Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills “include the ability to communicate with, motivate, and lead employees to

complete assigned activities,” [46] hopefully building cooperation within the manager’s team.

Managers without these skills will have a tough time succeeding. Interpersonal skills are of

greatest importance to middle managers and are somewhat less important for first-line

managers. They are of least importance to top management, but they are still very important.

They are critical for all small business owners.

The fourth basic management skill is decision making (Figure 12.4 “Management Decision

Making”), the ability to identify a problem or an opportunity, creatively develop alternative

solutions, select an alternative, delegate authority to implement a solution, and evaluate the

solution. [47]

Conceptual skills “determine a manager’s ability to see the organization as a unified whole and

to understand how each part of the overall organization interacts with other parts.” [45] These

skills are of greatest importance to top management because it is this level that must develop

long-range plans for the future direction of a business. Conceptual skills are not of much

relevance to the first-line manager but are of great importance to the middle manager. All small

business owners need such skills.