The Good Manager: Development and Validation of the Managerial Interpersonal Skills Scale.

Gerard Beenen,Shaun Pichler,Ron Riggio,Beth Livingston

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631390

Abstract

It is no secret that employees leave their organizations because of bad managers- but what about the good ones? How can researchers and organizations differentiate individuals in terms of the interpersonal skills needed to perform well in the managerial role? Although these are fundamentally important questions to organizational psychologists, there exists no conceptual model, definition, or measure of interpersonal skills specific to the managerial role. We address these questions and research gaps by developing a conceptual model and validating a concomitant measure of managerial interpersonal skills (MIPS) through a research program that included four studies across three phases: First, through a review of the literature and structured interviews with practicing managers; next, three quantitative studies in which we develop, refine and validate our MIPS scale; and finally, in a fourth validation study with matched supervisor-employee data from a large healthcare organization. Results suggest that MIPS are best represented by a three-dimensional model comprised of supporting, motivating and managing conflict all indicating a higher-order latent MIPS factor. Results also indicate the MIPS Scale predicts job attitudes and performance among both employees and managers above and beyond personality traits and leader-member exchange, as well as constructs closely related to MIPS, such as social support and conflict management style.

Highlights

In his popular guide to Building a civil workplace, and surving one that isn’t, Robert Sutton describes the differences between good and bad managers: Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick
The question we address with this research program is “what are the dimensions of interpersonal skills that matter most in the managerial role?” Our overarching proposition is that managerial interpersonal skills (MIPS) function as a key job resource for both employees and managers and, as such, should predict their job attitudes and performance (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017, 2018)
Since the between-manager factor structure in multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) reflects the common covariance in ratings of MIPS across raters, this can be modeled in the same way, or possibly in other ways

Summary

Introduction

In his popular guide to Building a civil workplace, and surving one that isn’t, Robert Sutton describes the differences between good and bad managers: Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick. Managers must coordinate and oversee the work of others in the context of constrained resources, changing demands and expectations, and perhaps most significantly, challenging interpersonal exchanges. Recent studies have suggested that managers experience generally high levels of stress due to job demands (Cavanaugh et al, 2000), which can lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout. This raises the issue of how to manage employees most effectively from an interpersonal perspective. Since managers spend most of their work hours in interpersonal exchanges (e.g., Rubin and Dierdorff, 2009), managerial interpersonal skills (MIPS) are integral to being a “good boss.”

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