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Expert Reference Series of White Papers

1-800-COURSES www.globalknowledge.com

Management Skills forEvery Leader


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Copyright 2011 Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. 2

Management Skills for Every LeaderBrian Denis Egan, MSc, MBA, PMP

IntroductionWhat are the skills required to be a manager, and how do they relate to each other? What is leadership and howis it dierent rom management? This white paper provides an answer to these undamental questions in theorm o a conceptual model that relates the core skills o management to each other and to the art o leadership.

The Egan Management Skills Model is designed to help new and aspiring managers understand what the terms

management and management studies actually mean. The model decomposes management into the undamen-tal skills sets that every manager must develop.

Management

For the purposes o this discussion, management reers to people management: the ecient use o sta mem-bers, as opposed to assets or equipment, in a business setting. Thus, managers are people coordinators.

People management is the art o working through others. We manage people because we are unable to do allo the work ourselves. Managers must get their work done by others they must work through others. Goodmanagers are able to optimize the output o the sta they manage.

Someone who possesses management skills, thereore, has the ability to assign tasks and supervise the actionsand eorts o sta members.

Management Studies

The broadest denition o management includes all aspects o business and commerce. Management studiesreers to how best to work through others how to assign tasks and supervise the actions o others. For thepurposes o this paper, we will limit the discussion o overall management practices to those aspects o com-merce that relate to people management.

Management studies comprise a huge eld. Virtually every large university has a commerce or business man-agement department dedicated to the study and teaching o how best to run businesses. Like all other eldso study, new research is constantly being done and opinions revised about what are considered to be bestpractices.


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The problem or the new manager, and the public at large, is that the constant stream o research and opinionscomplicates the recognition o the undamentals. This is where the Egan Management Skills Model comes into play.

Figure 1: The Egan Management Skills Model

The Egan Management Skills ModelThe model graphically illustrates the linkages among the core skills o management. It reduces the complexityo management studies by distilling all the possible terminology down to a ew undamental elements. Peoplemanagement boils down to the application o the knowledge areas listed in the model.

On the periphery is a yellow circle with two skills sets, communications and problem-solving, superimposed on

the line. Communications and problem-solving are considered overarching skills. These skills, as will be ex-plained later, are not specic to management but play an important overarching role in how managers can anddo behave.


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Within the circle is a triangle, the three sides o which are reerred to as integrated skills. These are: negotiation,delegation, and motivation. The integrated skills create the iron triangle o management.

Just like the triple constraints o project management (scope, time, and cost), the iron triangle o managementrepresents management activities that are inextricably tied together. Negotiation, delegation, and motivation

cannot be perormed in isolation. Actions in one area always aect the other two.

Although the term leadership appears in the center o the triangle, leadership is not a skill set or a distinctknowledge area. Instead, leadership is the eect that a manager creates as a result o how he or she employsthe ve management skill sets (motivation, negotiation, delegation, communication, and problem-solving). Theway a manager applies these skills sets becomes his or her leadership style.

The Models Message

The management skills model implies that there are only ve core skills that managers need to employ in theexecution o their jobs as managers. Every manager uses all ve every day.

These ve skills are inextricably interconnected. While they represent separate knowledge areas and potentialareas o study , they cannot actually be applied in isolation. Management is the art o managing the interplayamong the ve skills .

Skill Sets Used in the ModelCommunications

Communications reers to any and all aspects o how people interact with one another. Every message we send,whether conscious or not, is a communication. Everyone is able to communicate. Not everyone is good at it. Agood communicator ensures that the message they sent is the one that was received. .

The communication method a manager chooses to use in a given situation is determined by an array o poten-tial infuences. These infuences are built up over a lietime o experience and training, and include everythingrom culture, to age, to education.

From a management perspective, good managers know what inormation must be included in a communica-tion and how best to transmit the inormation so that a target audience will interpret the message correctly. Inorder to be good communicators, we need to manage the technology o communications (e.g., grammar and axmachines) as well as the impact o tone and body language.

Problem-SolvingProblem-solving reers to everything rom problem denition to decision-making. Problem solving is how anindividual manager looks at a problem, analyzes the variables, balances the considerations, and then comes to aconclusion about how best to proceed.


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Problem-solving skills relate to technical expertise. We go to university or college to become engineers, pro-grammers, lawyers, bakers, and welders. Technical knowledge gives us the background necessary to analyzeproblems with the ewest unknowns. Training and experience combine to produce inormed decisions.

