Manager Roles

Summary

This video script explores the multifaceted roles of managers, emphasizing their interpersonal, informational, and decisional responsibilities. Highlighting the figurehead, leader, and liaison roles, it illustrates how managers interact and motivate. Information gathering, processing, and sharing through the monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson roles are detailed, showing the vital role of communication. Decision-making through the entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator sub-roles is also discussed, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding managerial functions.

Takeaways

• 📘 Managers perform various roles beyond the traditional terms of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
• 🗣️ Interpersonal roles are central to management, with managers often acting as figureheads, leaders, and liaisons.
• 🎤 In the figurehead role, managers engage in ceremonial duties, such as greeting visitors and representing the company at events.
• 🔝 As leaders, managers motivate and encourage workers to achieve organizational goals, including setting challenging targets.
• 🤝 The liaison role involves interaction with external parties, with studies showing managers spend significant time with outsiders.
• 🔎 Managers are information gatherers, spending up to 40% of their time obtaining and sharing information, as per MIT's Berg's study.
• 👁️ In the monitor role, managers actively seek and receive information, due to their extensive personal contacts.
• 📢 As disseminators, managers share collected information with subordinates and others within the company.
• 🏢 Spokespersons share information with individuals outside their department or organization, highlighting the outward-facing aspect of managerial roles.
• 🛠️ Decision-making is a critical part of management, with roles including entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.
• 🔄 The entrepreneurial role involves adapting to change, while the disturbance handler role addresses immediate pressures and problems.
• 💰 Resource allocators decide on the distribution of resources, and negotiators handle agreements on schedules, goals, and employee raises.

Q & A

What are the four main management functions that managers engage in?

The four main management functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

How would you describe the typical activities of managers during their day?

Managers spend their day talking to people, gathering and giving information, and making decisions, rather than strictly using the terms planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

What are the three major roles that can be observed in a manager's daily activities?

The three major roles are interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles.

What are the three sub-roles that fall under the interpersonal role of management?

The three sub-roles under the interpersonal role are figurehead, leader, and liaison.

What kind of duties does a manager perform in the figurehead role?

In the figurehead role, managers perform ceremonial duties such as greeting company visitors, speaking at the opening of a new facility, and representing the company at community events.

How do managers act as leaders in their role?

Managers act as leaders by motivating and encouraging workers to accomplish organizational objectives, such as establishing challenging goals.

What does the liaison role involve for managers?

In the liaison role, managers deal with people outside their units, spending as much time with outsiders as with their own subordinates and bosses.

Why is obtaining and sharing information important for managers?

Obtaining and sharing information is important for managers because it helps them make good decisions by staying informed about the business environment and internal company matters.

What are the three informational sub-roles identified by Mintzberg?

The three informational sub-roles identified by Mintzberg are monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson.

What is the primary activity of managers in the monitor role?

In the monitor role, managers scan their environment for information, actively contact others for information, and receive a great deal of unsolicited information due to their personal contacts.

How do managers in the spokesperson role differ from those in the disseminator role?

In the spokesperson role, managers share information with people outside their departments or organizations, whereas in the disseminator role, they distribute information to employees within the company.

What are the four decisional sub-roles that managers engage in according to Mintzberg?

The four decisional sub-roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.

Can you explain the role of a manager as an entrepreneur?

In the entrepreneurial role, managers adapt themselves, their subordinates, and their units to change.

What does a manager do in the disturbance handler role?

In the disturbance handler role, managers respond to pressures and problems that are so severe they demand immediate attention and action.

How are resources allocated by managers in their role as resource allocators?

In the resource allocator role, managers decide who will get what resources and how many resources they will receive.

What is the negotiator role in management and what does it involve?

In the negotiator role, managers negotiate schedules, projects, goals, outcomes, resources, and employee raises.