Registration Number: L50/36839/2020

The role of management has been changing with time. Justify this stat

Management is the process of guiding the development, maintenance, and allocation of resources
to attain organizational goals. Managers are the people in the organization responsible for
developing and carrying out this management process. Management is dynamic by nature and
evolves to meet needs and constraints in the organization’s internal and external environments.
In a global marketplace where the rate of change is rapidly increasing, flexibility and adaptability
are crucial to the managerial process. This process is based in four key functional areas of the
organization: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Although these activities are
discussed separately in the chapter, they actually form a tightly integrated cycle of thoughts and
actions.

Role of the Manager:

A role is concerned with the behavior pattern of a manager within an organization. Henry
Mintzberg did a careful study of five chief executives at work in the late 1960’s. He discovered
that the role of a manager is quite different from the notions held at that time. For instance, the
prominent view at that time was that managers were reflective thinkers who carefully and
systematically processed information before taking decisions.

Mintzberg found that his managers were engaged in a large number of varied, un-patterned, and
short-duration activities. There was little time for reflective thinking because managers
encountered constant interruptions. Mintzberg provided a categorization scheme for defining
what managers do based on actual managers on the job. He concluded that managers perform ten
different but highly interrelated roles. The term management roles refers to specific categories of
managerial behavior. Table gives the ten different roles of the manager.

Interpersonal Roles:

A manager has to perform some duties as a figurehead. He may receive the guests from outside
or preside over a social function of employees. He may have to sign some legal documents as
head of the organization. These are the roles played as figurehead. He has also to act as leader
when he has to sort out the activities of subordinates. He has not only to motivate the employees
but is also involved in hiring, firing and discipline employees. The third role in interpersonal
roles is of liaisoning. He has to contract outside agencies for collecting business related
information. The outside information providers may be individuals or groups.
Informational Roles:

All managers are required to perform informational roles. They have to collect information from
organizations and institutions outside their own. Managers also play the role of disseminators
when they supply information to subordinates in the organization. This information is factual as
well as with interpretations for the benefit of users. A manager acts as a spokesperson when he
represents the organization to outsiders.

Decisional Roles:

According to Mintzberg, a manager performs four decisional roles. He initiates and oversees new
projects for the improvement of organizational performance, this is the entrepreneurial role
played by him. As disturbance handler, manager takes corrective actions in response to
previously unforeseen problems. He also acts as resource allocation when he assigns and
monitors the allocation of human, physical, and monetary resources. He acts as a negotiator
when he discusses and bargains with other groups to gain advantage for his own unit.

As a Decision-Maker:

Decision-making is one of the important functions of a manager. He has to take decisions for
various activities. Decision-making requires broad vision, imagination, experience and
knowledge. A decision has to be taken after discussing various aspects of the problem, analyzing
them, developing possible alternatives and selecting the appropriate one. The timing is also an
important element of decision-making.

A decision made at a right time will bring good results. A manager has to develop consistency,
firmness and conviction in his decisions. A manager changing his decisions frequently may leave
his subordinates in doubt. A decision-making skill and ability to take correct decision at
appropriate time will become a guideline for the subordinates.