Wonders of the world such as the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian pyramids have existed many years ago and people wonder how were these magnificent structures built? The answer to these great wonders is management. The idea of management was realized long ago even before the ancient times. Through these planning, organizing, controlling, and leadership, people are able to work together and build these wonders. Knowing so, there are people responsible for the managing role. They are called managers. Even today management is still a necessary element for any organizations. Management is practiced in almost every organization to ensure operations go as they should. This essay will go in detail on definition of management and the roles of manager.
Schermerhorn John R. 2005 states “Management is defined as the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the use of resources to accomplish performance goals”. Schermerhom’s definition of management is also supported by Gabriel V. 2003, who also suggests that the function of a manager is to do planning, organising, directing, and controlling a group of people. Managers functions to strategize a plan to achieve organization goals. For example, KFC plans to have international expansion through the Multibrand Innovation & Expansion strategy
‘Yum! Brands is the worldwide leader in multibranding, offering consumers more choice and convenience at one restaurant location from a combination of two of the company’s brands. ‘
Sally Cochran S. 2010 EquineKingdom.com
Managers’ role of organizing is to divide task for the subordinates to work on. Managers are in charge of determining what is to be done, who does so, who is to report to whom or how tasks are grouped in an organization. (Philip L. H. 2004) Leading becomes an important role as managers are expected to motivate, support and have good communication channels with the subordinates. Once goals are set, managers take the responsibility to see the goal accomplish through and to do so, managers must monitor and analyze performance ensuring performance does not go off track. This is called controlling. Even today in many companies, managers take control, plan, lead and organize in every department ensuring their teams are kept in check and continues to function in order to accomplish companies goals. Managers also should weigh the decisions by effectiveness and efficiency. In every organization, managers are expected to have the team perform with the highest effectiveness which is to have the goal attained in the end and efficiency where wastage is at its minimum.
According to Henry Mintzberg, he believes that managers have the responsibility of playing roles in their work place. Such roles are known as management roles are referred to specific categories of managerial behaviour. (Stephen P. R. et al 2003) Mintzberg states that there are 10 managerial roles in total that can be grouped into 3 which are interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles.
Interpersonal roles would require a manager to be
- Figurehead, one who represents a company as a symbolic head
- Leader, one who is responsible to encourage and the incitement of subordinates
- Liaison, one who keeps self-developed link with outside contacts.
Managers with informational roles are to be like:
- Monitor who finds and interprets the variety of information to have good understanding of the organization
- Disseminator who can communicate well to inform colleagues and receive information from outsiders of any information clearly
- And a spokesperson that can explain and present information well to the public or organization members on organization plan’s and so forth.
An important role that every manager should have is the decisional role. As a leader in a team, a manager must be able to make a decision and lead to the team to accomplish the company’s set goal. A manager plays the role as:
- An entrepreneur who gives the innovative ideas to initiate improvements for the company and searches for any opportunities available.
- A disturbance handler, who is responsible to react and counter any conflicts between subordinates or any problems encountered by the organization with effective solutions,
- To hold responsibility to search for resources organization requires with approval of the top members in the organization.
Mintzberg’s research still shows relevance to today’s management ways because without such management, employers cannot handle their employees properly. Giant companies today like KFC, Microsoft, Honda and so forth are companies that have chain branches and franchised branches everywhere around the world. Not being able to control and handle many places all together, managers are employed to play the role of performing management functions.
Management in the recent years has evolved into a more complex process especially during the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s increasing the roles of a manager. One of the results of management evolution is the job specialization defined as the process by which a division of labour occurs as different workers specialize in different task over time (Jones/ George 2009) which was introduced by Adam Smith. Managers are entrusted with the task of dividing the work load, and to organize and control the work process to increase efficiency of job performance. During the Industrial Revolution, employers have encountered the problem in lacking of specialization in workers. Adam Smith later realized that when workers do the same specific task repetitively, workers tend to perform the task at a greater efficiency. He concluded that job specialization can lead to higher efficiency and on to a higher organizational performance. Thus as a manager, specialization of a workers are to be taken consideration before entrusting a task. The inability to divide tasks well can result in huge man-power turnover due to job stress of doing the long same job for long hours. This has caused many workers to leave their companies and causing shortage of man power.
In the 21st century and ever changing world of management, managers must always be ready to face changes and be able to adapt. Manager first must always be able to manage one’s self before managing others. This is self management.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Managers must have the ability to keep a balance of vision and realistic ideas which will differentiate a good and an unreliable manager in this demanding world. As a conclusion, management remains as a very important process for a company to succeed in accomplishing its goals. Even with the manpower, people cannot work effective and efficiently without a leader or someone who follows the protocol. Ultimately, management is the vital element in an organization.