Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Manager Roles and Skills Essays
Manager Roles and Skills Essays Manager Roles and Skills Essay Manager Roles and Skills Essay Describe three different roles of a manager; what skills are essential to perform these roles? Ans: Many people say, that â€Å"management is what managers do†While that’s true, it doesn’t tell us much unfortunately. So in order to understand the concept of management, you have to understand what managers do. There are three specific categorization schemes to explain what managers do, result of many years of research and study: Roles (Henry Mintzberg) Skills (Robert L. Katz) There are three different management roles, which can be subdivided in ten more categories, which I am going to discuss here. Management Roles: Henry Mintzberg is a well know researcher, and the results of his studies about the work of managers were published in The Nature of Managerial Work (New York: Harper Row, 1973). The term management roles refers to specific categories of managerial behavior, and Mintzberg concluded that what managers do, can be described by studying ten different and interrelated roles, grouped around interpersonal relationships, transfer of information, and last, but not least, decision making. Interpersonal Roles The ones that, like the name suggests, involve people and other ceremonial duties.         Leader – Responsible for staffing, training, and associated duties.         Figurehead – The symbolic head of the organization.         Liaison – Maintains the communication between all contacts and informers that compose the organizational network. Informational Roles Related to collecting, receiving, and disseminating information.         Monitor – Personally seek and receive information, to be able to understand the organization.         Disseminator – Transmits all import information received from outsiders to the members of the organization.         Spokesperson – On the contrary to the above role, here the manager transmits the organization’s plans, policies and actions to outsiders. Decisiona l Roles Roles that revolve around making choices.      Entrepreneur – Seeks opportunities. Basically they search for change, respond to it, and exploit it.         Negotiator – Represents the organization at major negotiations.         Resource Allocator – Makes or approves all significant decisions related to the allocation of resources.         Disturbance Handler – Responsible for corrective action when the organization faces disturbances. It’s worth to mention that Mintzberg also considered that as managers perform the roles described above, their activities include reflection and action. Reflection (also called thoughtful thinking) because managers think, ponders and contemplates about their decisions. Action (or practical doing) because every time they act, they are doing something, they are applying their decisions. Mintzberg’s approach is debatable, but several studies that tested the Management Roles categories in different types of organizations support the idea that managers do perform similar roles. What does change is the emphasis given to each role that may vary depending on the organizational level. Management Skills: A managers job is varied and complex. Managers need certain skills to perform the duties and activities associated with being a manager. What type of skills does a manager need? Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers needed three essential skills. These are technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Technical skills include knowledge of and proficiency in a certain specialized field, such as engineering, computers, financial and managerial accounting, or manufacturing. These skills are more important at lower levels of management since these managers are dealing directly with employees doing the organizations work. Human skills involve the ability to work well with other people both individually and in a group. Because managers deal directly with people, this skill is crucial! Managers with good human skills are able to get the best out of their people. They know how to communicate, motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust. These skills are equally important at all levels of management. Finally conceptual skills are the skills managers must have to think and conceptualize about abstract and complex situations. Using these skills managers must be able to see the organization as a whole, understand the relationship among various subunits, and visualize how the organization fits into its broader environment. These skills are most important at top level anagement. A professional association of practicing managers, the American Management Association, has identified important skills for managers that encompass conceptual, communication, effectiveness, and interpersonal aspects. These are briefly described below: Conceptual Skills: Ability to use information to solve business problems, identification of opportunities for innovation, recognizing problem a reas and implementing solutions, selecting critical information from masses of data, understanding the business uses of technology, understanding the organizations business model. Communication Skills: Ability to transform ideas into words and actions, credibility among colleagues, peers, and subordinates, listening and asking questions, presentation skills and spoken format, presentation skills; written and graphic formats Effectiveness Skills: Contributing to corporate mission/departmental objectives, customer focus, multitasking; working at multiple tasks at parallel, negotiating skills, project management, reviewing operations and implementing improvements, setting and maintaining performance standards internally and externally, setting priorities for attention and activity, time management. Interpersonal Skills: Coaching and mentoring skills, diversity skills; working with diverse people and culture, networking within the organization, networking outside the organization, working in teams; cooperation and commitment. Conclusion: In todays demanding and dynamic workplace, employees who are invaluable to an organization must be willing to constantly upgrade their skills and take on extra work outside their own specific job areas. There is no doubt that skills will continue to be an important way of describing what a manager does. Q # 2: Contrast between Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning theories of learning. Give suitable example for each. Ans: 1. Classical Conditioning: If a stimulus that results in an emotional response is repeated alongside another stimulus which does not cause an emotional response, eventually the second stimulus will result in the same emotional response. Classical Conditioning is thus ‘learning by association’. In more detail, we are pre-conditioned to unconditionally respond in certain ways to stimuli. For example a sudden noise (an unconditional stimulus, US) makes us flinch (the unconditional response, UR). If a movement is made at the same time as, or just before the noise, such as moving hands to clap loudly (conditional stimulus, CS), then the person will learn to flinch when the movement is made without the noise necessarily being there (the conditional response, CR). Thus the association is made between the US and CS, with either stimulating the same response. Classical Conditioning does not work in all circumstances. In particular it is more effective where the conditioning may be of evolutionary benefit. Experiment: Pavlov did famous experiments with dogs, ringing a bell and then feeding them. After a while, he could ring the bell and their mouths would salivate. Garcia and Koelling (1966) showed that rats soon learned to avoid a sweet: I liked my aunt, she always made me feel warm and wanted. She always wore a particular perfume. When I smell the perfume now, I immediately feel warm and wanted. So what? Using it If you want to persuade someone to do something, get them to do it at the same time as doing something they like doing. Do something specific every time they do something you want (like touching them somewhere or making a specific sound). Then do that specific thing and theyll think of doing the desired behavior. Defending Watch out for people repeatedly touching you or having strange behaviors. Check that theyre not trying to program you. 2. Operant Conditioning: A behavior will increase if it is followed by positive reinforcement. It will decrease if it is followed by punishment. Operant Conditioning is thus ‘learning by consequences’. Whereas Classical Conditioning involves automatic, pre-programmed responses, Operant Conditioning involves learned behaviors. Also, whilst Classical Conditioning associates two stimuli, Operant Conditioning associates a stimulus and a response. Favorable circumstances are generally known as reinforcing stimuli or reinforces, whilst unfavorable circumstances are known as punishing stimuli or punishers. Operant Conditioning is also known as Instrumental Conditioning. Experiment: Skinner put rats and pigeons in a box where pressing a lever resulted in food being dispensed. From accidental knocking of the lever, they quickly learned to deliberately press it to get food. Example: Parents often try to balance praise and punishment. To be effective, they should punish only behaviors they wish to extinguishthey should not punish for not doing what should be done. So what? Using it: If you want someone to work harder, do not punish them when they do not work- reward them when they do. If you want them to stop smoking, make it unpleasant when they do rather than pleasant when they refrain. men
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