Importance Of Manager: Explained

Importance and Role Of Manager

A manager is an essential figure in the process of generating wealth creation. Technology changes rapidly; techniques of production change frequently; marketing methods evolve constantly; financial set up must be revised regularly; and managers must be adaptable enough to deal with such changes.

Meaning

A manager is a position in an organization that directs the activities of others. Managers work at various levels and are known by different names. Supervisors or foremen are the first line managers in manufacturing. The term “manager” covers all levels of management between the supervisory level and the top echelon of an organization.

Functional managers, plant heads, and project managers are some of the terms used to describe these bosses. Top executives responsible for making organizational decisions and establishing rules and approaches that impact all areas of the business may be known as vice-presidents, managing directors, chief executive officers, or chairmen of the board.

Managerial Functions

A manager must oversee a wide range of activities and responsibilities in order to ensure that things run smoothly. Functions like planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling are all necessary for running an efficient business. Planning is required for determining goals and strategies for coordinating operations.

Organization aids in determining what duties should be done, how they should be accomplished, and where decisions should be made. The staffing function is critical for employing a variety of people and carrying out a wide range of tasks including training, development, appraisal, compensation, welfare, and so on.

The directing function entails giving instructions and encouraging team members to achieve their objectives. A manager is in charge of monitoring activities to verify that they are proceeding as scheduled and correcting any significant variations if necessary.

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Managerial Skills

A manager has a lot of responsibilities. A manager must have the specialized abilities to complete various tasks.

Henry Fayol put the qualities required by managers into the following categories:

Physical – health, vigour, address.
Mental – ability to understand and learn; judgement, mental vigour and adaptability.
Moral – energy, firmness, willingness to accept responsibility, initiative, loyalty, tact, dignity.
Educational – general acquaintance with matters not belonging exclusively to the function performed.
Technical – peculiar to the function.
Experience – arising from the work proper.

During the early 1970s, Robert L. Katz conducted research and discovered that managers require three key abilities: technical, human, and philosophical. He also discovered that the relative importance of these talents changed based on the manager’s position in the company.

Technical Skills

Managers must have the technical knowledge or the capacity to collaborate with tools, techniques, processes, and procedures. Significant numbers of first line and many middle managers are engaged in technical aspects of an organization’s operations. Technical skills include understanding of and competency in certain specialized fields such as engineering, computers, finance, or manufacturing. Even though the need for technical skills decreases as a manager rises up the hierarchy, having technical expertise aids in making decisions.

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Human Skills

It’s about how well you work with other people: individually and in groups. Managers with human abilities can get the most out of their team members. They understand how to communicate, motivate, command, and inspire confidence and trust. These skills are needed by managers at all levels, but top executives need them the most.

Conceptual Skills

Managers must be able to integrate and synchronize a wide range of activities. Managers must be able to conceive about, as well as communicate, higher-level answers. They must be able to see the organization as a whole and how various subunits are linked together, as well as how the organization fits into its external environment. The ability to think conceptually is advantageous in decision-making. Because all managers have to make selections at some time, these abilities are useful for everyone, but they become more essential as they move up the organizational ladder.

Qualities of a Manager

A manager must handle a number of responsibilities, from planning to supervision. He must make judgments for each sort of task. The operations of an organization are influenced by the manager’s decisions.

He should have the following qualities so for performing his work properly:

Education

A business leader must have the appropriate education. These days, managers are expected to have management training in addition to other educational qualifications. Education not only broadens one’s mental horizon, but it also aids in the comprehension of concepts and the proper interpretation of them. Knowledge of a company’s environment is equally important when handling various challenges that the company may confront.

Intelligence

A manager must take on more responsibilities than other workers in the company. He should possess a higher degree of intellect than other employees. Intelligence will assist a manager in analyzing the present and prospective prospects for the firm. He will be able to see things far enough ahead to make correct judgments at the proper moment.

