The Role of a Manager
THE ROLE OF A MANAGER
What is a manager? According to the oxford dictionary a manager is ‘a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff’ but is that really what a manager is? (Oxford dictionaries 2011)This is because they are many different types of managers, as well as different roles each type of manager will have to perform, in order to be efficient and achieve their desired results. Also there are managers who must possess certain character traits or skills in order to command his staff under different environments and situations such as patience, determination, motivational etc. Maybe u have wondered if the manager is actually involved in the activities of the organization and if so what activities exactly? In this essay, I have conducted extensive research and will be looking at what is a manager, what is the role of a manager and what skills are required to manage.
Firstly, so what is a manager? Is it a job title, an activity, an occupation or maybe it’s a profession? What I do know for sure is that a manager isn’t just what is described in the definition above, it is much more than that, so in order for us to fully understand what a manager is we must look at what the role of a manager entails but even before we can do that we must first understand the meaning of the word management. ‘Management is active, not theoretical. It is about changing behaviour and making things happen. It is about developing people, working with them, reaching objectives and achieving results.’ (Mullins, 2010:425) By learning the meaning of the word management we can understand a bit more what a manager is and what he has to do. In the quote it says a manager will need to be active meaning he will need to be practical and have a hands on approach because he has to lead by example for him not only to be respected by his employees but also to achieve his desired results of the organisation. If he was to leave the work for his
What is a manager? According to the oxford dictionary a manager is ‘a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff’ but is that really what a manager is? (Oxford dictionaries 2011)This is because they are many different types of managers, as well as different roles each type of manager will have to perform, in order to be efficient and achieve their desired results. Also there are managers who must possess certain character traits or skills in order to command his staff under different environments and situations such as patience, determination, motivational etc. Maybe u have wondered if the manager is actually involved in the activities of the organization and if so what activities exactly? In this essay, I have conducted extensive research and will be looking at what is a manager, what is the role of a manager and what skills are required to manage.
Firstly, so what is a manager? Is it a job title, an activity, an occupation or maybe it’s a profession? What I do know for sure is that a manager isn’t just what is described in the definition above, it is much more than that, so in order for us to fully understand what a manager is we must look at what the role of a manager entails but even before we can do that we must first understand the meaning of the word management. ‘Management is active, not theoretical. It is about changing behaviour and making things happen. It is about developing people, working with them, reaching objectives and achieving results.’ (Mullins, 2010:425) By learning the meaning of the word management we can understand a bit more what a manager is and what he has to do. In the quote it says a manager will need to be active meaning he will need to be practical and have a hands on approach because he has to lead by example for him not only to be respected by his employees but also to achieve his desired results of the organisation. If he was to leave the work for his
References: Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour. 9th edn Great Britain: Pearson education Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour. 9th edn Great Britain: Pearson education Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour. 9th edn Great Britain: Pearson education Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour. 9th edn Great Britain: Pearson education Oxford dictionaries. (2011) Manager. [online]. Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/manager (accessed: 1 Nov 2011) Vickie Christensen, (2011) what are conceptual skills?. [online]. Available at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-conceptual-skills.htm (accessed: 1 Nov 2011) Personal Statement Before I began this assignment I did my research I read the textbook extensively hence the use of quite a few quotes from that as a source. My other primary source was the internet where I did find a lot of information but most had to be disregarded as they were question and answers so they couldn’t be trusted. That was not the only difficulty I encountered before writing this essay I also found it difficult to find other sources especially literature sources beside the textbook to quote from. These problems were solved by asking fellow colleagues of mine how they were finding other sources beside the two I already have but the response I got was the same problem they struggled with but from those who I did get told where to find other sources I found it hard to get hold of the literature they recommended to me. I decided to stop researching and use whatever information I had collected so I began the essay as the deadline was also quickly approaching so I planned my essay and place each paragraph into segments so I had one paragraph for an introduction and three others for the body which entailed around the questions what a manager is, what is the role of a manager and what are the skills of a manager. This was followed by a concise conclusion/summary of what I had stated in the body of the essay. When writing the essay the only minor problem I encountered was referencing which was quickly resolved in a tutorial session kept by my tutor where he showed me the correct way of doing it. Below u will find a pie chart of how many hours I spent I spent doing various activities to complete this essay. Altogether I spent 16.5 hours to complete this essay. 10 hours went to researching, 4 hours to typing, 2 hours to plan it and half of an hour to do the referencing.