Making a Difference: Socio-Cultural Competencies for Managers

This reflective essay explores the role of socio-cultural competencies for professional managers in making a positive difference to society. It identifies leadership, commitment, cultural empathy, and creative innovation as key competencies, highlighting their importance in today's workplaces. The essay discusses how commitment and leadership skills are essential for HR managers, emphasizing the need for communication, judgment, ethical skills, negotiation skills, and multitasking abilities. It further reflects on the author's own skills and areas for improvement, particularly in creative and innovative thinking, with a plan for future development through reading and mentorship. The essay concludes that mastering these competencies is crucial for aspiring HR managers to effectively lead and manage employees in diverse organizational cultures.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND ETHICS
“What is the role of socio-cultural competencies for the professional manager in making a
positive difference to society?”
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature review........................................................................................................................2
Importance of the skills for today’s managers.......................................................................2
Academic and popular literature on 2 of the socio cultural competencies.............................3
The main body............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The allocated competencies that have direct relevance to the reflective journey are
leadership, commitment, cultural empathy and creative & Innovation. However,
competencies are particular traits which organization’s recruiters find desirable for employees
to develop. At the times of interviews and assessment procedures, competencies are drawing
on as benchmark, which assessors use to appraise candidates. Skills and competencies are
similar in some way but both these two concepts are quite different in terms of their functions
(Ellinger & Ellinger, 2014). My skills as a leader are of communication, delegation, positivity
and responsibility. Skills are therefore the ability of an individual that is derived from his or
her knowledge, practice or aptitude whereas, on the other hand competency is more than just
knowledge and skills, it help an employee and lead them towards superior performances.
Thus, I want to become human resource manager in future. HR managers play a vital role in
the organizations because they not only provide supervision to their own department but also
liable for acquisition and management of employees (Harris & Tregidga, 2012).
Literature review
Importance of the skills for today’s managers
Today’s environment of the workplaces are seldom about doing similar things day in
and out rather today’s knowledge economy has greatly changed the work from being mostly
task oriented to creative and fusion. Therefore, the four social competencies that are
identified hold greater importance for today’s managers. The first important skill is that of
leadership which plays an important role for the managers. Manager’s role has the
responsibilities of leadership and therefore, every manager today uses the title of a leader
rather than of a manager (Robles, 2012). This title can alone can help today’s managers to

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make a difference in both how they will approach their work how others will act in response
to them. Therefore today’s managers needs the skill of a leaders so that they can successfully
understand people and believe their visions and work united towards achieving the
organizational goals along with administering and supervising the employees in the
workplace. Another socio-cultural competency is commitment, which is also important for
today’s managers. Commitment can be there if the manager is loyal to their organization they
work from and loyalty will come from trust. However, for a manager high level of
commitment also comes from their team members (Vine, 2012). Moreover, through a
powerful commitment teams as well as the leaders can go beyond to accomplish great things.
Cultural empathy is another skill that is very much important in today’s managers because
cultures progresses over time and different age group develops diverse values and precedence
systems. However, manager’s responsibility also involves motivating their employees and it
can be successfully done if they have adequate knowledge regarding their culture and cultural
dynamics. Lastly, managers today also encourage creativity and innovation and actively
employ those strategies, which motivate them. Managers must have the skills so that they can
through their creative and innovative ideas solve problems and lead by example in the
workplace (Edwards-Schachter et al., 2015).
Academic and popular literature on 2 of the socio cultural competencies
According to Ceylan (2013), high commitment of the HR, managers are solely
based on the trust that lay emphasis on the regulation of themselves rather than being
forbidden by external pressure. However, various studies have highlighted that high
commitment of the HR managers bring improvement in the employee him/herself as well as
leads towards progress in their organizational performances. Moreover, Marescaux, Winne
& Sels (2013), has stated that commitment of a HR manager not only helps in improving
employees’ behavior and attitudes, decreases levels of absenteeism and turnover of the

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employees but also enhances productivity as well as quality and customer care. Kinnie &
Swart (2012) has argued that HR manager’s commitment towards their work and workplace
can have a crucial effect of improved profitability.
McDermott et al., (2013), through his research has concluded that employees in
maximum workplaces look after their HR managers for solutions and leadership. Therefore,
for a HR manager it is important that they have that confidence to lead. He further added that
it could be everything like finding the answers for the employees concerns then putting
jointly a team for an important project. Thus, HR managers must know how to balance being
a friendly presence as well as taking control and guide his or her subordinates to help stuffs
run smoothly. In another research by Gabcanova (2012).), it has been highlighted that HR
managers should have eight of the important leadership skills which are leading change,
knowledge of the business, strategic as well as critical or analytical thinking, credibility,
impactful communication, ethical behavior, result oriented and force for performance and
lastly, expressiveness and the potential to influence others.
The main body
HR managers act as pillars in any organization as they are responsible to guarantee
that the right employees are hired, managed as well as tasked so that the business can grow
and progress. However, the basic skills that are required for being a successful manager in the
HR department are the ability to communicate because is considered an important factor for a
successful HR management. Communications can be more than just verbal or written because
HR manager needs to make sure that their messages are received and understood by each
employee (Guest & Woodrow, 2012). Apart from these other skills required for HR,
managers are tremendous judgment, sensible as well as honest ethical skill, immense
negotiation skills and lastly, ability for strong multitasking. HR manager’s role is huge as he

