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Management Skills And People Skills

Decent Essays

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” This quote by John Quincy Adams epitomizes the very heart of what it means to be a leader. To be a leader means to inspire others to dream, learn, do, and become. Practically though, this is difficult to apply. How does one become an effective leader? The attributes of effective leadership reside in two categories, management skills and people skills.
Management skills, also known as the mechanics of leadership, are the core components to effectively managing a group of people. Though one may be quite effective at the people skills of leadership, if he cannot adequately delegate, communicate, and adapt, he will be disorganized and …show more content…

General Douglas MacArthur, one of the United States’ finest military generals and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during the Japanese Occupation, is a perfect example of a leader who knew how to delegate effectively. William Ganoe in his 1962 book, Macarthur Close-up, creates a leadership litmus test listing a number of questions he and a friend developed about General MacArthur called the MacArthur Tenets. These tenets were formed as a reflection of the exceptional leadership qualities Ganoe had seen in General MacArthur. Among these are two key questions regarding delegation, “Do I delegate tasks that should be mine?” and, “Do I arrogate everything to myself and delegate nothing?” Those who desire to be great leaders should make a habit of asking themselves these questions about their use of delegation.
While delegation is the act of giving someone responsibility, communication is the package it comes in. In this context, communication is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as, “a technique for expressing ideas effectively (as in speech)” This attribute is different from delegation in that it cannot be overused. Without proper communication, nothing will be accomplished except what the leader does himself. As Tanya Prives so poignantly stated in her article entitled, Top 10 Qualities That Make A Great Leader, “If you can’t relate your vision to your team, you won’t all be working towards the same goal.” Winston Churchill, British Prime

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