Roles and skills of administration

Thant Mon Paing

CED-252:Planning and Administration of Community Development

What is Administration?
 Administration is the organization and direction of
human and material resources to achieve desired
ends.
(Pfiffner and Presthus)

 Administration is the direction, coordnation an

control of many persons to achieve some purpose or
objectives. (LD.White)
What are administrative skills?

 Administrative skills are qualities that help you

complete tasks related to managing a business.

 This might involve responsibilities such as filing

paperwork, meeting with internal and external
stakeholders, presenting important information,
developing processes, answering employee questions
and more.
Why are administrative skills important?

 Administrative skills are important because they keep

business processes running smoothly.

 Any successful, efficient organization should have

both administrative professionals who have strong
skills in this area, as well as individual contributors
who have good administrative skills.
Examples of administrative skills

 Organization
 Communication
 Teamwork
 Customer service
 Responsibility
Organization

 Having an organized workspace, computer and calendar can help

you complete administrative tasks in a quality and time-efficient
manner.
 Administrative professionals might also be in charge of
organizing supply closets, filing systems, processes and more.
Communication

 Communication is a crucial skill to have when performing

administrative tasks.
 You must be able to communicate processes and information
to others, respond clearly to questions and requests and more.
 You must also be able to use various types of
communication including verbal, nonverbal, written and
visual communication.
Teamwork

 Having strong teamwork skills can help you when

collaborating on administrative projects, developing a new
process, communicating and putting a new process into place
or delegating tasks.
 Being a good teammate includes practicing empathy, humility
and being a good communicator.
Customer service

 In administration, it is common to answer questions for others

or perform certain tasks that others are unable to do
themselves.
 These responsibilities can be performed well with
strong customer service skills which include active listening,
setting expectations and communication.
 Responsibility

 Tasks related to administration are often important to keeping

a business running efficiently.
 So, having the responsibility to complete tasks on time and in
a quality manner without much oversight is crucial.
Time management
 Many various responsibilities involved in
administration, managing your
time wisely is a key skill.

 Maintaining your calendar, planning time

to complete tasks and setting proper
timeline expectations are all parts of
being a strong administrator.
How to improve administrative skills?

 Improving your administrative skills can help you to have a

stronger work ethic by completing tasks in a punctual and
quality manner while working well with others.
 Tips consider when working on your administrative skills:

Set personal career goals

 Setting specific, measurable goals to increase some or all of the
above administrative skills can help you improve over time.
 It can help to meet with trusted friends, colleagues or mentors to
identify areas of improvement to determine which skills you
should prioritize
Get organized

 Organization is an important part of being a good administrator.

Take time to make a clean, organized workspace for yourself
that can help you prioritize tasks, manage your time well and
respond quickly to others who need the information you have.

Mimic other strong administration skills

 If you have a colleague or manager that has strong

administrative skills that you find effective, try adopting their
practices in your own work. For example, if you find that their
style of note-taking is especially helpful, you might also
practice taking notes in this way.
 Skills of an Effective Administrator

An administrator is one who

 directs the activities of other persons and
 undertakes the responsibility for achieving certain objectives
through these efforts.

 Successful administration appears to rest on three basic skills,

which are technical, human, and conceptual

(Robert,1984)
Technical skill

 implies an understanding of, and proficiency in, a specific kind of

activity, particularly one involving methods, processes,
procedures, or techniques.
 relatively easy for us to visualize the technical skill of the
surgeon, the musician, the accountant, or the engineer when each
is performing his own special function.
 involves specialized knowledge, analytical ability within that
specialty, and facility in the use of the tools and techniques of the
specific discipline. (Robert,1984)
Cont.;

 perhaps the most familiar because it is the most concrete, and

because, in our age of specialization, it is the skill required of the
greatest number of people.
 Most of our vocational and on-the-job training programs are
largely concerned with developing this specialized technical skill.

(Robert,1984)
Human skill
 executive’s ability to work effectively as a group member and to
build cooperative effort within the team he leads
 primarily concerned with working with people and demonstrated
in the way the individual perceives (and recognizes the
perceptions of) his/her superiors, equals, and subordinates, and in
the way he/she behaves subsequently.
 aware of his own attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs about other
individuals and groups; he is able to see the usefulness and
limitations of these feelings. (Robert,1984)
Cont.;

 Human skill is so vital a part of everything the administrator does,

Examples -
 Inadequate human skill are easier to describe than are highly
skillful performances.
 Perhaps consideration of an actual situation would serve to clarify
what is involved:

(Robert,1984)
 Conceptual skill

Conceptual skill involves

 the ability to see the enterprise as a whole
 recognizing how the various functions of the organization depend
on one another
 how changes in any one part affect all the others

 extends to visualizing the relationship of the individual business

to the industry, the community, and the political, social, and
economic forces of the nation as a whole
(Robert,1984)
 Cont.;

 Success of any decision depends on the conceptual skill of the

people who make the decision and those who put it into action.

