Three Categories of Roles That Managers Play

A manager would be effective in his respective roles when he understands the strategic, technical and operational responsibilities he holds within the workplace (“Henry Mintzberg’s Managerial,” n.d.). What are the specific roles this first category consists? These set of roles are associated on how a manager will interact to his employees and the entire workforce in general. These are the first three roles out of the 10 roles of management by Henry Mintzberg – figurehead, leader, and liaison (Burgaz, 1997, p. 15). The first is a symbolic head. A manager is expected to perform routine duties legally and socially. He is like a father. The father is the head of the family. He is expected to initiate actions for the welfare of his family. In the same manner, if the organization needs resources to complete certain projects, he would initiate actions to provide these resources to ensure productivity. In a social gathering within the organization, a manager may send solicitation letter to sister companies and other organizations requesting them to participate and donate to the said event. He is also the leader of the workforce, which is the second crucial role of a manager. Mr A, for example, is responsible to motivate his employees. He is responsible to initiate and conduct training to enhance the skills of his subordinates. He is also in charge to fill vacant positions and activate the workforce to perform the tasks and duties as defined in their respective job descriptions. As a leader, he must learn how to follow the rules and protocols of the company or organization. As a leader, he must portray the right attitude in the workforce to become an ideal person and to strengthen his authority with his employees. Authority is not enough for a manager to become effective with his roles – he needs respect and he must learn to gain it from his employees. Mr A. acts as the liaison officer – that is the manager’s third role. He shall facilitate communications between organizations (“Roles and Responsibilities”, 2012). He maintains a self-developed contact to the outsiders and other companies for the benefit of the organization (Burgaz, 1997, p. 15). Mr A. needs to know the news outside which can affect his operation and decision-making factors. These outside contacts are expected to provide favours and important data to help him activate the workforce efficiently. In order to build a self-developed network between outsiders, he needs to build a strong relationship to these outside parties for them to entrust him with unbiased details. What are the informational roles? Mr A. is expected to monitor, disseminate and transmit information for the benefit of the entire organization. He seeks and receives different information that would help him develop effective techniques and strategies to make the entire workforce productive. Mr A. would monitor his subordinates’ performance and measures its productivity. He must exert extra effort to gather information from the outside – e.g. examining the competitor’s techniques. Most of the times, people reinvent ideas rather than building something from scratch. Competitors are spending millions of cash to enhance their management techniques and approaches – a wise manager can make use of these data and information as important resources to develop an approach suited for his management. Disseminating information to the organization is another important role of a manager that belongs to the second category of roles.