4 Roles and skills of Managers

Dr. Harpreet Singh Chahal

1. Learning Outcome

2. Introduction

3. Managerial functions

4. Managerial roles

5. Managerial skills

6. Summary

1. Learning Outcome:

After completing this module the students will be able to: List various functions of managers
Describe various types of roles to be performed by managers. Describe important managerial skills.

2. Introduction

3. Managerial Functions

What are the major functions of a manager? This question was very beautifully addressed by Henry Fayol. According to Fayol, a manager performs four major functions using human and non human resources in order to achieve the predetermined goals. These functions are: Planning, organising, leading and controlling.

Source: Author

The job of a manager is highly challenging and demanding. Manager is expected to perform beyond his role profile. A manager is supposed to take all important decisions taking into consideration all legislations made by central and state governments, available funds, expectations of trade unions and above all feelings of customers and general public. In order to perform well, a manager has to keep record of everything which is happening in the environment around. Besides their own responsibilities, a manager also has to participate in national and international seminars and conferences so as to stay in touch with the new ideas and developments taking place in the world. Briefly, the managerial functions are explained as follows:

a) Planning:- Planning is considered as the first function of the management. Planning indicates the future direction of the organisation as well as rest of the functions (organising, leading, controlling) of management. Planning is the process of identifying organisational goals and objectives. It is also concerned with deciding what activities an organisation need to undertake in order to achieve the goals. Planning involves choosing future course of action from the available alternatives.

b) Organising:- Designing the organisation functions is also the duty of managers. Organising requires a formal structure of authority and responsibility with the help of which work is divided into activities and linkages to coordinate the work are established. In this step, managers actually determine:

the way a plan will be executed How the work should be done?

To whom the task should be assigned?

How much time should be appropriate to completing the particular task, Who will be the leader? and

How the task members should be grouped together?

The function of organising is primarily concerned with number of tasks to be performed and grouping the related tasks into a group. Besides this, organising also focuses on assigning the tasks to the employees while defining their authority and responsibility.

c) Leading: Function of leadership is concerned with directing, communicating and motivating the subordinates. Directing involves the element of issuing instructions to the subordinates and guiding them about the methods and procedures of accomplishing the tasks. Communication involves two way flow of information between the leader and the subordinates. For the communication to be effective, it should be open so that the information can be passed on to the subordinates and feedback can be taken from them. The function of Motivation involves encouraging the subordinates to give their best efforts to achieve organisational goals. A strong positive motivation will always facilitate an employee to increase his abilities, performance and output, whereas a negative motivation will lead to decreased level of performance. Therefore, in order to optimally utilise human resources of the organisation and to retain the same in an organisation, management should make all possible efforts to motivate its employees.

d) Controlling:- Controlling is majorly concerned with measuring the performance of subordinates and taking corrective actions. Controlling is the most important function of the management as it confirms that events are occurring as per the plans. It involves measuring performance against the goals, identifying the areas of deviations from the standards and taking corrective actions to rectify the deviations. In short, objective of controlling is to assure the accomplishment of plans.

4. Managerial Roles

In the present scenario management has become a complex function. The major reason behind this is that the social, economic, political and technological factors of the environment are changing very rapidly. In addition to this many other factors such as increasing size of the business units, globalisation, tough competition, pressure to increase the productivity and expansion of other facilities are also presenting huge number of problems. In light of such a scenario, the role of management is to coordinate all the factors of production efficiently. Henry Mintzberg, a graduate student in MIT suggested that a manager perform ten different types of roles. These roles can be grouped into 3 categories: interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles. These roles are explained as below:

4.1 Interpersonal Roles:

Mintzberg found that all the managers spend a considerable amount of time in interacting with the people inside and outside the organisation. Such, people include employees, top executives, customers, suppliers, financers, government officers and union officials. Interactions with all such people require an understanding of interpersonal skills and interpersonal behaviour. It is very important skill which every manager should have in order to handle employees in a better way. This skill helps them to co-ordinate, communicate, interact, provide right information to their subordinates and direct them according to their work profiles. While having interpersonal interactions, a manager performs three major roles:

a) Figurehead Role: Managers act as symbolic figurehead in order to perform social or legal obligations. All the ceremonial and symbolic activities are performed by manager for the betterment of organisation. Being a symbolic head manager have to perform number of duties such as greeting the visitors, taking important customers to high profile lunch, signing legal documents, giving speeches at schools and other public places etc. The strategic and future planning of organisation is also done by figurehead person.

