The most important talent of a manager

The most important talent of a manager In 2008, a survey by Robery Half International found that 53 % of managers questioned considered leadership and motivational skills the most important talent a manager should have [1]. This figure truly shows the importance of leadership in the approach to management. According to Mary Parker Follett, management is the art of getting things done through people. In this report, I will first analyse this statement before demonstrating to what extend I agree with it. In fact, managing is truly living the experience of the human being through interpersonal relationships that include understanding the employees and developing their competences. In a second part, I will describe the skills needed for managers regarding to Folletts definition, emphasizing on the importance of leadership. Finally, I will list some of the limitations that can represent barriers to management. They include the informal organization, the change of the economy and the development of high technologies. Management is the art of getting things done through people. Once, Warren Bennis(1995) [2] wrote: Just about everything written today about leadership and organization comes from Mary Parker Folletts writings and lectures. According to her, management is the art of getting things doing through people. This definition has become one of the most continuously popular, being considered like the most significant way to describe the term, which finds itself a number of distinctive meanings. First, it is interesting to know why management can be defined as an art. From the encyclopedia of Management, it is the knowledge that there is no specific way to teach or understand management, and that it is skill borne of personality and ability [3]. It is saying that certain people might be more predisposed to be effective managers than are others, and that some people cannot be taught to be effective managers. Then, if I now focus on the second part of the statement, the function of the manager itself is the best manner to illustrate what getting things done through people means. Management is primarily about overseeing people: the manager sets goals for others to achieve, directing work rather than performing it. This is highlighted by the studies of what managers do. Rosemary Stewarts studies (1976) [4] have shown that most managers spend three-quarters or more of their time talking with and listening to other people. One reason for the large majority of their time in conversations is highlighted by Kotters studies (1982) which show that managers are dependent upon a network of useful contacts that include hundreds or thousands of people within and outside the company [5]. As a result of this, it is important to deeply consider the dependence of managers towards their subordinates and all the other people that work around them. Management is linked to human factor and cannot achieve any of its aims without human beings knowledge and skills which can be considered as the material of work. Moreover, Lawrence Appley (1956) [6] starts his book titled by Folletts definition: Working with, for, and through people is the way in which a manager accomplishes his job which emphasizes the main role of the manager. Providing human satisfactions from work output and relationships is a managers obligation. From his point of view, there is a vital spot in management which is the point of contact between the worker and the boss when the conditions of confidence and respect exist between the two. Overall, it is possible to make a distinction in the managers functions between deciding what to do and getting it done. Then the first task implies decision making and setting goals, and the second consists of motivation, communication, and the development of people. I truly believe that this second task is all about the art of getting things done through people because we all know that giving orders to subordinates who content themselves with applying them without the slightest protest is not real management. The manager has to handle the difficulty of working with human beings personalities, reactions and own choices, which is an art, a talent. My own personal experience of management during the French Open made me realized how hard it was to achieve the daily financial objectives, result of the efforts I had to make in motivating my sales teams to show their enthusiasm and to do some animations for the customers. The hardest times where rainy and cold daysà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ In fact, since the essential part of the managers job is getting things done through people, it is vital for him to understand peoples motivation. The problems of securing willing cooperation sets a challenge to management: a challenge to provide the conditions in which people will want to work and therefore, to cooperate. This reaches to an understanding with the fact that management attains its objectives by increasing knowledge, changing the habits, and influencing the attitudes of people towards a common goal, the goal of the organization. Effective management requires a different set of skills from leadership As we now know that managers are dependent upon achieving results through other people, it is possible to analyze what management skills they must develop in order to be effective. A skill is defined as being the ability either to perform some specific behavioral task or the ability to perform some specific cognitive process that is functionally related to some particular task [7]. First, if I refer to Katzs studies (1955) [8], we understand that managerial skills are developed by managers by providing them with a set of managerial knowledge bases and methods for accessing this information. Then, based on these assumptions, Katz proposed a three-category typology of skills: technical, human, and conceptual [9]. The technical skills are concerned with the understanding of specific activities that require the use of specialized tools, methods, processes, procedures, techniques, or knowledge. Human skills are defined as the ability to work cooperatively with others, to communicate effectively and to resolve conflicts. And finally, for Katz, the cognitive skills