Managerial Effectiveness Managing the Self and Others

Chapter 6 : Interpersonal Skills

+Introduction to Interpersonal Skills

+Developing Interpersonal Skills

+Transactional Analysis

+Transactional Analysis and Managerial Effectiveness

Chapter Summary

Interpersonal skills are the capacity to understand and manage the feelings, actions, and motivations of one's own and also of others in social settings. In other words, it is the ability to interact effectively with others. Interpersonal skills are an essential quality to succeed in modern organizations. This skill is critical for managers in the various interactions that they have to have with superiors, peers, and subordinates.

They should be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. This skill can be used to motivate subordinates and control various organizational situations. Communication skill is an important component of interpersonal skill. The characteristics of the individual and also the situational factors play an important role in interpersonal behavior. Interpersonal skills can be developed through constant practice.

Two factors are of prime importance in developing one's own interpersonal skills – developing skills to improve one to one interaction and developing the skills to understand the behavior of others. TA, developed by American psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne is one important technique used for developing interpersonal skills. This is a part of organizational training in many organizations around the world.

The important ideas in transactional analysis are the ego states (Parent, Adult, and Child), the type of transactions (complementary, crossed, and ulterior transactions), Games, Strokes, etc. A basic understanding of these ideas is required to use the concept of transactional analysis for improving interpersonal skills. TA helps to understand communication better and thereby improve the interpersonal skills of people.

It is also a powerful tool in organizational training. An understanding of TA helps people to modify their own behavior in order to obtain the required behavior from others. TA helps people to develop leadership qualities. With the aid of TA, it is possible to know the ego state from which people operate, and this recognition can help them to adapt their leadership style to suit the situation. It is also possible to identify the ego state of subordinates and an appropriate stimulus can be provided to get better response from them. 

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