The roles of a manager:
Different managers perform at different levels and require different skills. To meet the demands of performing their functions, managers assume multiple roles. A role is an organized set of behaviors. Henry Mintzberg has identified ten roles common to the work of all managers. The ten roles are divided into three groups: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.
Interpersonal Roles
Roles that related to your relationships with others are considered interpersonal roles. They arise directly from your formal position and authority.
1. Figurehead: Manager are the heads of their own divisions, department, or sections, and this means they must routinely perform certain ceremonial duties. For example, they may be required to con duct tours of their facilities, speak to service clubs and civic organization and attend employees retirement dinners.
2. Leaders: Manager are expected to create and maintain a positive and productive work environment for themselves and their employees. First-line managers, in particular, feel that effectiveness in this role is essential for successful job performance.
3. Liaison: Managers interact with many other people besides their superiors and team member. This role may involve contacts both inside and outside the organization. The top-level manager uses the liaison role to gain favors and information, while the supervisor uses it to maintain the routine flow of work.
Informational Roles
Manager often have mere information than their employees, which is partly because of their network of contacts inside and outside the organization. Information roles relate to using and disseminating information.
1. Monitor: Managers must constantly monitor the work environment to know what’s going on. They collect information both by asking question and by taking note of unsolicited information that come to them through formal means(meeting, memos and report) and informal means (the grapevine, rumor and other unofficial sources).
2. Disseminator: Manager act as disseminators when they relay information to their employees that the employees may not receive by other means.
3. Spokesperson: Managers are expected to speak for their work unite to people outside the work group. These people may include higher managers, peers in other department and various outside the organization.
Decisional Roles
Part of a manager’s job is making choices. Managers may make decisions themselves or influence the decisions of others in the following roles.
1. Entrepreneur: Managers play an entrepreneur’s role when they are exposed to new ideas and techniques that could improve their work group’s productivity or efficiency. The entrepreneurial role requires managers to initiate that will encourage their employees to use these new ideas and techniques to maximum advantage.
2. Disturbance bundler: When equipment breakdowns, strikes, scheduling problems and other unpleasant and keep their work groups moving forward.
3. Resource allocator: Managers typically are responsible for deciding how scarce resource such as money, materials, time and equipment will be distributed among the members of work group.
4. Negotiator: Managers spend a great deal of their time as negotiators, because only they have the information and authority that negotiators require. The negotiations may concern work, performance, objectives, resources, or anything else influencing the unit.
Responsibilities of a professional manager:
Professional responsibilities for a managers have become increasingly in the last few years because of the unfavorable publicity on the dealings of the corporate America. These professional responsibilities for a manager are both broad- based and encompassing. Describes a manager as ‘someone who handles or directs with a degree of skill’. Although specific responsibilities may very, the PM is generally responsible managing the project’s progress to world the time, cost and quality goals PM has these keys challenges:
1. Client or Customer expectations: what the client consider to be successful project. Communication skills, especially listening are essential. The manager is responsible to supervise that the Points of sale where the product must be sold at the recommended price With correct weight and the quality.
2. Accomplishment: project are complex enterprise and present difficulties. The successful PM views difficulties and challenge and gains the respect of clients, supervisors and peers by accomplishing objective in spite of problem.
3. Towards employees: The manager must ensure the employees must get that all for which they are working and giving their best. They should get fair wages, according to the law salaries, insurance, provident fund, bonus etc. Also they should ensure that the safety, health and suitable environment are also available to the employees. Depending upon the organization the manager provide medical facilities , canteen, transport living accommodation to the employees.
4. About Government: Responsibilities about Government is to run the according to its constitution and all activities are as per the legal framework depending upon the type of the organization. The manager must meet all legal requirements which are laid down by government from the point of conception of the organization.
The manager also takes the responsibility of payment of taxes duties and other dues to the government.
5. Society: Responsibility towards society The manager must ensure the people living in the area do not suffer due to factory pollution sewage, toxic affluents. The health of the the society does not suffer due to the mistakes of the management of the organization in the form of polluted air, water, and food.
6. Share holders: Responsibility about share holders He must safeguard the interest of the shareholders who have contributed the cpiital of the organization .The company must make profit and the share holders must get the dividend. They must get the correct and timely information about the balance sheet, annual general meetings, activities and the organizational results from time to time.
7. Taking Charge: it is the PM’s responsibility to take charge. A project team requires sensitive guidance and direction. An effective manager allows each member of the team to exercise judgment and creativity within the constraints of the project.
8. Service: the ability of manager client relationship successfully is one of the most important skills a PM can develop. The challenge is to serve without being service.
9. Meeting contractual obligation: A key responsibility is to meet a firm’s obligation as outlined in the agreement for professional services with a client. This means doing everything reasonable to carry out project within a scope, services, schedule and established in the agreement.
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