MANARERIAL ROLES

Henry Minizberg conducted one of the most frequently cited studies of managerial roles. He observed and interviewed chief executives from different industries. A summary of his findings gives us a more complete picture of what managers actually do. Minizberg (1973) developed a model of ten related roles that he called the ''Managerial Role Constellation''. These ten roles can be grouped as interpersonal, informational, and decisional. These roles describe what managers actually do, whereas functions of managers had historically described what managers should do.

(1) Interpersonal Roles

These role focus on interpersonal relationships. They are related to the contacts and dealings with other people within or outside the organization to achieve certain goals. The interpersonal roles are:

(a) Figurehead: All managerial jobs require some duties that are symbolic or ceremonial in nature such as greeting and receiving visitors, taking visitors to the dinner, attending ribbon cutting ceremonies, and the like.

(b) Leader: The manager is also asked to serve as a leader. As a leader, every manager has to direct and coordinate the activities of subordinates. It also involves staffing, motivating, and controlling the activities to make sure that things are going according to plan.]

(c) Liaison: A third interpersonal role is serving as liaison both within and outside contacts. Within the organization, managers must interact with numerous other managers and individuals. They must maintain good relations with them. Managers often have interactions with important people outside the organizations such as the community, suppliers, and others to gain favor or information.

(2) Informational Role

This set of roles focuses for receiving and sending information. Through interpersonal contacts, managers build a network of contacts. It places the manager at a strategic point to gather and disseminate information. The informational roles are:

(a) Monitor: As monitors, managers gather information in order to be well informed. The formal and informal contacts developed in the liaison role are often useful here.

(b) Dissemanitor: Managers are also disseminators of information. In this respect, he transmits information directly to his subordinates who would otherwise have no access to it.

(c) Spokesperson: In the spokesperson role, manager represents the department to other people. He formally relays information to people outside the departments and outside the organization.

(3) Decisional Roles

Developing interpersonal relationships and gathering information are important but these activities are not ends in themselves. They serve as the basic inputs to the process of decision making. Thus, the third major area focuses of decisional roles of managers. The important decisional roles are:

(a) Entrepreneur Role: As entrepreneurs, managers are initiators, innovators, and designers. In this role, the manager constantly looks out for new ideas and seeks to improve his unit by adapting it to changing conditions in the environment.

(b) Disturbance Handler: In this role, the manager must take corrective action needed to resolve important unexpected disturbances. So he must handle utility service problems, strikes, natural disasters, etc. Usually the decisions must be made quickly which means that this role takes priority over other roles. The immediate goal is to bring stability in the organization.

(c) Resource Allocator: These are never enough resources including money, time, people, and equipment in the organization. In resource allocator role, the manager must allocate scarce resources where they are most needed to meet the organizational goals. He must decide who will get what . Therefore, it is one of the most critical of the manager's decisional roles.

(d) Negotiator: Finally, managers are negotiators. They enter into negotiators with other groups or organizations. Managers must bargain with other departments and individuals to obtain advantages for their own units. The negotiations may be over work, performance, objectives, resources, or anything influencing the departments. For example a manager might represent the organization to negotiate a trade union contract or a long-term relationship with a supplier. He can also mediate a dispute between two subordinates.