For example,
When an important change in marketing policy is made, it is
critical that the effects on production, control, finance, research,
and the people involved be considered.

(Robert,1984)
Relative Importance of three skills
At lower levels
 Technical skill has greatest importance at the lower levels of
administration.
 Human skill seems to be most important at lower levels, where
the number of direct contacts between administrators and
subordinates is greatest.
At higher levels
Human skill
Conceptual skill
At the top level
 Conceptual skill becomes increasingly critical in more
responsible executive positions where its effects are maximized
and most easily observed. (Robert,1984)
 Implications for Action

 This three-skill approach implies that significant benefits may

result from redefining the objectives of executive development
programs, from reconsidering the placement of executives in
organizations, and from revising procedures for testing and
selecting prospective executives.

(Robert,1984)
 Developing the Skills
Technical skill

 Development of technical skill has received great attention for

many years by industry and educational institutions alike, and
much progress has been made.
 Sound grounding in the principles, structures, and processes of
the individual specialty, coupled with actual practice and
experience during which the individual is watched and helped by
a superior, appear to be most effective.

(Robert,1984)
 Developing the Skills
Human skill
To be effective, he/she must develop his/her own personal point of
view toward human activity, so that he/she will

(i) recognize the feelings and sentiments which he brings to a

situation;
(ii) have an attitude about his own experiences which will enable
him to re-evaluate and learn from them;
(iii) develop ability in understanding what others by their actions and
words (explicit or implicit) are trying to communicate to him;
and
(iv) develop ability in successfully communicating his ideas and
attitudes to others.
(Robert,1984)
 Developing the Skills
Conceptual skill

 Conceptual skill, too, must become a natural part of the

executive’s makeup.
 Different methods may be indicated for developing different
people, by virtue of their backgrounds, attitudes, and
experience.
 In every case that method should be chosen which will enable
the executive to develop his own personal skill in visualizing
the enterprise as a whole and in coordinating and integrating its
various parts. (Robert,1984)
In summary (Effective administration )
Effective administration depends on three basic personal skills,
which have been called technical, human, and conceptual.

The administrator needs:

 sufficient technical skill to accomplish the mechanics of the

particular job for which he is responsible
 sufficient human skill in working with others to be an effective
group member and to be able to build cooperative effort within
the team he leads;
 sufficient conceptual skill to recognize the interrelationships of
the various factors involved in his situation, which will lead him
to take that action which is likely to achieve the maximum good
for the total organization.
(Robert,1984)
 Roles of Administrators

 The role of an administrator is vital and varies from organization

to organization.

 Necessary skills or responsibilities are all the same in different

organizations.

 One of the most common and significant duties of an

administrator needs to have a good set of skills so that he/she can
manage a team of people who can handle any situation within the
organization.

 Excellent communication is one of the most important key

ingredients for an administrator.
Five Key Roles of Administrators

(1)Leaders cultivate institutional development,

(2)mentors facilitate employee development,
(3)managers ensure institutional integrity, deciders provide
alignment,
(4)builders expand the capacity of the students, the employees
(5)organization thus bringing us full circle to a new stage of
development.
 Five Key Roles of Administrators

 The five roles identified are the means by which values direct
processes to foster empowerment.
 All administrators are expected to have a level of proficiency in
each of the distinct roles.
 1. Leaders Cultivate Institutional Development
 Administrators are expected to set the direction for the institution
as a whole or for their department as they align their work with
that of the institution.

 A role requires strong skills in environmental scanning,

listening to critical stakeholders, anticipating future conditions,
and providing a mental model

(Senge, 1994)
 role as one with a kinesthetic feel as people are asked to move
from one state of being to another to a new order.

Kouzes and Posner (2002)

 2. Mentors Facilitate Employee Development

 a key role of an administrator is to mobilize individual

commitment of other employees via a mentoring relationship that
requires a mindset of servant-leader.

