The Relationship between the Manager and His Employees - Essay Example

Managers The term management is defined as the art and science of achieving goals through people. In these circumstances and contemporary management situations, a manager is defined as a person who is an expert in this art and science. Today's managers have to perform various functions for which they need to take up diverse roles. In order to meet these, managers must be well equipped with a range of abilities and skills to ride the wave of organizational development successfully. Underlined below are these key aspects. Contents 1. Roles of managers a. Interpersonal b. Informational c. Decisional 2. Functions of managers a. Planner b. Organizer c. Directing d. Controlling 3. Abilities of managers a. Systematic thinking b. Embracing diversity, managing risk c. Balancing global and local perspectives d. Meaningful dialogue e. Emotional awareness 4. Managerial skills a. Technical skills b. Human skills c. Conceptual skills Roles of managers Roles refer to an organized set of behaviors. The roles of a manager are diverse and can mainly be classified as interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles (Mintzberg, 1973). There are ten managerial roles that are seen to come under these three criteria. These are elucidated as under. Interpersonal roles: As the title implies, in these roles, a manager mainly concerns himself with the interpersonal relationships with people and providing them with useful information. These three underlined roles help managers build a network of contacts. Leader: This role defines the relationship between the manager and his employees and involves directing and coordinating activities of subordinates for the achievement of organizational goals. For a human resource manager, this involves roles such as staffing, motivating employees and problem solving. Figurehead: Here the manager represents the organization in all matters of formality. For example at the top level of an organization, a manager becomes a legal and social representative of his company to outsiders and may take on roles like greeting a touring dignitary. Here the manager demonstrates that he cares for his employees, customers and people who deserve recognition. Liaison: This role involves the manager dealing with people other than supervisors and subordinates. It could involve gains of favors, information or support from people like clients, government officials, suppliers, members of board etc. This role helps the manager to build information systems from outsiders that affects the organization's success. Informational roles: These three roles are important as they concern themselves with the manager obtaining and processing information for undertaking managerial work. These are, Monitor: Here the manager receives and collects information that affects the performance of a specific department or the organization as a whole. For example a sales manager, receives and collects information from sales representatives regarding number of product sales and success of a product. Disseminator: In this role the manager disseminates information to subordinates. For example, in a social organization working for child welfare, a manager has the role to inform his people on new child laws enacted upon by the government. Spokesperson: In this role, the manager transmits information of the organization to outsiders in an official capacity. At the top level of a social organization, a manager is seen as an expert in the line and if the manager says it, it is considered that the organization says it. However at middle management level of a social organization, the manager is seen as the expert of his or her department. Decisional roles: The access to information and the range of interpersonal relationships, put managers on the fore of using above information for decision making. This shoulders him the most important responsibility of four major decisional roles, Entrepreneur: In this role, a manager becomes an initiator of change and brings in new ideas to his organizational environment. Surveys are launched, new policies are adopted, new marketing strategies are decided upon and technologies are experimented with by different industries. Disturbance handler: Here the manager deals with threats to the organization, both external and internal, which are often beyond immediate control. At the top level, a manager could thus deal with competitor threats, bankruptcy of a supplier etc. At a supervisor level, managers may be dealing with strikes and internal unrest. Negotiator: Here the manager bargains on behalf of his organization or department to obtain advantages. For example, a purchasing manager takes on the role of a negotiator while bargaining for reduced costs and faster delivery times Resource allocator: Here the manager takes on the role of deciding where the organization will expend its efforts. Resources may include budgeted or extra funds, equipment, people etc. A top line manager of a social organization working for child welfare, may decide to allocate resources broadly on child education. On the other hand, a department head at middle management level in the same organization, decides to allocate special books for disabled children. Managerial functions The main function of a manager is to formulate and maintain a congenial organizational environment where all employees can work efficiently. This shoulders the managers of an organization with the four key functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling organizational resources. With any kind of organization, these resources usually include people, positions, technologies, facilities, materials, information and money. The four functions of a manager as a planner, organizer, direction provider and controller are interdependent. However on a larger perspective, these four functions are also goal directed. These functions can further be understood as under, Planner: In the function of planning, the responsibility lies on the manager to devise a systematic process that helps an organization attain its goals in the short term and obtain its vision in the long term. Short term and long term planning is thus undertaken by managers to devise its goals and mission. For example, in a social organization, a top level manager may decide to take upon the plan of child education for special children. At his level, planning would encompass deciding the objectives of the project, short term and long term goals, criteria for suitable children, the curriculum, the venue and the time frame of the project. Organizer: This important managerial function, puts the responsibility on managers for allocating the proper resources. As can be understood, the function of organizing is dependent on planning which gives the outline. This necessary function involves the manager to create structure and also establish relationships for accomplishing organizational goals. For the above plan, as an organizer, the manager needs to decide on tie ups with special schools, books, stationary, teachers and other staff. Directing: This is an important function and involves providing proper guidance, leading and overseeing employees as they carry out the organizational plan. This may involve arranging trainers, special instructors and providing guidance on the objectives of the exercise. Controlling: Finally this function encompasses matching progress with plan and verifying if organizational goals are being met. In case the goals are not being met, it is the function of a manager to take corrective action. Following the same example, a manager would have to consider whether the classes are being run properly and whether results match the objectives set out with initially. In case this is not being done, a manager has the function to revise the plan accordingly. Managerial abilities New research undertaken under 'Leadership qualities and management competencies for corporate responsibity' reveals that today's managers must be equipped with the following five abilities in order to integrate the vital elements of social and environmental considerations into individual business decisions. These are, Systematic thinking: The logical thinking process (Goldratt, undated) is a vital ability for today's managers to be able to adapt to dynamic business environments. This process helps managers to strategize and decide what to change, what to change to and how to change. Embracing diversity, managing risk: It is an important ability of managers to embrace diversity workforce in a manner that allows all to reach their full potential and attain organizational goals at the same time. This involves the ability of managers to attract talent and also remove the barriers that hinder progress. Managing risk in such a diverse work environment is another important asset for managers. This involves the ability of a manager to recognize risk, assess risk and finally devise strategies to manage it. For a financial manager, his ability to manage financial risks that an organization can face would be a prerequisite ability. Balancing global and local perspectives: This involves the manager's ability, knowledge and skill to design, plan and organize activities for achieving goals in a manner that meets not only the organization's local needs but also its globalization. This refers to abilities of streamlining information and standardizing communications, business functions and the diverse management practices. Meaningful dialogue: In today's business scenario, work is increasingly being conducted in groups. This means that managers must have the ability to build teams and sustain their morale. This requires the ability of the manager to be able to interact well with all team members for meaningful dialogue. At the top management level, communication skills have higher importance as managers need to interact not only with middle level managers within the organization but also with top line people outside the organization. Emotional awareness: Emotional awareness or emotional intelligence is a key managerial ability that predicts success for any organization as compared to intelligence and expertise. As per a Gallop poll conducted in 2000, the strongest factor in employee retention was noted to be the employee's relation with his boss. Emotionally aware managers, thus have better abilities to handle difficult situations. Scope of Managerial skills In order to meet the dynamic needs of today's competitive working environment, managers need to have a wide scope of skills. As per Robert Katz (1974), three sets of managerial skills are defined. These are, Technical skills: These skills have a high importance at supervisory level than at top management. These skills involve technical proficiency and knowledge of tools and techniques in a specific area of work. Thus supervisors or middle managers of a software organization need to be equipped with technical skills pertinent to their area of management. Human Skills: As the name implies, this skill involves the ability to interact well with people of all levels within an organization and outside. This skill is of high importance in the human resources department and at the level of top management. One form of human skills can be understood as political skills, which are much needed by managers in order to excel in a world of scarcity, diversity and conflict (Bolman and Deal, 1991). This requires the skill in agenda setting (Kanter, 1983; Kotter, 1988), networking and forming of coalitions (Kanter, 1983) and bargaining and negotiating (Bellow and Moulton, 1978). Conceptual skills: This skill involves formulation of new ideas to sustain an organization in a competitive environment. It involves understanding abstract relationships, formulating new ideas, devising innovative strategies and using creativity to solve unusual problems. These skills are very useful for top level managers who need to take decisions for the organization as a whole. Also these skills are of high importance in planning activities, another major role of top level managers. Summary The above essay clearly indicates the obvious differences between the closely related terms of managerial roles, functions, skills and abilities. The manager needs to take on diverse roles at interpersonal, informational and decisional levels. The manager also needs to perform the various functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling. However the success of a manager in an organization depends on his set of skills and abilities. Thus depending on his position in the organization, the manager must possess technical skills, human skills and/ or conceptual skills. Finally he must have the diverse abilities of thinking systematically, developing a conversational language with team members, embrace diversity, balance perspectives and be emotionally aware. A manager's job thus emerges as a challenging one, with the challenges growing in the dynamically adapting business environments. To stay ahead of times, managers must learn to quickly pace up with change and keep themselves abreast with the latest information and technologies. 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