How a manager solves a people-management problem is also aected by his or her knowledge o the core

management skills. A manager needs to know how best to work through others (negotiate, delegate, motivate,communicate) in order to know how best to accomplish objectives.

Problem-solving skills are an overarching set o skills because, like communications, they are broad-based innature and developed over a lietime. How a person analyzes a problem and reaches a decision is a refection oa persons background, intellect, and education. We are all dierent.

Iron Triangle of Management

Negotiate: Delegate: MotivateIron triangle reers to the rigid linkages between the three undamental tools o managers (negotiate, delegate,motivate). None is more important than the others; they are all equally important because o their inter-connections.

Negotiate

We negotiate everything. Any time an assignment is given to a sta member, or is rejected by them, it is theresult o negotiations. Conceptually, every communication is a negotiation. Every message you send out tosomeone else is an attempt to elicit a particular response. It is a negotiation even though there is little or nohaggling over the outcomes.

Good communicators are good negotiators. We negotiate to get work done by others.

Delegate

To delegate is to pass work on to others. To delegate well is to ensure that the work is done correctly the rsttime.

Arguably, the most obvious o the management skills is delegation. The more work you pass on and the less youdo yoursel, the more o a manager you are. I you are a manager who completes tasks yoursel because youear that your sta will not complete the task correctly, then you are not their manager, they are yours.

Strangely, delegation is probably the least widely studied aspect o management. It is critical to managementsuccess but doesnt have much appeal as an area o study.


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Most people are, thereore, a certain type o leader because they problem-solve, communicate, negotiate,delegate, and motivate in a certain way. Over time, a managers leadership style can change as their knowledgeand application o the ve core skills matures. This kind o transition is slow. It is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Leadership Extremes

Mild-mannered leadership means leading rom the rear, like a shepherd directs a fock o sheep. Managers othis type do not actually lead; they guide; they provide direction while ollowing the fock.

Bold leadership means leading rom the ront like a general charging ahead o the troops in battle. Bold leadersset an example and then expect others to ollow.

Mild-mannered leadership is adequate when sta is motivated or at least motivated enough. It is a suitablestyle when sta does not need much direction. This could be the case i sta members are mature in their roles,or i the company is well-established in a stable marketplace and the situation doesnt change very much.

Bold leadership is needed when sta is not well-motivated and/or lacks a sense o direction. It is necessary dur-ing crisis and organizational change, when sta is likely to eel uncertainty and ear o the uture.

What Managers Need to LearnCommunications

Everyone is able to communicate. Does that mean that everyone has the skills necessary to be a great manager?No, it does not.

What is the key to eective communication? Is it excellent grammar skills? Toastmaster skills? Acting skills? No.

While it is desirable to know how to write, speak, or act well, the key to success is empathy. A nuanced under-standing o people and an emphasis on delivering the right inormation is the key to being a great communicator.

Managers must learn to control the eect that their communications have on others. It is not enough to send amessage. We must also take control o outcomes. We must ensure that the intentions o our messages are cor-rectly understood.

How do managers become better communicators? Learn more about people and, in particular, about the di-erences among people. You must learn why your message might be interpreted incorrectly, and how to ensuresuccessul interpretation. Some people are intuitively smart about people they have high EQs (emotionalquotients); others are not.

Problem-Solving

There are two types o managers: those who moved up into management rom technical elds and those whostudied management in school and whose technical eld is, thereore, management.


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I you moved into management rom some other technical eld, then your management decision-making (withregards to people) is probably poorly inormed.

I you studied commerce in school and are now involved in management, you have probably been warned aboutthe need or management skills. You are aware o management studies. Unortunately being aware o and actu-

ally employing best practices are very dierent. You need experience in order to convert advice into wisdom.

There is a huge dierence between managers who are good enough and good managers. The dierence ismanagement skills.

Negotiation

Successul management is not about learning how to convince others to agree with your demands. It is aboutconvincing sta members that what is good or them is also what is best or the business. Managers must nego-tiate to motivate.

The ocus o negotiations with sta members should be the creation and maintenance o good working relation-ships. How successul we are as managers is determined by how we treat others. How others eel they havebeen treated is determined by how we negotiate with them. I they eel mistreated, then they were whetherthat was a managers intention or not.

Twenty years ago, negotiations training was basically a crash course in learning how to manipulate people toget what you wanted. The old-school approach to negotiations invariably let one side eeling like the loser. Thiscreates enemies and animosity. Dont do it.

Today, negotiations training teaches you how to motivate through collaboration. This is when negotiations with

others ocus on maintaining productive, long-term relationships. Recognize that success comes rom winning therelationship war rather than individual ego battles.