 Leadership implies that leaders primarily lead by serving others:

employees, customers, and the community. Such service is
realized through mentoring relationships that require good
listening, honesty, empathy, and encouragement while challenging
performance.

Greenleaf (2002)
 Cont.;

Mentors  set high standards of performance

and provide ongoing assessment that
leads to the professional and personal
growth of the mentee

 provide a strong perspective, are

professionally accessible to share
relevant experiences and are willing
to take significant risks to support
the right type of advocacy for the
mentee
3. Managers Ensure Institutional Integrity

 Administrators strive to do things right themselves and assure

that those responsible to them do so as well. Skills are applied to
those things that require controls.
Warren Bennis (2001)

 Three categories of things needing control:

 money (costs, information, and time),
 structure (systems, processes, and inventory),
 physical resources (facilities and tools)
 Application of these skills in an effective and efficient manner
leads to an institution’s integrity as there is evidence of
responsible functioning.
Stephen Covey(2004)
 4.Deciders Provide Alignment
 need to make decisions that allocate scarce resources against an
organization’s objectives, set priorities, and design work to
achieve results.
George Weathersby (1999)
 Administrators gain credibility and trust when they insist on
good data for making decisions and are able to consistently
demonstrate fairness in how decisions are made.

 Very skilled administrators who have honed this role are able to
make the tough decisions which may not be popular; they are
respected for the strength demonstrated in making the decision
while using strong analytical skills and assuring honesty and
fairness.
5. Builders Expand Capacity

 The two skill sets most important to building both human and
organizational capacity are those that pertain to the ability to be
a good team member, and having the expertise and generosity
of spirit to serve as consultant.

 Clearly most work cannot be done alone.

 Team membership has routinely come to be seen as one of the

core competencies for college graduates as it is expected in most
workplaces today; it leads to higher productivity, critical
thinking, problem-solving, social interaction, self esteem, etc.
Table1-depicts the outcomes that can be anticipated when one of the roles is
markedly deficient
Concluding Thoughts

 The five roles identified for quality administrators require very

different skill sets and abilities.
 Most administrators will not automatically have proficiency in all
five roles; however, because they need to be able to move readily
from one role to another,

 Administrators need to have a good understanding of each, as

they engage in self-assessment, develop their own growth
plans, and form teams that can work collaboratively and
optimally.
Few of the most important roles of an administrator

 Planning and Organizing

 Directing

 Staffing

 Liaison

Vina Prajapati(2020)
 Planning and Organizing

 Planning is the most vital task of an administrator. It is a

responsibility for him/her to plan long-term objectives that can
help the organization to reach its ultimate goal.

 To execute these plans and get success is again a big

responsibility.

 Professionals need to analyze that how, when, where, and with

whom the plan should be made and executed accordingly.

 Organizing is again equally important, which lets the

administrator coordinate the efforts of a business to reach heights
of success.
Vina Prajapati(2020)
Directing

 Leading the employees to attain the main objective of the

organization needs the amalgamation of resources and an
effective support system.

 An interpersonal skill is essential as he/she needs to interact and

deal with people with different personalities.

 An efficient administrator will use the potential of the workforce

to make the plan work as a set.
includes -entrustment of authority
-accountability
-control to other administrative teams.
Vina Prajapati(2020)
 Staffing

 The administrator must interact and coordinate with other

departments of the organization, including the human resource
department.

 Not only the HR department but the admin department, too,

actively take part in the recruitment and screening process.

Vina Prajapati(2020)
 Liaison
 An efficient administrator is a liaison between employees and
management.

 The admin team understands the need for the employees as well
as the management and hence plans things accordingly to meet
their demands.

 It helps to maintain a balance in the organization and also to keep

a positive environment free from conflicts.

 It is the sole responsibility of an administrator to take care of the

expectations and performances of each individual.
Vina Prajapati(2020)
 References
Vina Prajapati(2020), Education Carrer Tips, What is the role of An Administrator An
Organization?, https://www.techprevue.com/organization-administrato roles/
Robert L. Katz(1974, Skills of an Effective Administrator, https://hbr.org/1974/09/skills-of-
an-effective-administrator
Career Development, March 31,2020, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-
development/administrative-skills
Bennis, W. G. (2001). An invented life: Reflections on leadership and change. New York:
Basic Books.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. (2003). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Covey, S. R. (2004). The 8th habit: From effectiveness to greatness. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power
and greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Senge, P. M. (1994). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization.
New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.
Weathersby, G. B. (1999). Leadership versus Management. Management Review, 88, 5+
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