QUESTION

Read the text carefully and answer the following questions.

Effective communication skills are a crucial necessity within contemporary organizations and are essential to organizational success. The quality of interpersonal communication is a critical variable affecting the level of organizational success since the foundation of all managerial and organizational success is the ability to work with and through others. The effective use of interpersonal skills, therefore, forms the basis of good management practice. It is through communication that managers gain and offer the information required to make successful decisions within organizations. Interpersonal skills refers to those aspects of communication that managers need to employ successfully in direct person-to-person contact. Education management, therefore, can be regarded as a highly interpersonal activity in so far as most of the activities in which such managers engage involve relating to other people. In practice, managers spend a large part of their time meeting and talking with others. The effective use of interpersonal skills enables the individual to manage working relationships more effectively. "One distinguishing factor between successful and unsuccessful management is the degree of interpersonal competence displayed". Individuals who are able to manage the way in which they relate to others are much more successful in terms of achieving their objectives. Research indicates that managers consistently underestimate the effect which their behaviour has on how other people behave and, consequently, on the attainment of organizational goals.

"Interpersonal communication skills involve subtle and complex forms of human interaction which can be acquired and developed".

Interpersonal skills training programmes have been constructed for a large variety of different types of trainee groups in order to develop a range of communicative competences. Such programmes are flexible and are tailored to cater for the particular requirements of a specific group.

Specialist skills can be identified around which the actual training programme is then developed and implemented. There are a number of levels at which interpersonal skill training should be focused. First, education managers need to explore the constraints that limit the effective use of these skills. Managers generally often overrate their own communicative effectiveness. They need to develop an insight into their own interpersonal competence so as to be able to recognize whether they are able to use these skills effectively within their own organization. It is important that managers within education organizations know when and why to use particular interpersonal strategies and how to manage the effects which these produce. Education managers need to acquire and develop specialist communication skills and learn how to apply these skills to particular situations within the organization.

1. Discuss the underlined statement in the first paragraph of the above text and explain the importance of interpersonal communication to school managers.

2. Using an example from your own experience, describe some of the forms of human interaction managers need to possess. Describe how these can help.