There is no better way to start along the road to collaborative management than by reading the managementclassic by Rogers and Ury, Getting to Yes. Every manager needs to study this reerence.

Delegation

Delegation is the act o getting work done by others, but it is not just a matter o telling people what to doand hoping or the best. When a delegated task is not perormed properly, the ailure is the managers ault. Tobecome a good delegator requires practices, just as does becoming a good delegate. Both sides benet romexperience and practice.

What makes delegation dicult is the need or a manager to pass on responsibility while retaining account-ability. The problem is trust or condence or condence in the delegate. Learning to delegate means learning tobalance trust with responsibility.


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Becoming a good delegator means communicating all the instructions and details necessary or success to thedelegate. This means explaining what needs to be done, as well as why, when, and how, in a way that motivatesthe delegate to do their best.

How well a task is explained and how well-supported the delegate eels during execution has a huge eect on

their motivation and, ultimately, on their success rate. When it comes to delegation, a little bit o planning andsupport goes a long way towards avoiding problems.

Good employees are built on the experience you give them.

Motivation

Keeping sta motivated is managements job. The reward or keeping them motivated is high productivity and apleasant work environment; more work is accomplished with more enthusiasm.

Wages do not really motivate (at least not ater the contract is signed). Wages get a sta member to show up

or work. What motivates sta to do more than the minimum are the eorts that a company makes to engagesta members. This boils down to the relationships ormed between sta and management.

I you dont know how to motivate others, do not be surprised. It is generally not obvious. The biggest mistakeyou can make is to assume that what motivates you will motivate everyone else.

To be a good motivator, you must rst learn just how very dierent people are. The place to start is by studyingtemperament theory (David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II). The next step is to combine temperament theorywith the arsenal o motivators that are available to management. This arsenal includes eedback, praise, andchallenge; not just money and time o.

Good managers know how to motivate. Great managers are always doing so.

Leadership

Good managers must know how to convey a sense o direction to those people who report to them. Leadershipdoes not mean speeches or battle cries. It means responsibility or planning.

Whether or not you are a good leader is determined by whether sta members think you know what you aredoing and whether you convey a clear sense o direction. Leadership is motivation. Motivation requires objec-tives. Leaders clariy objectives and provide road maps. Leaders convey their leadership style through con-

dence. Condence comes rom actually knowing what you are doing.

Being an active leader means actively ensuring that sta have a clear sense o direction. This implies that theyeel condent in the decisions that are driving organizational choices. Sta must believe that someone compe-tent is at the helm o the ship. Being an active leader helps to motivate sta.


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ConclusionManagement boils down to the application o a ew undamental skill sets that everyone uses every day.Becoming a great manager requires developing a nuanced understanding o the interplay between the skills inorder to ensure that:

The solutions to the problems that you solve

Are properly communicated

So that when negotiating the delegation o tasks

The delegates are properly motivated.

And you have provided leadership.

Suggested ReadingCommunications

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.Bantam, 2006.

Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences. http://www.howardgardner.com/MI/mi.html

Problem Solving

Jones, Morgan D. The Thinkers Toolkit: 14 Powerul Techniques or Problem Solving. Crown Business, 1998.

Negotiation

Fisher, Roger and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. Penguin, 1991.

Delegation

Hershey, Paul and Ken Blanchard. Situational Leadership Theory, 1977.

Motivation

Keirsey, David. Please Understand Me II: Temperament Character Intelligence.

Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, 1998.

Leadership

Machiavellis The Prince (Italian: Il Principe).

Tzu, Sun. Art o War (Barnes & Noble Classics Series). Dallas Galvin (Editor), Lionel Giles (Translator), DallasGalvin (Introduction).

Leadership Practices Inventory, based on the books and research by Kouzes and Posner.


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Learn MoreLearn more about how you can improve productivity, enhance eciency, and sharpen your competitive edgethrough training.

Management Skills or New Managers

Successully Managing PeopleDeveloping Executive Leadership

Project Management, Leadership and Communication

Visit www.globalknowledge.com or call 1-800-COURSES (1-800-268-7737) to speak with a GlobalKnowledge training advisor.

About the AuthorBrian Denis Egan is owner and President o SecretStorageBooks.com, the worlds largest manuacturer o re-cycled book products. A management consultant and entrepreneur or over twenty-ve years, Brian has workedor ten years with Global Knowledge in the development and delivery o proessional skills training. Brian holdsdegrees in zoology, oceanography and business administration.
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