Human service management: the art of interpersonal relationships

The authors focus on the importance of interpersonal skills for the human service manager. Utilizing the significant replication of Mintzberg's study, with eight human services managers, the primacy of communication skills is emphasized. The authors conclude that management is a contingency activity; that personnel require contact to verify their feelings, attitudes, and decisions; and that organizational issues are essentially political in nature and respond to political solutions. Counsel, negotiation, persuasion, and consensus-building are viewed as corollaries of sound interpersonal skills.