Manager Roles and Skills
Q # 1: Describe three different roles of a manager; what skills are essential to perform these roles?
Ans: Many people say, that “management is what managers do” While that’s true, it doesn’t tell us much unfortunately. So in order to understand the concept of management, you have to understand what managers do.
There are three specific categorization schemes to explain what managers do, result of many years of research and study: • Roles (Henry Mintzberg) • Skills (Robert L. Katz)
There are three different management roles, which can be subdivided in ten more categories, which I am going to discuss here.
Management Roles:
Henry Mintzberg is a well know researcher, and the results of his studies about the work of managers were published in The Nature of Managerial Work (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). The term management roles refers to specific categories of managerial behavior, and Mintzberg concluded that what managers do, can be described by studying ten different and interrelated roles, grouped around interpersonal relationships, transfer of information, and last, but not least, decision making.
Interpersonal Roles
The ones that, like the name suggests, involve people and other ceremonial duties.
- Leader – Responsible for staffing, training, and associated duties.
- Figurehead – The symbolic head of the organization.
- Liaison – Maintains the communication between all contacts and informers that compose the organizational network.
Informational Roles
Related to collecting, receiving, and disseminating information.
- Monitor – Personally seek and receive information, to be able to understand the organization.
- Disseminator – Transmits all import information received from outsiders to the members of the organization.
- Spokesperson – On the contrary to the above role, here the manager transmits the organization’s plans, policies and actions to outsiders.
Decisional Roles
Roles
Ans: Many people say, that “management is what managers do” While that’s true, it doesn’t tell us much unfortunately. So in order to understand the concept of management, you have to understand what managers do.
There are three specific categorization schemes to explain what managers do, result of many years of research and study: • Roles (Henry Mintzberg) • Skills (Robert L. Katz)
There are three different management roles, which can be subdivided in ten more categories, which I am going to discuss here.
Management Roles:
Henry Mintzberg is a well know researcher, and the results of his studies about the work of managers were published in The Nature of Managerial Work (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). The term management roles refers to specific categories of managerial behavior, and Mintzberg concluded that what managers do, can be described by studying ten different and interrelated roles, grouped around interpersonal relationships, transfer of information, and last, but not least, decision making.
Interpersonal Roles
The ones that, like the name suggests, involve people and other ceremonial duties.
- Leader – Responsible for staffing, training, and associated duties.
- Figurehead – The symbolic head of the organization.
- Liaison – Maintains the communication between all contacts and informers that compose the organizational network.
Informational Roles
Related to collecting, receiving, and disseminating information.
- Monitor – Personally seek and receive information, to be able to understand the organization.
- Disseminator – Transmits all import information received from outsiders to the members of the organization.
- Spokesperson – On the contrary to the above role, here the manager transmits the organization’s plans, policies and actions to outsiders.
Decisional Roles
Roles