The success of any organization depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of its managers and leaders in achieving the set objectives. In a contemporary organization, managers are at the top of the hierarchy, with myriad of decisions making processes and tasks to ensure the organization is running smoothly. In the process of making these decisions and ensuring that tasks are efficiently completed, managers deal with a variety of people in the internal and external environment of the organization. Therefore, managers require the necessary skills and expertise in performing their duties and decision-making. For the organization to set realistic and achievable goals, managers require to be projective. The manager sets goals critical to the growth of the organization and the attainment of short-term and long-term objectives. Therefore, managers must have adequate skill and knowledge.
The major duties of a manager are broadly defined into five categories. These are planning, organizing, controlling, coordinating, and directing. There are also the desirable qualities that the manager must possess to perform her duties efficiently. This paper seeks to explore the various duties that the manager performs in the normal course of the working day, and the qualities that the manager must possess to ensure the organization achieves the set objectives. It will also explore various case studies of managers who are effective and projective in their duties in the real word.
Duties of an effective and projective manager
Organizations are involved in numerous activities in their normal operations. For these operations to be successful, they must be planned, coordinated, organized, occurring in a controlled manner, and directed. These criteria revolve around the various tasks that managers perform to ensure that the business operations run smoothly. Managers will need to draw schedules and prepare budgets and identify the various resources required in the operations and performance of these scheduled tasks. It is the duty of the manager to ensure that these schedules are followed, and the budgeted funds are used in an appropriate manner. Managers are charged with the duty of identifying the right human resource in each operation, enhancing specialization and division of labor in various departments. It is the duty of the manager to ensure high morale in the various teams deployed to perform various tasks.
Managers are to plan all the activities ahead and set priorities. They must ensure that all operations are conducted in a coordinated and controlled manner to reduce inefficiencies. They must act in good faith and in the interest of the company, since managers’ desires and goals should not override those of the overall organization. Managers must be prudent and practice the personal duty of care when dealing with the organization’s resources. An effective and projective manager is one who protects the interest of the organization. They set goals for various teams, which empowers the employees to work hard and achieve their goals. Managers communicate with the shareholders on the progress of the organization’s operations and to the employees on what is expected of them.
Managers delegate duties among their various departments and teams charged with different tasks. Delegation of duties facilitates responsibility, the organizational programs and projects by the employees, which raises their morale. An effective manager should also ensure the employees’ involvement in the decision-making process; this would make them work more effectively by owning the programs they initiated. Managers should also facilitate adoption of the appropriate technology to enhance the operations of the organization. The technology ensures efficiency in production of quality products. The quality of the products or services is a major concern to a projective manager. This is because the company depends on the satisfaction of the customer (Crawshaw, 2007).
Qualities of an effective and projective manager
An effective manager should be able to understand the diversity of the organization, which involves many dimensions; for example, the diversity of human and other resources in the organization. The human resource diversity may engender discrimination against the workers by age, gender, and ethnicity. An effective manager should accredit effective workers in regard to their performance, rather than their affiliation to certain ethnic, age, and gender group. The manager should be able to amicably solve conflicts that may arise in the firm between the employees. To ensure organization gains a competitive advantage they should develop strategies that lead to such. Managers have the duty of ensuring that there are frameworks upon which their strategies can be implemented. They should institute constant training for workers, as well as various capacity building forums to develop the skills of the organization’s human resource (Powell & Baker, 2010).
A projective and effective manager should be morally and ethically upright. Managers are the key figures in any organization and should be serve an example to other employees. Research has shown that high ethical standards increase job satisfaction of employees and motivate teamwork. Managers should retain their credibility and remain honest in their decisions. Once the credibility is lost, the manager will have difficulty in rebuilding it. The issue of corporate social responsibility is a major concern to an effective manager. This concept is broad, and the manager should be able to identify areas in which the company is socially responsible. Corporate social responsibility entails the organizational responsibility in preserving the environment, the responsibility to its employees and the surrounding community. Corporate social responsibility ensures that the company’s success is not only measurable by profits it makes, but also includes the ability of the company to retain satisfied customers. A socially responsible organization builds its reputation among the public and employees (Nelson & Quick, 2012).
An effective manager must possess good communication skills, since his duties revolve around dealing with many people. Communication skills are essential to a manager who aims at advancing his career. The manager connects shareholders with workers, reports the operations of the organization to shareholders, and addresses the grievances of workers. He also reports the expectation of shareholders to employees. Therefore, to mediate properly between shareholders and employees, the manager must possess the necessary communications skills. Interpersonal skills are also essential to the manager, as they facilitate the proper work of the team. A projective manager should be result-oriented and innovative in the achievement of those results. Self-developing is another critical aspect of an effective manager. In the current global economies, there are myriad of changes in the business environment, which require managers to obtain adequate skills and knowledge as a way of improving their competitiveness in a competitive world (Crawshaw, 2007).
Case study of the real world situations
Many organizations in the world have become successful due to the initiative of managers. Multinational companies, like Sony Mobile Communications, have been able to re-establish due to a change of management. The company was at the verge of exiting the mobile market due to lack of innovations and poor products in the market. However, in the current period, after Sony Corporation purchased the rest of the shares from Ericson, it was able to reintegrate the leadership of the company. Under the new management, the innovativeness and competitiveness of the managers has helped the company return in the mobile industry through the introduction of a smart phone in the market. Smart phones have enabled Sony to re-establish itself in the market under the new brand. The new marketing manager Orazio Corva has introduced the ‘Made for Imagination’ global advertising campaign, which has enabled the company to re-establish itself in the global competitive market.
Multinational companies, like Ford in the motor industry, have faced a competitive market, especially from Toyota Corporation, Japan. To enhance their survival chances in the competitive global economies, they have to build a strong management team. Managers heading different departments of the organization have to put forward strategies that are competitive in the global economy. To enhance its competitiveness, the company builds a strong teamwork, that is, constantly improving the quality of assembling better cars that can compete with others and meet customers’ needs. For these firms to remain competitive, their managers have to ensure they are socially responsible to their employees, community, and the environment. This builds the company reputation in the global market. The reputation of the company is critical with the improvement of information and technology, where information flows freely and easily across the globe. Managers are responsible for the success of the organization they are working in by increasing their skill and knowledge to enhance organization success.
Conclusion
Effective and projective management in any organization requires managers who are innovative, skilled, and focused team players, who will enable the company to remain competitive in the global economy. The duties of a manager fall broadly in five categories of controlling, coordinating, planning, directing, and organizing. The success of many national and multinational companies was due to efficiency and effectiveness, as in the example of Sony Mobile Communications and General Motors.
