Developing a Model of Communication Skills for Managers in the Public Sector

1 Department of Government Management, Chalous Branch, Islamic Azad University, Chalous, Iran, mohammad_feiz@yahoo.com 2 Department of Government Management, Chalous Branch, Islamic Azad University, Chalous, Iran, Davoodkia@iauc.ac.ir 3 Department of Government Management, Chalous Branch, Islamic Azad University, Chalous, Iran, Behzadfarrokh36@gmail.com 4 Department of Accounting, Chalous Branch, Islamic Azad University, Chalous, Iran, aghaahmady@iauc.ac.ir Abstract: Communication skills are one of the key elements of managers' success and a process in which individuals share information, thoughts and feelings through the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages.The purpose of this research is to develop a communication skills model for managers working in government. This is a qualitative research and data collection tool is deep and semi-structured interview. After interviewing with 15 managers, theoretical saturation was obtained and the necessary data were collected and analyzed. The set collected data were analyzed after continuous comparison of data and open, axial, and selective encoding by using the Maxqda Software and they were organized in 91 concepts, 18 categories, and 9 classes. The final results of the collected data were provided using paradigm model in the form of an initial grounded data theory under title of model of communication skills in the public sector.


Introduction
In a paper entitled the effect of effective communication on organizational performance, Shonubi and Akintaro (2016) reminded that for an effective and efficient organizational performance, management should consider the ideas before communication and better understanding of physical and human environment.
When communicating, the goal of communication should be fully analyzed, and when planning for communication, counseling should be top to down and down to top and all the facts should be explicit (Shonubi & Akintaro, 2016). In a research entitled the effect of organizational communications on attitude, happiness, and job satisfaction of employees, Proctor (2014) showed that attitude, happiness and job satisfaction are related to the level of management communication and the ability of employees to provide suggestions, ideas and criticisms. Studies have indicated that employees who participated in the decision-making had higher job satisfaction and higher levels of self-esteem in the work environment. Supervisors, who encouraged employees to provide suggestions, would increase job satisfaction and higher productivity among the employees. Through sharing information, managers have made employees in the organization feel that they control their work environment (Proctor, 2014).

Methodology
The research orientation is developmental, its method is qualitative, its strategy is grounded data theory, its approach is inductive, its objective is exploratory research and the method of data collection is a deep and semistructured interview. After interviewing 15 managers, theoretical saturation was obtained and the necessary data were collected and analyzed. As mentioned above, the tool to collect the data in this research was a deep and semi-structured interview, which was performed by asking questions lasted between 40 and 50 minutes. First, the framework of the interview, including introducing, the reason for the interview, and a general definition of communication skills were presented. Then, the research questions were asked from interviewed person based on the designed structure. Ethical considerations were also observed in the implementation of the research, reflecting the researcher respect for participants. In this regard, along with interview questions, a letter with a researcher's signature on the ethical commitment in keeping the interview contents and the characteristics of the participants and non-publishing it was sent. Moreover, by informing the participants, all interviews were recorded and analyzed using the content analysis method, it was reviewed carefully, conceptualized, categorized, and finally, classes were determined based on the similarity of the relationship among the categories.
The research population includes public sector managers who have at least five years of senior management experience and have at least one of the following characteristics: selected as a national selected manager or at the Shahid Rajaee Festival, received one of the government badges, or recognized as effective manager or manager with superior performance from the point of view of deputies of presidency or organizations evaluating the performance of the relevant ministry. The main indicators of these units for effective managers are the result of the factors such as proper implementation of plans and policies, good reputation, constructive interaction with other units, administrative discipline, and so on. In this research, initial interviews were performed with three senior managers with a superior performance among a large number of managers with the aim of collecting the high quality data and gaining the knowledge of effective managers. Accordingly, the initial questions listed in line with the main question of the research were reviewed. Thus, the interview questions were reviewed based on the feedback received from the initial interviews and gradually improved and finalized.
Then, the researcher obtained the considered samples by referring to the database of managers selected as top managers at the Shahid Rajaee Festival and referring to the experts who were familiar with effective managers in terms of organizational status and wide communication with executive organizations, and also by referring to the offices evaluating the performance and office of administrative transformation, which are responsible for evaluating the performance of managers and implementing management development plans. Moreover, at each interview, participants introduced one or two of the people who could contribute to this research. This method of obtaining samples in the methodology literature is called snowball method. It should be noted that the request for the introduction of the next person was presented at the end of the interview, and the considered person could introduce the next person more accurately due to being familiar with the research objectives and the type of questions. The important point here is that in order to avoid focusing the study on a particular branch of organizations, snowball method was used only two or three times in each area of government tasks, and after the interview with the second person from the same work area, the next sample is selected from a new area. As the research is based on the qualitative method and grounded data theory was used, purposeful and theoretical sampling was used. The sample size in this approach was determined during the work, and the sampling continued up to stage that the data were saturated, that is, to the researcher concluded that the new data is a repeat of the previous data and no new conceptual information requiring a new code or extending the existing codes and classes is obtained. In this research, the researcher achieved the saturation stage after the 12 th interview, but interviews continued for up to 15 people to ensure adequate data collection. The general characteristics of participants of this research are presented in Table 1.

