Part 2: Roles of Manager
Roles of a manager
Manager performs the following different roles
Planning
Planning is simply drawing up expectations of what future holds and then on the basis of such expectations formulization of activities which will ensure the achievement of targets. How activities will be carried out. It involves what resources are going to be used, how much they are going to be used responsibility of the members of the group, tasks what each will be carrying out, whom members will report etc.
It all starts by first of all deciding what is required to be achieved as managers might have more than one thing to be done. Therefore, even before mangers start planning they decide about what to plan. This process involves analysis of goals needed to be achieved and then their ranking according to their importance among others.
After a certain target is selected the next step is determining what is needed to achieve selected objective. It includes analyzing the capabilities of the resources that management is thinking to employ.
After all the resources available are analyzed against the given objective, manager will formulate the way such resources are going to be utilized and what activities are required to be done to achieve the certain target.
Once the agreement is reached about how activities needed to achieve the target will be executed then this plan is documented. Usually it involves two different set of documents:
- Manuals – in which policies and other related stuff will be inked so that everything is plain and clear about what was decided. Mostly it includes instructions about different matters connected with activities towards objectives
- Budgets – a monetization of plan. When the whole plan is translated in currency form, it is termed as budget. We will discuss more about budgets later in the text.
Organizing
Organizing involves arranging the activities already thought out in the planning phase around the objective and then ensuring that all the resources needed for such activities are in place and will be available as and when they will be needed.
It involves dividing the whole work into manageable part and then assigning different sources to each piece in a way that target is achieved by completing all parts.
In this phase duties are assigned to the staff working under the manager and also the powers are delegated to perform such duties.
In this phase managers take great care in organizing everything according to plan because doing everything according to plan will ensure greater involvement of every stakeholder. However, if manager things that some deviated from plan is necessary then he can do by consulting all the key members involved especially the ones who agreed on the plan. This will ensure that everybody is taken on board.
Leading
Once everything is in order then execution of tasks will start to achieve objectives. But things do not always go just as planned. This is where another function of management comes in the game. There are chances that labour is just not working upto the required level or there are confusions about the duties assigned or simply members of the group have conflicts with each other. All such things can result in system slow down or just collapse.
In such situations managers use their experience and by understanding the situation at hand and behavior of personnel involved they persuade and convince other members to keep performing the activities as they are supposed to do.
Though it involves many different ways to lead and the subject of leadership itself is a complex one as it involves humans on both ends i.e. the person who wants the job done and the person on the other end who will do the work.
It is the leadership quality of the manager which enables a manager to finish the task at hand and not letting his workers feel dissatisfied in any way. Sometime it happens that the target is achieved but personnel involved are not happy and are demotivated.
This is carried out by listening to the parties involved and reaching a conclusion which is in favour of everyone especially the organization and the goals to be achieved. This involves persuading people either by attracting them with a reward or simply threatening them about penalties.
Controlling
Lastly, managers monitor whether everything is being conducted according to plan. If there are deviations from planned procedures then managers must analyze whether these deviations need any corrective actions to put the whole system back on track. This is the control function.