The Skills evolution of a Manager as he ascends the Organizational Hierarchy

Managers are very busy individuals they have great responsibilities in an organization and a great percentage of their organization's success or failure rest on their hands. Thus, it is a must for them to be equipped with very important Managerial Skills as they advance in the organizational hierarchy.

The First skill is Technical Skills:
This is the skill that is very important for a first level Manager (a.k.a supervisor). This means that he must have a mastery of the job that he holds; he must know every detail that happens in the achievement of their desired goals.

Let us say that this First Level Manager works as a supervisor in a car manufacturing plant. This simply means that he must know every detailed technical aspect of car manufacturing under his sphere of responsibility. The step by step process until their group’s assigned task is through.

The Second skill is Human Skills:

It is said that: “No man is an island” we cannot exist by ourselves we need to interact and communicate. This is where Human Skill comes into play. Human Skills are very important because this is where we build teams, we create networks, linkages and we harmonize every effort of every individual under our responsibility toward the achievement of organizational goals.

The Third skill is Conceptual Skills: 
This skill involves critical thinking on how to best guide the organization as it visualize its future. The Top Management such as: CEO, COO, Board of Directors Company President uses this skill to a much greater degree because the future of the organization is in their hands so to speak. They have to carefully and proactively analyze the present and future of their company.

The globalized and technology driven organizations right now calls for these Top Level Managers to harness their Conceptual Skills and use it to their advantage so that their organization will be able to survive.

As the Manager ascends the organizational hierarchy his level of skills also evolves. He actually uses these three skills levels albeit on different degrees. A first level Manager (supervisor) uses more of his Technical Skills rather than his Human and Conceptual Skills.

A middle level Manager uses more of his Human Skills more than his Technical skills and Conceptual Skills. A Top Level Manager employs more of his Conceptual Skills for the very obvious reason that he’s on top of the organization. But it doesn’t mean that he has no more use of his Technical Skills and Human Skills both skills will still be used whenever the situation calls for it. - Marino J. Dasmarinas