b) Leadership role: The duty of manager is to attain best performance and output by using leadership quality. A manager is responsible for all the activities of the subordinates. He must lead and coordinate all activities of the subordinates. A manager should direct his subordinates regarding their goals. Besides this, he should motivate them to excel in their performance related goals.

c) Liaison: This role tells about managers how managers build a relationship within group and outside the group. It is development of relationship which helps in gathering correct information from inside as well as outside the organisation. A manager has to build an external network in order to access the external environment. He builds his own external information system by attending outside meetings, seminars, conferences and other outside trade agencies.

4.2 Informational Roles:

In order to keep their knowledge up to date, managers collect the information from inside as well as outside the organisations. Except the internal resources of organizations, they also access various external resources such as newspapers, magazines, competitors’ strategic manuals to gather the information. To be effective, managers utilize maximum of their time in gathering information. This helps them to use adequate information to survive in cutting edge competition. In the capacity of information possessor, a manager executes three roles:

a) Monitor: – Managers constantly scan the external environment in order to search the information regarding their organisation as well as the factors affecting it. This can be done by reading reports, magazines, newspapers and periodicals. Managers supervise and analyse information which they have gathered from inside and outside the organisation. This information helps managers to handle as well as organise people and resources in systematic way.

b) Disseminator: To transfer knowledge among employee, managers are acting as disseminator. This effective knowledge influences the attitude and productive behaviour of employees towards the work. That’s why this role of managers is considered as a crucial role.

c) Spokesperson: When managers represent their organisation in the public and amongst the stakeholders, they act as spokesperson. A manager has to act as a spokesperson and provide relevant information regarding its organisation to the stakeholders and customers on the behalf of the unit.

4.3 Decisional Roles:

The managers play vital role in decision making in their departments. They have strong decision making abilities which help them to make strategies for attaining the goals of organisation. It is the duty of managers to decide about the appropriate strategy as well as whom to be included in the task according to the nature of the project in hand. Manager takes a good care to ensure proper utilisation of available resources. Decisional roles are categorised as:

a) Entrepreneur: As entrepreneurs, managers are constantly involved in improving the performance of their units and facing dynamic technological changes. They continuously look for new ideas to make their products and services better. Acting as entrepreneur, they take decisions for the choice of projects by checking the feasibility of every individual project. They always look for ways to improve the organisation performance by checking the flaws in day to day outcome.

b) Disturbance handler: This is also one of the duties of managers to resolve the problems which create disturbance and make the working environment less productive. They also protect the organisation from unexpected crisis by taking corrective action to resolve the troublemaking disturbances. Managers are constantly involved in resolving the differences among the subordinates and the management. Such differences may arise due to demand for pay rise or other benefits. A good manager always anticipates such issues and takes preventive actions.

c) Resource Allocator: Managers also perform the duty of allocating humans, resources and money to new projects on the basis of worker’s capabilities and availability of resources and money; they try to assign the skilled employees and best resources to the project in hand so that the deadlines of the project can be met with great efficiency. A good manager establishes the priorities among various projects and makes budgetary allocations accordingly.

d) Negotiator: Managers also play the role of a negotiator while making financial deals. They negotiate with stakeholders for the benefit of organisations. This is the art of managers which help them to make every deal fruitful.