Determining the truthfulness of research
Most of qualitative methodologists use truthfulness criterion rather than the reliability and validity criteria, rooted philosophically in a quantitative paradigm, in order to assess the results of qualitative results (Twining, 2000). In this research, the research truthfulness was assessed by the following four methods: 2-1-1-Acceptability: Introducing the next interviewees by previous interviewees, selecting interviewees based on expert advice, providing descriptive codes to interviewees, and receiving corrective views and ideas, and using descriptive phrases such as quotes in interpretations.
2.1.2. Transferability: selecting the interviewees among valid individuals such as general managers and heads of organizations, providing a picture of the context in which research is conducted.
2.1.3. Reliability: Providing data, methods and decisions with the aim of reviewing and scrutinizing research by other researchers.
2-1-4-Verification: Providing interviews and explanations on the process of data analysis to achieve the results of research (Sinkovics et al., 2008).

Open encoding
In this research, the text of each of the interviews was carefully reviewed and the key message or key concept in each of the phrases was Postmodern April, 2020 Openings Volume 11, Issue 1, Supl. 1 extracted. In some sentences, the interviewees used the terms that were directly usable as a code, and in some cases, the concept was hidden in the sentences, which the researcher attributed to a concept based on the speaker's intention. All interviews were recorded and analyzed through open, axial and selective encoding using the Maxqda Software, and the final model was extracted. An example of interviews performed with experts and allocation of code and concept to each interview is presented in Table 2. In should be noted that in order to ensure the reliability of the research findings and the accuracy of the data analysis process, the results of the encodings were shared and discussed with several management experts and the results of the study were provided for several of the managers of qualified public organizations. Based on the feedbacks provided, the strength of the process and the results were strengthened. In addition, the long-term involvement of researchers with subject proper understanding of the text and the space of research can increase the reliability of the findings.

Axial encoding
Axial encoding is the process of linking concepts to a category and linking the categories at the level of features and dimensions or classes. It is called axial encoding since encoding is done around an axis. The axial coding paradigm model is shown in Figure 2 (Strauss & Corbin, 1998 Figure 3 is the result of data re-analysis based on the paradigm model and shows the axial encoding results in this research. In the axial encoding stage, while selecting a class as the axial class, the data are reprocessed based on the structure of the paradigm model. Accordingly, based on the features, proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998) on the axial class (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), in this research, the information-communication class was considered as the axial class, and it was tried causal conditions, intervening conditions, background, and outcomes to be defined for axial category using the classes produced in the open encoding stages and collected data.

Selective encoding (theorizing)
As mentioned above, the goal of grounded theorizing is generating the theory not mere describing the phenomenon. To transform the analyses to the theory, classes need to be linked orderly to each other. Selective encoding is the main stage of theorizing. Accordingly, the axial class is linked to other classes systematically and those relationships are presented within the framework of a narrative and the classes requiring further improvement are modified. At this stage, the researcher, based on his own understanding of the text of the phenomenon studied, presents the framework of the paradigm model as a narrative or depicts the final theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In this research, the researcher identified the common aspects of the Postmodern April, 2020 Openings Volume 11, Issue 1, Supl. 1 components of the previous stages and, based on their common aspects, they are organized in a more general and more limited classification. Then, given the fact that the design of the model is an exact and difficult task and requires skill and expertise, after consulting with several consultations and implementation of multi-vote technique among the experts, the conceptual model of research was presented as follows: Source: Authors' own elaboration

Social skill
Social behaviors refer to desired learned behaviors enabling an individual to have a good relationship with others and avoid socially unreasonable responses. Social skills include a wide range of behaviors, such as the ability to initiate effective and appropriate communication with others, provide useful and desirable responses, tend to show generous, empathic, and helpful behaviors, and avoid mockery and bullying.

Effective writing skill
Writing skills means that you can communicate your message (including ideas, thoughts, memories and experiences, perspectives and concepts) to your audience in a clear, organized and structured manner through letter, email, weblog, message and text, or in any written form or record them and use them in future.

Verbal skills
They refer to words spoken by one person to encourage the behaviors or activities of others, which should be expressed at a specific time. Our better understanding of verbal communication and the use of more vocabulary completes our ability to think and approach to the world.

Ability to use body language
The body language refers to all forms of non-verbal or behavioral communication, which a person can communicate with others through his physical behaviors without talking. These behaviors can be related to body position and state (the location of the arms, legs, the way of sitting, standing, walking, sleeping), gestures (states), body movements, facial expressions and eye movements.

