Chapter Outline:
- Why managers are important to organizations?
- Who are managers and what they work?
- Describe roles, functions and skills of managers.
- Describe the factors that are reshaping and redefining roles of managers.
- What is the value of studying management?
Firstly, in today’s world things are changing rapidly, so to cater the challenges of daily life, managers are important.
Second, managers are important to get the things done in the right direction,
Finally, in a gallop survey, reason of productivity of employees is not salary or benefits but the relationship between employees and their supervisors or managers.
1.2. Who are managers and where they work?
a) A manager is the one who cooperates and keep eye on other peoples work to achieve the organizational goals.
b) They tell other employees what work to do and how to it can be done.
c) Managers just don’t focus on their own performance but help others in their work.
d) It may include supervising the whole department or overseeing the work of just one person.
Types of managers:
There are three types of managers,
· First line managers
· Middle managers
· Top managers
First line managers:
Managers who are
helping the non-managerial staff in performing their duties, or with the people
who are directly involved with production, or the people involved in providing
services to customers of organization.
They may be office managers or supervisors.
Middle managers:
Middle managers are those who manage the work of first line managers and proof as a bridge between top and lowest levels of organizations.
They may be area managers or divisional managers.
Top managers:
Top managers are those who are responsible for taking decision in the favor of company or to make it prosper.
They are CEOs or MDs of any organization.
Where do managers work?
Obviously, managers work in companies’ firms or organizations. Organizations have three basic feature.
a) First is, it has a purpose.
b) Second, it has employees to work.
c) And last is, it has a structure to work in.
1.3. What do Managers Do?
They manage the work of people to get it done efficiently and effectively.
Efficiency: Efficiency is to get the maximum output through least effort or input by reducing the wastage of available resources.
Effectiveness: It means doing the work in right direction to achieve the organizational goal.
Management functions:
- Planning: It is to set organizational goals, and making strategies about how to achieve them.
- Organizing: Here duties are assigned to people for achieving the goals, who will do what.?
- Leading: Here managers motivate employees to improve their efficiency, and coordinate with them to achieve goals.
- Controlling: Controlling means to evaluate the ongoing and accomplished tasks, whether they are performing as per plan or not.
These four functions lead to goal achievement.
Mint berg’s managerial roles
- Interpersonal roles: It includes Figurehead, leader, cooperation
- Informational roles: It includes Monitor, disseminating information, spokesperson
- Decisional roles: It includes Entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator.
Management skills:
Katz proposed 3 critical management skills
Technical skills: They are often front-line managers or supervisors, who deal with technicians or non-managerial staff. Employees with good technical knowledge mostly become first line managers
Human skills: It simply means how managers deal with the employees, how to motivate them, and how to take best out of them.
Conceptual skills These skills are important for top managers in order to fully conceptualize the vision of organization, understanding the tasks performing in order to achieve the organizational goals.
1.4. How is Manager's Job Changing?
Technological changes:
Technology is changing day by day, to have the basic knowledge about the technology is necessary to meet the customer needs.
Through technology it is easy to customized the products or services according to customer need.
Increased emphases on Ethics:
Trust on employees is very much important thing to make them motivate and for their job satisfaction.
On the other hand, accountability tactics are used to measure the employees’ performance.
Increased competition:
Through globalization and innovation market is getting competitive day by day, so to compete with rival’s customer services is very important tool to satisfy customers
Security threats:
Risk management, uncertainty about future, globalization, discrimination concerns make the managers role more important in an organization.
1.5. Why study management?
Why study management because it is needed in
- All organizations: small and large
- All types of organizations: profit or non-profit
- Among all levels of organization: bottom to top
- All areas of organization: e.g. marketing, manufacturing, accounting, IT.
It is known as universality of management.
- Reality of work:
- Rewards and challenges of being a manager
Rewards:
- They find support and find opportunity to nurture themselves.
- Gain recognition and status in the organization.
- Organizations always need good managers.
- Receive more monetary benefits.
- While working with so many people find chance to think differently and creatively.
Challenges:
- They have to work hard.
- Have to do more clerical work.
- Have to motivate people.
- Success depends upon the work of subordinates.