5. Managerial Skills

Managers need certain skills in order to accomplish their tasks and roles successfully. Depending upon the level the managers are working at, different sort of skills is required. Relevant skills guide them to how to work to reap maximum utilization of available resources. Some important managerial skills are discussed as follows:

a) Conceptual skills: Managers need to be good leaders because they need to manage all human and non human resources of office and departments. I addition to this, they also have to be conceptually sound to be able to analyse and diagnose the complex problems concerning day to day activities, collect and interpret relevant information and make sound decisions that enable the organisation to avoid certain as well as uncertain crisis. As already discussed in the definition of management, management is about getting things done through goal-setting, work planning, budgeting, organizing and controlling. Effectiveness of a manager depends upon his or her ability to get the things done from others, creating values for the company and his or her command over the basic tasks of management. To succeed as a manager, one needs a thorough understanding of all parts of the business.

b) Human skills: Human skills are also called interpersonal skills. Human skills refer to the ability of a person to work in cooperation with each other. It emerges as a spirit of trust, team spirit and true involvement in the interpersonal relationships. Human skills help the managers to perceive worker’s emotions and attitude towards the task assigned. Human skills assist them to have high degree of self awareness and ability to understand the feelings of people at work. Human skills also help managers to listen to the grievances or disturbances of employees patiently. Many managers lack in human skills. Due to lack of such skills they usually fail to fulfil their roles as managers. This happens largely because they are impatient, very aggressive and not good listener though they may be technically and conceptually very sound. To be able to communicate, motivate and delegate effectively, managers must have good human skills.

c) Technical skills: Technical skill is one’s ability to use expertise related to procedures, methods, machinery or process. Doctors, engineers, accountants, software developers and data analysts obtain technical skills through formal education or training. Majority of the jobs today are based on technical skills. For some jobs, technical skills are gained through formal education while for other jobs technical skills can be obtained through training. Managers who are expertise in their area as well as have good command in technology are able to achieve their deadlines effectively because of their increased ability to manage managerial as well as technical problems at once.

d) Communication Skills: Communication skills are the basic skills which are required at all levels of management. Good communication skills are the key to success of a manager. Ideas, thoughts and views of a manager will be useless if they are not communicated properly. Good communication always improves coordination and avoids misunderstandings, distortions and conflicts. All managerial roles discussed in the previous section of this module are based on verbal and non verbal skills of managers.

e) Diagnostic skills: These skills refer to the ability of a manager to analyse the problem and opportunity objectively and logically. Diagnostic skills include one’s ability to use scientific methods and approaches to identify the best possible solution to the problem.

Summary

Management is commonly defined as “Getting work done through the other people.” This definition simply explains the role of people in the organisations. This definition says that the work will be done only when people are there to perform the given task. A well managed organisation can survive and flourish during the most difficult times of economy and a badly managed organisation can go bankrupt even when the economy is in a favourable situation. Though, success or failure of a business depends upon the number of factors such as general state of economy, type of management, it is majorly the ability or inability which determines the success or failure of the organisation. A proficient and skilled management contribute to the success of the organisation to a great extent. A manager is the person who practices the art of management in the organisation. Therefore, in this module we will discuss the major functions, roles and skills of managers. According to Fayol, a manager performs four major functions using human and non human resources in order to achieve the predetermined goals. These functions are: Planning, organising, leading and controlling. In the present scenario management has become a complex function. The major reason behind this is that the social, economic, political and technological factors of the environment are changing very rapidly. In addition to this many other factors such as increasing size of the business units, globalisation, tough competition, pressure to increase the productivity and expansion of other facilities are also presenting huge number of problems. In light of such a scenario, the role of management is to coordinate all the factors of production efficiently. Henry Mintzberg, a graduate student in MIT suggested that a manager perform ten different types of roles. These roles can be grouped into 3 categories: interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles. Besides this, managers need certain skills in order to accomplish their tasks and roles successfully. Depending upon the level the managers are working at, different sort of skills is required. Relevant skills guide them to how to work to reap maximum utilization of available resources. Some important managerial skills are conceptual skills, human skills, technical skills, diagnostic skills and communication skills.

Learn More:

Stephen Robins (2012). Organizational Behavior. New Delhi-110092: Prentice Hall publications.
Aswathappa, K. (2003). Organisational Behaviour. Himalaya Publishing House.
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Greenberg, J. (2003). Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Miner, J. B. (2002). Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. Oxford University Press.
Pareek, U. (2014), Understanding Organisational Behaviour, Oxford University Press (Revised and Updated by Sushama Khanna)
http://www.bput.ac.in/lecture_notes/ob.pdf
Ivancevich, J.M., Konopaske, R. and Matteson, M. (2012), Organisational Behaviour and Management, Mc Graw Hill.
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