The skill of understanding the situation
To manage the works in organization, managers need to have right understanding of the environment. The organizational environment includes all the factors affecting the organization's activities. Understanding the situation means what and where we are from and where we go. In fact, an understanding of the situation is important from two dimensions, including religious-moral and social dimensions. Understanding the situation involves knowing when an event should occur in order to lead into a desired behavior response.

Analytical-perceptual skill
Perceptional skill refers to ability to understand the complexity of the whole organization and the perception of all elements and components of the work and organizational activity as a whole unit (system). In other words, it is the ability to recognize that the different functions of the organization are interdependent and change in each department affects other departments. Knowing these relationships and recognizing the important components and elements in various situations enables the manager to make a decision or act in a certain way.

Feedback Skill
The feedback skill is the return of the result of the message to the message sender in such a way that the message sender is aware of the status of the sending the message and its receiving. The communication process, without feedback skill, would not be complete. In the feedback skill, the message April, 2020 Openings Volume 11, Issue 1, Supl. 1 receiver sends the received message to the sender. Feedback skill may be seen in different forms in the communication process.

Information and communication skill
In the vocabulary, it means showing and displaying and it is used in the Persian language as presentation. The presentation of the subject means the transfer of information on the subject. Presentation as a data transfer has its own system. This system has always existed in nature and in human community, and it has existed even in its primitive form before human civilization.

Effective listening skills
In the book entitled "communication experience in human relations, Sam Dip defined effective listening as "active participation in a dialogue". Listening is one of the essential components of communication. Some experts believe that effective listening is the cornerstone of communication skills of today's managers.

Theories supporting research findings
As the theory derived from data in methodology of the grounded data theory is a basic theory, its reliability would depend on to the extent that this theory is supported by relevant theories (Adib Hajbagheri, 2003). Research literature and analyzing the findings of the research and extensive examination of theories related to this domain suggest that the theory developed in this research is most closely related to the following studies and supported by them:  (Argyris, 1986) 2

Communication and information skill
In a research entitled the future of university libraries and librarians, the skills and characteristics of university librarian were mentioned as communication skills, information technology skills, management skills, and Source: Authors' own elaboration

Discussion and conclusion
Communication is a very important skill in management and is the basis for effective management. Communication help managers establish and maintain interpersonal relationships, which are necessary for performing the daily tasks. Through communication, managers listen to others and are involved in understanding of the information they need to create motivation in the work environment. No manager can perform his duties without communication skills. In fact, many developments in today's work environment often depend on communications as the key to unlock all abilities of the human resources in an organization. In this research, entitled subject-matter knowledge. (Freet & Marcinek , 2005( 3 Skill of understanding the situation examining the relationship between self-awareness skills, environmental knowledge and management of the job path in the Ministry of Education (Abbasi & Fani, 2005 ;Byham et al., 2002) 4 Feedback skill Feedback is the process through which the recipient of the message announces communication and tells how he is feeling the main message (Schermerhorn , 1993) 5 Analyticalperceptual skill Analytical skill is the ability to understand the complexity of the whole organization and the perception of all elements and components of the work and organizational activity as a whole unit (Robbins, 1992).

6
Effective listening skill Effective listening is a learned and complex process of feeling, interpreting, evaluating, storing and responding to verbal and oral messages (Brownell, 1990). 7 Effective writing skill Examining the relationship between personality traits and communication skills (Writing and Speaking) (Bambacas & Patrickson, 2009;Ghaeb Zadeh et al., 2016). 8 Skill of using the body language Body movements are a form of communication which is distinct from oral communication. Anger, hatred, excitement, hand and foot movements are types of this communication (Moshabaki, 2001;Pies, 2016). 9 Social skill Social skills refer to desirable learning behaviors enabling a person to have desired relationship with others and avoid unreasonable social responses (Matson et al., 2000) April, 2020 Openings Volume 11, Issue 1, Supl. 1 as development of a model of communication skills for managers in public organizations using a qualitative research and open, axial and selective encoding techniques, the communication model was designed and explained and the findings of research were discussed. In general, it could be stated that a comprehensive model as extracted due to use of paradigm model, which takes the causal, background, intervening, main phenomena, strategies and outcomes into consideration. In addition, in presenting the model of researchers, they have tried to use the experience and knowledge of experts.

Research limitations
3.7.1. Problems of accessing to national top managers due to multiplicity of their job and shortage of time 3.7.2. Lack of research resources in the area of qualitative research, especially data grounded research. 3.7.3. Problems of access to research services such as access to books, magazines, statistics, databases, etc. 3.7.4. Viewing the research results private by individuals and lack of assistance in transfer of experiences and research findings.

Research recommendations
3.8.1. It is recommended that future studies to develop a model of communication skills separately based on personality types. 3.8.2. It is recommended that the results of the studies and the current model to be be tested quantitatively in selected public organizations.