The Manager's Role in Modern Business
How the Role of Manager Has Become More Facilitative
Sep 5, 2008
The role of manager has evolved a great deal over the past 30 years but it varies considerably across industries. One constant, however, is that managers are employees held accountable by their superiors to make sure they deliver in line with expectations. Managers in turn need to make sure that people reporting to them also deliver. This requirement places managers in a controlling, decision making position. The big change for managers today is HOW they carry out their responsibilities in managing people.
Factors Driving Changes to Management Style
There are two major factors that have influenced how managers need to behave. The most important change is that the nature of work has gradually evolved from manual labor to knowledge work. Workers have become much better educated and they do not respond well to being ordered around. They want to have a say in how their work is done and they want to have their views respected. Also, the workers often know more about what to do than their managers. Increasing specialization and technological advancement has made it impossible for managers to be as knowledgeable as the people reporting to them. This has had a dramatic impact on the way managers must manage people. Instead of telling employees what to do, they know need to ASK them what they think should be done. Now, managers need to be facilitators as much as decision makers. Of course this change is still underway and it is gradual because there are still industries that are not so highly knowledge driven.
The second major change that has affected management style is the splitting of the basic management purpose into two sub-goals. The original one was simply to get things done efficiently. The new one is to foster innovation to create a viable future for the business. When the focus was solely on getting things done, the manager could tell employees what to do. But you can’t tell people to be creative. They must be stimulated to think creatively and supported in these efforts. This requirement again forces managers to be more facilitative than controlling and directive.
A crucial secondary consideration that is really a corollary of the first two is the fact that employees with highly developed specialist skills are more mobile than other kinds of workers and no organization can afford to annoy them excessively. Otherwise they will lose them. The overall result of these changes has been a profound shift in the balance of power from manager to employee. Again, these changes have not been uniform because only some industries are highly knowledge based and need regular innovation to survive. For example, a car rental firm doesn’t need many highly specialized knowledge workers or as much innovation as a consumer electronics or software developer.
Inescapable Management Accountability
Managers today are almost like sports managers where the sports star is the hero while the manager is in a support staff role. However, they cannot move totally in this direction because, unlike in sports, business managers do not work for the person they manage. They work for their superiors who pay their salaries and, ultimately, for the owners of the business, be they individuals or shareholders. As a result, they cannot cater to the whims of employees beyond a reasonable degree. They cannot let them do what they want totally, even if a degree of freedom is conducive to empowerment and the creative thinking necessary for innovation. Results must be delivered and managers cannot afford to be patient for long because their job is on the line. Even self-managing teams must report to someone, if only a customer. In most cases, customers or owners want to hold one person accountable. This means that at least one person in a self-managing team must be charged with making sure that expectations are met.
Management Efficiency
Despite the emergence of innovation as a second major focus for managers, their primary role is still to get the best return out of all resources at their disposal. They are like investors in this sense and this fact has never changed. It is mainly about how they invest and develop human resources that is new. Now they need to strike a balance between being facilitators and directors. They need to be supportive and encouraging in order to motivate employees effectively but they still need to retain a fair degree of control over what is done and how it is achieved in order to maximize efficiency, that is to make the best possible use of all resources.
