A manager may be defined as a person who is in charge of a specific subset of a company or a particular set of tasks. He frequently has a group of employees who report to him and whose work he is responsible for managing or overseeing. He may be authorized to hire employees, promote or fire them unless it’s a big company in which case this responsibility may be entrusted with the next level of management.
Titles
Depending on which department a particular manager supervises, he may be given a particular title. For example, an accounting manager is in charge of the accounting function and a night manager is in charge of activities which are carried out at night.
What is a Manager Expected to Do?
According to Peter Ferdinand Drucker, an Austrian-born American management consultant, author and educator, a manager’s job comprises five fundamental tasks. These are:
Fixes goals – The manager sets objectives for the group and makes a decision on what should be done to achieve those goals.
Organizes – He divides the work into doable activities and picks out people to complete the work that has to be done.
Encourages and communicates – By way of decisions relating to pay, promotion, placement and also interactions with the concerned staff, he makes a team of his people.
Measures – He establishes suitable yardsticks and targets, and evaluates, analyzes and construes performance.
Molds people – In a knowledge economy, the company’s key asset is its people. It is the manager’s responsibility to build up or develop that asset.
A manager may either give instructions to the workers directly or else direct various supervisors who in turn would pass on the direction to the workers coming under them. It is not necessary for a person in this post to be well-versed with the work of the various employee groups under him. However it is paramount that he knows how to supervise the workers to ensure that they do the work entrusted with them properly.