Leadership

A manager must direct and inspire the employees in an organization. He will act as a mentor to his underlings. The energies of the workers must be directed and motivated toward organizational objectives for them to be effective. If a leader has the ability to encourage staff members in improving their performance and working to their full potential for the benefit of the company, he or she has leadership qualities.

Training

To be an effective leader, one must first learn leadership skills. These abilities include technical talents, interpersonal skills, and mental skills. These talents must be learnt through education, coaching, or experience. All degrees of managers require these capabilities.

Technical Knowledge

A manager should be able to understand production processes and other activities conducted in the firm. If he himself understands those things, he will be in a better position to inspect and advise.

Maturity

A manager must be able to deal with a variety of circumstances. He should be patient, attentive, and quick to react in tense situations. Many difficult decisions must be made, some of which may have a significant influence on the performance of the organization. When dealing with employees, he should remain calm. All of these traits are associated with mental maturity.

Positive Attitude

A manager’s attitude is a benefit. A manager must deal with both internal and external individuals. He should be sympathetic and optimistic to various ideas, as well as making just decisions. He shouldn’t prejudge issues before taking a stand. He should attempt to establish positive ties with those who work with him. He should try to comprehend their difficulties and offer assistance if possible.

Self-confidence

A manager must have self-assurance. Every day, he or she must make numerous decisions, and he or she must approach them analytically before making decisions. After he makes judgments, he should keep to them and try to put them into action. A person who lacks confidence in his abilities will always be uncertain of his options. Rather than solving difficulties, this attitude causes more issues than it solves.

Foresight

A manager must make decisions that will impact not only the present but also the future. Technology, marketing, consumer behavior, financial structure, and other factors are all changing rapidly. Economic policies can have long-term effects. A manager should consider what may occur in the future and prepare his or her company for it. The ability to see into the future helps a manager make appropriate judgments and evaluate difficulties from a positive perspective. If problems are underestimated, the business may be subject to negative circumstances if they are not properly analyzed.

Role of the Manager

A position is concerned with the behavioural patterns of a manager in an organization. In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg conducted a thorough research on five CEOs at work. According to his findings, the job of a manager is significantly different from what was previously assumed. For example, it was widely accepted in those days that managers were reflective thinkers who examined information carefully and methodically before making decisions.

Mintzberg discovered that his managers were engaged in a wide range of unconstrained, unpatterned, and short-term activities. Because managers are frequently disturbed, there isn’t much time for reflection. Mintzberg devised a categorization scheme for defining what managers do based on actual managers on the job. He determined that management roles include ten distinct but highly interconnected categories of managerial action. The phrase “management roles” refers to a set of distinct jobs performed by management personnel.

Interpersonal Roles

As a figurehead, the manager is required to undertake certain functions. He or she might welcome visitors from the outside or head a company social event. As the organization’s leader, he or she may be required to sign legal paperwork. These are the responsibilities of being a figurehead. When he has to handle the activities of his employees, he must also play the role of boss.

He has to not only inspire the staff but also hire, fire, and discipline them. The third function in interpersonal roles is that of liaisoning. He must engage outside agencies to obtain business-related data. Individuals or organizations may be the sources of outside information.

Informational Roles

Managers are required to tackle informational responsibilities. They must gather information from outside sources and their own organizations. Managers may also be thought of as disseminators since they provide information to employees in the company. This data is real, as well as with interpretations for the user’s benefit. When a manager acts as an ambassador for his organization, he performs the function of a spokesperson.

Decisional Roles:

According to Mintzberg, a manager fulfills four decisional roles. He is in charge of and initiates new initiatives intended to improve the performance of an organization. This is the entrepreneurial function assumed by him as a disturbance handler. In response to previously unforeseen difficulties, he takes corrective measures as manager, assigning and monitoring personnel, human, and material allocation. When he assigns and monitors people, physical resources, and money allocations for his unit, he acts as a negotiator.