represent the ability to see the organization as a whole and to have a vision, a systemic viewpoint. So, like any other profession, that management requires the exercise of specific and various skills. But there are other studies showing that unlike any other profession, management expects its members to be proficient in the use of its skills without training or practice. In reality, the basic skill of management is personal power and the impact of individual leadership upon the thoughts and actions of other individuals [10]. This skill expresses itself through the ability to write and speak to individuals and groups, to conduct and lead meetingsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Considering these two points of view, I think it is fair to say that either managers have inborn management skills or develop them through their experience and practice, they must have competences peculiar to be able to face difficult situations and achieve his goals. Leader or manager skills are not exclusive in nature [7]. Indeed, if a leader only displays leadership skills he might not be efficient in the usual tasks asked by employers to their managers: simply completing paperwork and reading reports for example. Reciprocally, a manager can have difficulties with his staff because he lacks in developing a relationship, something that require leadership skills. A manager that combines both skills is the most effective. Overall, the main important attributes needed to get things done through people are: first, communication and second, motivation and development of people. Communication is the means whereby management gets its job done. It is so true that without it, an executive is as ineffectual as a violinist without his instrument. It is a skill of management, it is, however essential to every other management skill. The process of communication involves making his ideas and feelings known by another. This requires the ability to get other people to understand us, but also to help others make themselves understood by us. The process of communication requires time and experience of many different situations with various human characters. Then, communication is successful when it is understood in the fullest meaning, both in verbal sense and in intention. Then, if managing is getting things done through people, a manager who thinks about what can be done only in terms of what he can do cannot be effective. Managers must learn to accept their dependence upon other people and manage it thanks to their ability to cooperate with their peers. They have to obtain commitment which means providing the conditions in which people will want to work. In doing this, they need to be skilful in influencing people to do what they want. Stewart (1991) [11] indicates that managers must make assumptions about how people will behave, and hence, how to influence them. Here is where motivation becomes a significant tool. In fact, it is one aspect of maximizing work performance and represents a prime task for managers. Motivation of people implies many ways of action, including the development of people which is achieved by careful, planned and motivational delegation of responsibility and duty. It implies trust and a close relationship between the manager and his staff as Drucker (2005) says Organizations are no longer built on force. They are built on trust [13]. Rather than relying on powers, the manager uses the powers within people. What are the limitations of getting things done through people? As the managers success hinges on influencing people toward the goal of the organization, this is where we can find his main limitations. The most important one seems to be the informal organization, based on who knows what, who gets things done, who has influence and power, who must agree before an idea can be effectively implemented [15]. The problem here is that the informal organization cant be managed at all because  it is a self-organizing process. Even when managers are carrying out their formal roles, they are unavoidably participating in this process. They are not objective observers and controllers of other peoples actions. The leadership challenge, therefore, is not to try to manage the informal. Instead, it is to engage purposefully in the dynamic network of conversations and interactions through which outcomes emerge. The globalization of the economy has some strong influences on the organizations. The two main consequences of this are limitations for the managers. First, there are the linguistic and cultural problems, concerned by the employees being more and more transnational which implies difficulties on communication. Also the cooperation involves making more efforts of comprehension and mutual respect, which seems difficult to do spontaneously. And second, the worldwide explosion of the working teams, which is why some managers become  «Ã‚  telemanagers  Ã‚ ». In fact, technological solutions (emails, phone, videoconferenceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) allow monitoring the work through the distance, it sees the relationship transformed. In a more sociological point of view, it is possible to see that nowadays, the authority is living a crisis. Executives are not considered as chiefs anymore but as coordinators as well as members of the teams are not called subordinates anymore but colleagues. These working teams are not shaking or impressed anymore facing the upper hierarchy: the chief is desecrated. The legitimacy of the manager is damaged by the individualism and the autonomy of the staff which tends to make the managerial relationships more complex as the use of authority is less possible. Then management practice conditions are modified by the evolutions of the environment and managers cannot content themselves to manage via objectives. Thats why we can see the rising important of the value and the competence based management. CONCLUSION The art of getting things done through people is linked to the need to influence people toward the goal of the organisation and this requires definitely leadership skills. However a manager-leader cannot be perfect as there are limitations in getting things done through people: the informal organization and the economical and social evolutions.