The Responsibilities and Role of a Manager

‘Manager’ is a commonly used and sought after title at any organization, whether large or small. The role of a manager scales different levels, and has various roles and responsibilities. There are managers at different levels in the hierarchy of an organization and handle various tasks. Even the CEO has probably been a manager at sometime during their career and will still be carrying out managerial duties as the CEO.

But who exactly is a manager?

The role of a manager is vast. Managers broadly handle activities such as planning, leading, and organizing in whichever vertical they work under. A manager’s role is focused on their team rather than themselves. The team’s success is their success.

The manager is the one who conveys the targets and strategies of senior or higher-level management to their teams to be executed. So while the manager has to keep up with the requirements of their seniors, they also must be attentive to the capabilities of the team.

And, what exactly does a manager do?

Goal-setting

A major part of what managers do is setting goals based on the target they’ve been given and then making sure the team reaches those goals. Typically the manager’s manager will assign them a project that they will then break down into smaller, more achievable goals and brief their team accordingly.

Project management

That’s a manager’s primary function. Being assigned a project from their seniors, breaking it down and delegating it to the team, and seeing it through. This involves a lot of following up, monitoring, etc.

Employee development

The higher the level of the manager, the more responsible they are for their team’s training, growth, and development. While getting the job done managers must recognize individual team members’ strengths, weaknesses, and potential so that they can help them grow as a professional. They need to continuously challenge and motivate the team to improve their skills.

Planning and organization

A big part of managerial duties is planning and organization. A manager will spend much of their time planning and organizing the team’s work and actions. Whether it is maintaining the necessary resources for the team, a schedule to accomplish the task at hand, tracking an ongoing task, a review of a completed task, training milestones, etc.

Problem-solving

No team can function without having a few snags. Managers need to be adept at making decisions that will either diffuse a situation or be able to fix the problem. So their problem-solving skills must be sizable. Whether it is to tackle an internal matter or it is to help the team cross over a hurdle or douse a fire, the manager should be capable of dealing with it calmly and efficiently.

Jurisdiction

Depending on the size of the organization as well as their policies, the manager could either hire and fire employees or can make a suggestion to the HR about it. While in some companies, HR and managers work together to bring in new people and let go of others. In other companies, the managers are usually only responsible for the projects their team is working on.

Summary

Q. Who is a manager?

A. A manager is someone who broadly handles activities such as planning, leading, and organizing in whichever vertical they work under.

Q. How does a manager work on goal setting?

A. A manager sets goals based on the target they’ve been given by senior management and then breaks them down into smaller, more achievable goals for their team.