Unit 1 Managing and Performing

Overview

Did you know that all humans are managers? We may not have the title or responsibility of a manager in an organization, but in every sphere of human life, success or failure depends on how humans have managed and optimized their resources, time, and relationships.

Mastering management is therefore the key to success. This is true in life and more so in organizations. To succeed and reach their goals, organizations need effective managers. In this course, we will discover that effective managers are not mere “cogs” in the system, but rather “lynchpins” that hold all things together. (For more details on managers as lynchpins, you may wish to read the work of Seth Godin titled Lynchpin: Are you indispensable?)

As Godin points out,

The lynchpin is an individual who can walk into chaos and create order, someone who can invent, connect, create, and make things happen. Every worthwhile institution has indispensable people who make differences like these.

So, as you journey through this course and develop administrative competencies, may the skills and competencies you pick up enable you to become the linchpin for the teams and organizations you will lead.

Welcome to Unit 1 of this exciting course, LDRS 440! We get started by looking at the unique role played by managers in guiding their teams to top performance in unique and constantly changing global environments and the skills employed by successful managers to do so.

Topics

This unit is divided into the following topics:

  1. What Do Managers Do?
  2. The Roles Managers Play
  3. Major Characteristics of the Manager’s Job

Learning Outcomes

When you have completed this unit, you should be able to:

  • Describe the role of the manager to help their teams and organizations achieve top performance.
  • Contrast the role of the 21 st century manager with that of traditional managers.
  • Determine the essential skill set every manager should possess to achieve top performance.

Activity Checklist

Here is a checklist of learning activities you will benefit from in completing this unit. You may find it useful for planning your work. Total time for this unit: 1 hour

Learning Activities

  • Chapter 1: sections 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 of the course text Principles of Management.
  • Read or listen to the blog post from Bill Davis, 5 Principles of Great Management, and reflect on the chart provided.
  • Reflect on how the three roles of the manager are interconnected. Watch the video on the role of managers vs. leaders.
  • Complete the chart provided with example from a manager’s day in the organization.

Resources

Here are the resources you will need to complete this unit.

1.1 What Do Managers Do?

We begin Unit 1 by asking the question, “What do managers do?” As we think about the managers we know, the answer to that question might be “a legion of things.” In carrying out their responsibilities managers are called to skillfully juggle many responsibilities to guide their teams and organizations to top performance. In our readings for topic 1, we will note several studies on the time managers spend working with others, versus time spent working by themselves. Managers interact with their subordinates, peers, bosses, and external service providers for over 75% of their work hours. Given the breadth of these interactions, managers run the risk of becoming “organizational fire fighters” – running from one meeting to another, being more reactive than proactive, and in the process engaging in unimportant tasks at the expense of important, strategic, matters aligned with the organizational vision and mission.

Management involves systematic approaches or processes to utilize available resources to reach goals. Management has been described as the art and science of getting things done through the efforts of other people. Most management texts describe this process as involving four functions – Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling (POLC). The POLC frame was developed by French management theorist Henri Fayol (1841–1925). While undergoing very important changes in content, Fayol’s POLC frame remains the dominant management framework used by managers around the world.

The figure below explains these four functions and the link below the figure is to an introductory level article on the four functions of management.

Figure 1.1: Four Functions of Management Process from EduNote

Some texts include a fifth function titled staffing. Staffing deals with the recruitment and selection of the right people to carry out the tasks at hand. In the POLC model this function of staffing is included in the Organizing function.

Activity: Read and Reflect on the Manager’s Role

  1. Read section 1.1 of our course textbook, Principles of Management.
  2. Next, read 5 Principles of Great Management from the University of Arizona Global Campus, as it helps explain the five functions and how they flow from and into the others.
  3. Finally, see the chart below that provides a comparison between traditional & contemporary roles of managers.

The pyramid on the left depicts the traditional role of managers. The traditional role was in the context of layers of management and top managers. In contrast, in the contemporary view on the right, top managers support and serve other managers and employees through empowerment.  Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing employees to think, behave, act, exercise ownership, take responsibility, and make decisions to serve customers in keeping with the organization’s goals and objectives.

Reflect on your current organization or an organization you are very familiar with. Are they more traditional or contemporary in their approach? See the image below this box.

Figure 1.1: Traditional vs. Contemporary Managers from Principles of Management

Questions to Consider

After completing the activities above, consider the following questions:

  • Why do organizations need managers?
  • What would an organization look like if there were no managers?
  • What are some different types of managers and how do they differ?

You may want to record your answers in a Reflective Learning Journal and refer to them as you complete your assessments.

What is a Reflective Learning Journal?

A reflective learning journal is simply a record of your thoughts. It is a reflection of the way you think and the manner in which you respond to your learning.

Journals can consist of traditional note taking, mind maps, pictures, stream-of-consciousness writing, recordings, quotes, sketches, or drawings: whatever you choose to include. Experiment and have fun.

The purpose of journaling is to make you an active participant in your learning experiences as you engage in the various activities throughout the course’s readings, activities, and discussions with your instructor and your fellow students. Reflecting upon these learning events will help you gain a deeper understanding of the course materials and help integrate your learning into applied practice in your everyday life and work.

Throughout the course, we will remind you to write in your journal, as we want to be sure you are actively learning the material. To assist you, we have provided you with questions you can ask yourself in order to get your creative energies flowing. Reflective journaling is an activity you can and should complete on a regular or daily basis, even outside of our scheduled course activities.

