What skills and attributes do managers require today?

I return to the university as a MBA student after working for seven years. Many people cannot understand because they think I have lost too much in terms of money. I never regret for this and persist to my objective to be a successful manager. As an ambitious woman, I enjoy learning modern management theory and developing my management skills. To challenge keen competition I realize a manager should have following skills and attributes: knowledge, social skills, creativity, organizing capability and decision-making skills.

First of all, 21st century is an information age. Managers equipped with technical and managerial knowledge will succeed. 'It is knowledge that will lead to new products, new innovations. And despite all the machinery at the heart of this new age it is manager and their ability to turn information into knowledge that will be a company's greatest asset. '(Morris, Meed and Svensen, 1996)

One incident happened last year in my company impressed me greatly how important the knowledge manager is.

English: Rob Leslie-Carter was named 'Project Mana...

English: Rob Leslie-Carter was named 'Project Mana...

Mullins & Sullivan (LOC)

Our director appointed the administrative manager temporarily to take over the project manager who was ill. When engineers began to design a project distributed by the new manager, some complained about the schedule, and more worse some refused to do it because of lacking basic design documents. As a result this project was not finished on time. The administrative manager did not make a proper plan due to he knew nothing about the project design. Therefore knowledge managers are more important in the organization, especially the organization becomes increasingly complex nowadays. Mangers should not only learn technical and managerial knowledge related to his working fields but also culture and psychology etceteras. Being short of knowledge manager, particularly those who possess culture and language skills, is current dilemma for most multinational companies. 'Many international managers are often...