3 Essential Roles of a Manager and 5 Important Managerial Functions

5 Prevailing Managerial Functions and 3 Most Essential Roles of a Manager, Principles of Management (POM)

3 Most Essential/Important Roles of a Manager

Managers are the heart/brain of the organization or any workplace. They play a crucial role in the management and success of organizational objectives. The primary goal of a manager is to make people productive. And in order to do that, they need to perform certain activities and they are 1.Setting of objectives and planning, 2.Organizing, 3.Staffing, 4.Leading and 5.Controlling. According to Henry Mintzberg, there are three major areas which define the role of a manager and they are as follows;

1) Interpersonal Role

Interpersonal role defines the activities of a manager which are concerned with interaction with people both inside the organization and outsiders. This role covers the relationships that a manager has to have with others. There are three types of interpersonal roles and they are figure head, leader and liaison role.  Figure head role includes the activities which are ceremonial and symbolic in nature. For example, greeting visitors, awards to outstanding employees etc. As a leader, managers have to bring together the needs of an organization and those of the individuals under their command. And liaison role serves as a connecting link between his unit and outsiders.

2) Informational Role

Informational role is concerned with managing and collecting information required in the organization.  It involves monitoring of the work, so that there could be information related to scarce of resources. After monitoring, it manages to collect required resources and distributes it to the concerned unit. Informational role is also grouped into three types as ‘monitor’, ‘disseminator’ and ‘spokesperson’ role. In monitoring role, manager monitors what goes in the organization receiving information about both internal and external events and transmitting it to others. This process of transmission is the dissemination role. Manager often needs to give organizational information to outsiders, taking on the role of spokesperson.

3) Decisional Role

Decisional role is considered one of the most important role among other. Manager takes decisions daily regarding organizational activities or any workforce. Sometime manager has to take prompt decision, keeping in mind, the objectives and goals of the firm. In decisional role manager has to perform following four roles;

• Entrepreneur
• As a conflict handler
• Resource Allocator
• Negotiator

As an entrepreneur the manager has to take decisions like expansion/diversification, initiation of new projects, development of older procedures etc, monitoring certain risks associated with them. Manager as a conflict handler takes care of certain disturbance in organization such as resolving employee disputes and strikes. Manager has to fulfill the every demand of various units, which are essential for obtaining objectives. This process of fulfilling the demand plays role of a resource allocator. He has to allocate resources of all types. He tries to utilize these resources in such a way that no department suffers for their inadequacy. As a negotiator manager has to take decisions regarding prices with suppliers and customers. It is the role, which involves dealing with trade unions and negotiates with them regarding working conditions and wage fixation.

Managerial Functions

As stated in the first paragraph, the primary goal or objective of manager is to handle the overall functioning of the firm or workplace. And to maintain these functioning, there ought to do the following activities;

i) Planning

Planning is when a person thinks of something is to be done and prepares ways to perform the activity. It is the preparation of taking necessary steps to achieve the desired objectives. At the same time, managers need to determine the future trends in business and incorporate change and innovation into the organization from time to time.

ii) Organizing

It is the key factor of a manager to organize activities, people and resources effectively and efficiently.  Organizing is the process of assigning tasks and allocating resources to individuals to enable them to accomplish organizational goals. It is the continuous process of determining which tasks are to be performed, how tasks can best be combined into specific jobs, reporting relationships within the corporate hierarchy.

iii) Staffing

Managers often take short cuts when it comes to sourcing, screening, and selection, or they overly rely on HR or recruiters, instead of seeing selection as a critical part of his/her job. That is why staffing can be better known as “Human Resource Management”. It involves manning or filling the various positions in the organizational hierarchy.

iv) Leading

Leading is concerned with the function of influencing, motivating and directing people towards the achievement of organizational goals. It is the management function that involves influencing and inspiring team members to perform well and accomplish corporate objectives.

v) Controlling

Finally manager needs to monitor the progress of an organization towards its goals. Controlling is the continuous measurement and analysis of actual operations against the established organizational objectives and standards.