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or she manages, creates, implements as well as supervises policies and regulations, which are
compulsory for the employees as well as the employers. HR managers must also have
knowledge of the specific functions. While managing the employees and the employers there
are a lot of essential skill that HR managers requires like leadership, problem solving,
communication, integrity, empathy, professional as well as creativity and innovation skills
(Stone & Stone, 2013).
However, among these skills I feel the most important ones are leadership,
commitment, and cultural empathy and creativity and innovation skills because without these
a HR manager will not be able to function appropriately. Leadership skill is essential because
only a manager who has good leadership skill can create a vision towards a vivid and
compelling future which can further motivates the employees to feel the urge to achieve it.
Then another important in the field that I feel is also holds an equal important position is that
of commitment. Managers should have the commitment towards their work as well as
organization through which they can make things happen within the organization they work
for. However, HR managers with great commitments can actually have high level of
determination, stick-to-itiveness as well as a drive than any other employee who can
contradict to get things done. Cultural empathy is also important because I feel a HR manager
needs to have knowledge regarding every culture because today maximum of the
organizations are culturally diverse. Therefore, to maintain a healthy organizational culture a
HR manager should always be empathetic towards every culture so that employees feel that
they are one of the important members of the organization. Lastly, the ability to creatively as
well as innovatively solve issues and take decisions for the benefits of the organization also
helps the HR manager to lead by example. It can also help him or further to gain support and
trust from their fellow employees.

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Conclusion
Therefore, to conclude this reflective essay I can say that I feel I have not yet
mastered every skill and definitely need some time for myself development. However, I feel I
am quite culturally empathetic and I have leadership skills within me, which I have, felt many
a times at the time of my course group projects. However, these skills have definitely helped
me aspire for HR managerial dreams because I feel I can best devotee my skills under my
aspired designation. I feel I also need to improve my creative and innovative thinking skill a
bit because I have faced many such situations where I have failed using this skill. Thus, to
improve this I will read more HRM related books to gather more knowledge and further take
help from my experienced seniors to provide me feedback and guide me.

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Bibliography
Ceylan, C. (2013). Commitment-based HR practices, different types of innovation activities
and firm innovation performance. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 24(1), 208-226.
Edwards-Schachter, M., García-Granero, A., Sánchez-Barrioluengo, M., Quesada-Pineda, H.,
& Amara, N. (2015). Disentangling competences: Interrelationships on creativity,
innovation and entrepreneurship. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 16, 27-39.
Ellinger, A. E., & Ellinger, A. D. (2014). Leveraging human resource development expertise
to improve supply chain managers' skills and competencies. European Journal of
Training and Development, 38(1/2), 118-135.
Gabcanova, I. (2012). Human resources key performance indicators. Journal of
competitiveness, 4(1).
Guest, D. E., & Woodrow, C. (2012). Exploring the boundaries of human resource managers’
responsibilities. Journal of business ethics, 111(1), 109-119.
Harris, C., & Tregidga, H. (2012). HR managers and environmental sustainability: strategic
leaders or passive observers?. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 23(2), 236-254.
Kinnie, N., & Swart, J. (2012). Committed to whom? Professional knowledge worker
commitment in cross‐boundary organisations. Human Resource Management
Journal, 22(1), 21-38.

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Marescaux, E., De Winne, S., & Sels, L. (2013). HR practices and affective organisational
commitment:(when) does HR differentiation pay off?. Human Resource Management
Journal, 23(4), 329-345.
McDermott, A. M., Conway, E., Rousseau, D. M., & Flood, P. C. (2013). Promoting
effective psychological contracts through leadership: The missing link between HR
strategy and performance. Human Resource Management, 52(2), 289-310.
Robles, M. M. (2012). Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills needed in today’s
workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 453-465.
Stone, R. J., & Stone, R. J. (2013). Managing human resources. John Wiley and Sons.
Vine, I. (2012). 27. Moral Maturity in Socio-Cultural Perspective: Are Kohlberg’s
Stages. Lawrence Kohlberg, 431.