Post-graduate study of health care management should not be restricted to the managerial competencies (MC). It is also important to learn the effective skills of self-management. Here, the manger acquires, first of all, the techniques of the MC analysis.
The managerial competencies are a system of interacting, inter-affecting and interdependent elements, which develop along with the personal professional genesis. Evaluation of the MCs is based, first of all, on the concept of their understanding and systematization. So, subjective theoretic activity frameworks determines the methods for the staff evaluation in general and the MCs in particular. It is being accepted that social and professional environment of work, which combines specific task-targeted activities and manipulations, determined by the job requirements and norms, plays a leading role in professional’s development,. In this respect, the MCs are regarded as a product of an organizational project, and the MC evaluation means to find out how good the manager suits his position, to determine his professional competence as well as the goals of the further professional development and self-actualization.
Theoretical approaches mentioned in the earlier publications, considered in terms of subjective activity, allow to distinguish two MCs of a health care manager as evaluation objectives: emotional intelligence and styles of management. One of the tools of this methodological approach is the diagnostics of emotional intelligence (EI) of a manager and its relation to the significant subjective leadership styles. Let us turn our attention to some of the methods.
Diagnostics of EI, based on approaches by J.D. Mayer & P. Salovey, includes the Emotional Intelligence questionnaire by N. Hall, aimed at revealing the ability to perceive personal relations, represented by emotions, and control emotions by decisions [5, p. 57–59].
The questionnaire consists of 30 statements and 5 scales (of 6 statements each), which reflect partial elements of EI: «Emotional awareness»; «Control over own emotions»; «Self-motivation» (voluntary control over own emotions); «Empathy»; «Perception of emotions of others» (ability to influence the emotional condition of others). Respondents were offered to answer, weather they agree or disagree with each of the statements, using the 6-point scale: from –3 points («completely disagree») till +3 («completely agree»). Three development levels were determined for the EI and its components: high, middle and low [5, p. 59].
One of the modern methods to study the management styles was developed by R. Blake and J. Mouton [6]. It is based on the two-factorial model of leader behavior: factor 1 – «Focus on people»; factor 2 – «Goal orientation». R. Blake and J. Mouton operationalized the concept by creating «The managerial grid» [3, p. 233–236]. The above mentioned factors form the axes of the grid, which range from one to nine. So, the Managerial Grid consists of 81 cells, each of which characterizes a certain leadership style. Actually, the method provides not only a quantitative description of leader behavior, but, which is probably more important, determines the dominating factor of leader’s thinking (manager) in relation to the tasks that he faces as a manager [1, p. 228–229]. Semantically, we can distinguish five basic style groups, which occupy homogenous zones in the grid space (pic. 1).
Picture 1. Style zones of the Blake-Mouton managerial grid
Group 1. «Impoverished management». (Minimal attention to both people and work). Space: on axis I between 7 and 9; on axis II – 1-3.
Group 2. «Country club management». (High concern for people, low concern for work). Space: on the both axis between 1 and 3;
Group 3. «Authority-compliance». (High concern for work, but little attention to people). Space: on axis I between 1 and 3; on axis II – 7–9.
Group 4. «Team style». (Strong focus on the work combined with trust and respect to people). Space: on both axis between 7 and 9.
Group 5. «Middle-of-the-road management». (Moderate concern for both people and task). Space: on both spaces between 4 and 6.
In order to widen the interpretational possibilities of the results of the MC self-diagnostics, it is worth offering the Tapping Test technique to the audience, which let observe the neural dynamic properties of personality: power/weakness, lability of nervous system [4]. Neural dynamic peculiarities of nervous system influence the working style of manager, making it individual. Formation of an individual style of professional activity (ISA) is related directly to development of one of the important mental work regulators – professional image and «Ego-concept» [2]. Development of ISA is an essential aspect of personal professional adaptation; it is directly connected with the development of the late personal new formation – professional individuality.
The described psycho-diagnostic methods are tools that let achieve the applied educational goals: acquiring of the self-management skills by doctors, in order to realize the current level of MC development and understand the development direction of the personal management style. In our following article, we will focus on the analyzes of the applied aspects of this approach.