Q.As a manager moves from the lower/supervisory level to the top level, the relative importance of which skill generally INCREASES the most?

Every organisation of any real size ends up with a management hierarchy of three levels, and each level plays a distinct role.

TOP LEVEL — the Board of Directors, the CEO or Managing Director, the General Manager — sits at the apex. This is where the organisation's overall objectives and broad policies get laid down, where long-term/strategic plans get made, and where the organisation's available resources (financial, physical) get mobilised. Top management carries the ultimate weight: it is directly responsible to the shareholders/owners for the organisation's overall performance, and for the organisation's survival and welfare as a whole.

MIDDLE LEVEL — divisional and departmental heads — sits between top and supervisory management, and functions as the connective tissue of the organisation. Its job is to take the broad policies top management hands down and interpret and explain them in operational terms the supervisory level can actually act on. It coordinates the activities of different departments or sections so they don't work at cross-purposes, sends important reports and data upward so top management stays informed, and evaluates and motivates the junior managers below it. …