DO MANAGERS HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The question if management is a science or an art is frequently present, even nowadays. The correct answer to this question depends first upon a clear understanding of the meaning of the key terms: science and art. Many successful managers emphasize the importance of utilizing both, science and art in their everyday working. Even though managers can be science-oriented in their decision-making, they often need to solve issues based on their experience, intuition or instinct. However, managers can perform better by using the organized knowledge about management. Hence, it can be said that, managing as practice is an art and the organized knowledge underlying the practice may be referred to as a science. Therefore, when it comes to management, science and art are not mutually exclusive, but are complementary. Additional approach to observing the managerial activity entails categorizing the skills required to perform the work. Any effective managerial activity requires possessing different types of skills, depending on the activity itself. There are three main types of skills that managers need to posses. Unanticipated situations that companies face, like the COVID-19 pandemic, force them to think strategically about the potential future changes they can undertake. Furthermore, many companies will very likely face future of uncertainty. Future scenarios of potential disruptions of different kind are considered by many, to be very likely. Being in uncharted territory is especially challenging, since many of the decisionsin these situations can be often either very positive or very negative for the organization.

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