Management is a set of activities (including planning and decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling) directed at an organization’s resources (human, financial, physical, and information) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. A manager is someone whose primary responsibility is to carry out the management process within an organization.
The basic activities that comprise the management process are planning and decision making (determining courses of action), organizing (coordinating activities and resources), leading (managing people), and controlling (monitoring and evaluating activities). These activities are not performed on a systematic and predictable schedule.
Managers can be differentiated by level and area. By level, we can identify top, middle, and first-line managers.
Top managers are managers at the very top level of hierarchy who are ultimately responsible for the entire organization. Top-level managers are few in number; their typical titles include “chief executive officer”, “president”, “executive vice president”, “executive director”, “senior vice president”, and sometimes “vice president”. Top-level managers are often referred to as executives, although the term ”executive” is also used to include the upper layers of middle managers as well. Top managers have direct responsibility for the upper layer of middle managers. They typically oversee the overall planning for the organization, work to some extent with middle managers in implementing that planning, and maintain overall control over the progress of the organization.
Top managers establish the organization’s goals, overall strategy, and operating policies. They also officially represent the organization to the external environment by meetings with government officials, executives of other organizations, etc. The job of a top manager is likely to be complex and varied. Top managers make decisions about such activities as acquiring other companies, investing in research and development, entering or abandoning various markets, and building new plants and office facilities. They often work long hours and spend much of their time in meetings and on the telephone.
Middle managers are managers beneath the top levels of hierarchy who are directly responsible for the work of other managers below them. The managers for whom they have direct responsibility may be other middle managers or first-line managers. Middle managers also sometimes supervise operating personnel such as administrative assistants and several specialists (such as engineers and financial analysts). Many different titles are used for middle managers. Some typical titles include such words as “manager”, “chief”, “department head”, and “division head”. Middle managers are mainly responsible for implementing overall organizational plans so that organizational goals are achieved as expected.
Organizations, particularly very large ones, often have several layers of middle managers. Middle management is probably the largest group of managers in most organizations. In recent years, many organizations have thinned the ranks of middle managers in order to lower costs and rid themselves of excess bureaucracy.
First-line managers (or first-line supervisors) are managers at the first level of hierarchy who are directly responsible for the work of operating employees. They often have titles that include the word “supervisor”. First-line managers are extremely important to the success of an organization because they have the major responsibility of seeing that day-to-day operations run in pursuit of organizational goals.
Because they operate at the interface between management and the rest of the work force, first-line supervisors can easily find themselves in the middle of conflicting demands. At the same time, the power of first-line supervisors has been gradually eroding because of such factors as union influence and the increasing educational level of workers. First-line managers supervise and co-ordinate the activities of operating employees. Common titles of first-line managers are foreman, supervisor and office manager. A shift foreman within a word assembly plant is a first-line manager. These are often the first positions held by employees who enter management from the ranks of operating personnel. In contrast to middle managers, first-line managers typically spend a large proportion of their time supervising the work of subordinates.
Kinds of managers by area include marketing, financial, operations, human resource, administrative, and specialized managers. Most managers attain their skills and positions through a combination of education and experience.
Managers have ten basic roles to play: three interpersonal roles (figure-head, leader and liaison), three informational roles (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson), and four decisional roles (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator). Effective managers also tend to have technical, interpersonal, conceptual, diagnostic, and analytic skills.
