Write a note on the managerial roles and skills.
According to Mintzberg (1973), managerial roles are as
follows:
1. Informational roles
2. Decisional roles
3. Interpersonal roles
1. Informational roles:
This involves the role of assimilating and disseminating information as
and when required. Following are the main sub-roles, which managers
often perform:
a. Monitor – collecting
information from organizations, both from inside and outside of the
organization
b. Disseminator –
communicating information to organizational members
c. Spokesperson – representing
the organization to outsiders
2. Decisional roles: It involves decision making. Again, this
role can be sub-divided in to the following:
a. Entrepreneur – initiating
new ideas to improve organizational performance
b. Disturbance handlers –
taking corrective action to cope with adverse situation
c. Resource allocators –
allocating human, physical, and monetary resources
d. Negotiator – negotiating
with trade unions, or any other stakeholders
3. Inter`personal roles: This role involves activities with people
working in the organization. This is supportive role for informational and
decisional roles. Interpersonal roles can be categorized under three
sub-headings:
a. Figurehead – Ceremonial and
symbolic role
b. Leadership – leading
organization in terms of recruiting, motivating etc.
c. Liaison – liasoning with
external bodies and public relations activities.
Management Skills: Katz (1974) has identified three essential management skills: technical,
human, and conceptual.
Technical skills: The ability is to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many
people develop their technical skills on the job. Vocational and on-the-job
training programs can be used to develop this type of skill.
Human Skill: This is the ability to work with,
understand and motivate other people (both individually and a group). This
requires sensitivity towards others issues and concerns. People, who are
proficient in technical skill, but not with interpersonal skills, may face
difficulty to manage their subordinates. To acquire the Human Skill, it is
pertinent to recognize the feelings and sentiments of others, ability to
motivate others even in adverse situation, and communicate own feelings to
others in a positive and inspiring way.
Conceptual Skill: This is an ability to critically analyze,
diagnose a situation and forward a feasible solution. It requires creative
thinking, generating options and choosing the best available option.