Common Questions Used for Reflective Journaling
  • In your view, what were the most important points in the readings, videos, or discussions with your fellow students and instructor?
  • What information did you already know?
  • What new knowledge, ideas, or perspectives have you gained?
  • What information was easy to remember or learn? Why?
  • What concepts did you find more difficult? Why?
  • How can you apply this knowledge to your work or current experience?
  • How has this knowledge helped you to make sense of your current or previous experience?
  • Did you agree or disagree with any of the material? If yes, how did you react and why?
  • If you could have the opportunity to engage in further learning, what would it be?
  • What further questions would like to ask the author of your readings?

Note that the learning activities in this course are ungraded, unless specified. They are designed to help you succeed in your assessments in this course, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them.

1.2 The Roles Managers Play

We now transition to discuss the roles managers play. Managers attend to a variety of activities of organizations: planning, budgeting, designing, selling, creating, motivating staff, financing, accounting etc. The larger the organization, the more complex their roles are, and more managers are needed to carry out the work of the organization. Everyone in the organization is affected by managers and the decisions they make.

All the tasks, responsibilities and interactions carried out by managers with organizational stakeholders could be grouped into 3 roles (and further divided into 10 roles) according to Henry Mintzberg. These groupings and roles are based on Professor Henry Mintzberg’s studies conducted in the 1970s. These roles are interpersonal, informational, and decisional, and are interconnected as we will discover in our course readings. The Interpersonal roles ensure that Information from across the organization is provided to the manager. The Informational roles deal with the processing of the information received in view of the organization’s goals and objectives. In the decisional roles the manager makes significant use of the information flows. The performance and requirements of these roles can be carried out at different times by the same manager and to different degrees, depending on the level, function, and culture of management. It is important to note that though the 10 roles are described individually, they form an integrated whole.

This three-fold distinction provides an effective frame for managerial self assessment. Does an effective manager maintain balance in these three areas? Do they overemphasize or overlook certain aspects of management?

Figure 2.1: Ten Managerial Roles (Mintzberg) from Principles of Management.

Activity: Apply and Connect

  1. Read section 1.2 of our course textbook.
  2. Consider Figure 2.1 above (Ten Managerial Roles) that explains how the three roles of the manager are interconnected.
  3. In your Learning Journal, discuss two real life examples that explain these interconnections.

1.3 Major Characteristics of the Manager’s Job

We have discussed in detail the roles of managers and the risk managers run in trying to accomplish too much within the time available. This can lead to burnout, stress, fatigue, and psychosocial challenges. Effective managers prioritize their work. They set apart time for themselves for strategic thinking, personal development, to take time to sharpen the proverbial “axe”. In today’s world, a manager is more than a caretaker of the organization. Managers are called to serve as leaders, mentors and entrepreneurs. Effective managers have cultivated and developed the discipline to discern between important and urgent.

As managers are move up within the organization, different managerial skills are needed and are emphasized. The following two charts help us understand the evolution of what is required at each level of management. note the decreasing importance of technical skills and the increase in conceptual skills and the “almost consistent” emphasis on human skills throughout a managers journey from the first line to executive level.

Figure 1.3: Difference in Skills Required for Successful Management from Principles of Management

Figure 1.4: The Importance of Managerial Skills to Different Managerial Jobs from Business blog

Activity: Important vs. Urgent

  1. Read section 1.3 of our course textbook.
  2. Next, using the image below as reference, create a chart with two new examples of each from a manager’s day in the organization.

Unit 1 Summary

In this first unit, we have had the opportunity to learn about the role of the manager and the key characteristics of effective managers in leading organizations to top performance. Managers are responsible for getting tasks completed efficiently through people and other organizational resources to reach the firm’s objectives.

In conclusion it could be said that the role managers play is the lifeblood of an organizations because they seek to motivate and empower individuals to do amazing things. The work of the manager is exciting, and it is hard to imagine that there will be a shortage of demand for capable, energetic managers. One must remember that managerial work is fast-paced and at times fragmented, where managers opine that they must process more information, make more decisions, in a fast-paced, global, post-pandemic environment. So, there is a strong need for managers to have creative strategies to lead their teams to greater heights during rapid, incessant waves of change. This is exactly what we will learn in the upcoming units of this course.

As we move to the next unit, ponder on your role as a manager/future manager. What tasks will you emphasize to be more effective? What skills would you like to master in order to be a more effective manager?

Personal Application

Before participating in the assessment for this unit, consider how you might apply what you have learned.

  • Revisit the 9 major managerial responsibilities outlined in Section 1.3 of the reading for this unit.
  • In today’s post-pandemic context, if you were asked to reduce this list down to the top 3, what would be your list and explain the rationale for your selection?
  • Next, consider your top 3. How do these responsibilities differ from what a manager’s role was 20 years ago?
  • How might these roles change in the future?

Please see the Assessments section in Moodle to confirm assignment instructions, including the grading criteria and due dates.

Checking Your Learning

Before you move on to the next unit, you may want to check to make sure that you are able to:

  • Describe the role of the manager to help their teams and organizations achieve top performance.
  • Contrast the role of the 21st century manager with that of traditional managers
  • Determine the essential skill set every manager should possess to achieve top performance