that breed negativity, stress, demotivation and general employee
unrest. Good Conflict Resolution requires de - escalating the situation, disengaging
responsibly, repair attempts as well as resolve amicably.
7) Time Management - Good time management allows the manager to accomplish great deal
of work in reduced periods of time, which further leads to more free time. This could lead
to increased learning opportunities, reduced stress, more opportunities to focus on,
leading to career success. Each benefit of time management improves another aspect of
your life.
 PART B

The two skills I would like to acquire or implement which I do not possess currently are as
follows:

1) Time Management
2) Leadership

1) Time Management – To elaborate on a recent scenario – I have observed that I had

difficulties managing my time between BSADM, OB, ME, MM assignments. As I’m writing
this, I’m pushing to submit the assignments by midnight. The places where I get stuck is
usually in starting the assignments or putting my thoughts down.

As, I feel that I have to read up on everything before I begin the assignment, which
tends to take a lot of time for me to begin the assignments. Therefore, one of the things I
would like to work on would be my need for perfectionism – the need to know everything
thoroughly before I begin the assignment. As I read up more resources, I get more anxious
that there are many more to read upon and many more that I’m still not aware of, leading to
delay in starting the assignment. Based on the previous experiences that I have had with my
assignments and deadlines, managing time effectively and meeting the deadlines has always
been a difficult task for me. This, I feel reduces the efficacy of the outcome. I have also
noticed that there is an increased stress and anxiety surrounding the deadline as well.
Although, during some instances stress and anxiety may have contributed to my increased
motivation, and pushed me a lot harder. In a majority of instances, it has been detrimental. To
elaborate a little more on this, as I am usually unable to manage and split the time with my
assignments, there are times when I have spent a larger amount of time than required on a
particular assignment which could have been effectively used for another assignment. This is
also one of the difficulties that I am currently facing with the academic schedule and
deadlines.

How I plan on working on it – It is important to identify those areas that prevents be from
managing my time effectively. Therefore, as mentioned previously, I need to focus my
attention away from knowing everything before starting an assignment and distribute my time
effectively. There is a need for me to change my approach, increase my self-awareness as
well. This can be an important first step to make effective change happen. Along with that,
charting out a timeline as soon as the assignments are given, focusing and promptly following
it. I would also like breakdown the list into discrete steps. Most of the things on the due to list
can be broken-down to make it more achievable. Once I have the smaller pieces, I can assign
steps, deadlines. This would be easier to see through the process through small micro gains
rather than having one large overwhelming thing on the to-do list.

2) Leadership skills – One of the scenarios I would like to take a little more on this would be
as follows.

When I was working in [24]7.ai from July 2019 to March 2020. I was passed on for
some leadership opportunities and responsibilities. But what I noticed was that I did not take
up the opportunities that came my way. After careful deliberation, it has occurred to me that
there are a number of reasons for the same. One of the qualities of an effective leader
includes possessing inner resources such as self-awareness and the capacity to focus on one’s
desirable qualities. However, as it was my first job and I was there for a very short period of
time, I was unsure whether I had the necessary qualities to take on the opportunities and
doubted my skill set for the same. As I was occupied with adapting to the new challenging
work environment as well as embracing the change, I started questioning my abilities to lead.
This could be attributed to negative self-evaluation about myself. One of the misconceptions I
had was believing that a leader must possess certain traits such as extra version and assertive
etc. As I was adapting to the new environment, I was unsure whether I had these two
particular skills sets to take on responsibilities.

How I plan on working on it – As mentioned previously, working on increasing my inner

resources such as self-awareness, understanding my strengths and weaknesses may counter
the negative self-evaluation about myself with respect to taking leadership responsibilities.

REFLECTIONS

Over the course of this activity I am able to get a better understanding on the skills I have to
work on, it has also helped me gain more awareness and insight into my skill set that I need
to work on. These two skills are something I will keep a keen eye on and try to improve over
the course of my classes.
REFERENCES (APA)

American InterContinental University. (n.d.). Retrieved September 06, 2020, from

https://www.aiuniv.edu/degrees/business/articles/top-technical-skills-for-managers

Mukherjee, U. (2020). Organisational behaviour – Management skills [ PowerPoint slides].

(Class taken by Dr. Ujjal Mukherjee on 25.08.2020)

Phares, E.J. & Chaplin, W.F. (1997). Introduction to Personality (4th ed.). New York:
Longman

What Are Project Management Skills? (n.d.). Retrieved September 06, 2020, from
https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-are-project-
management-skills/