Managers

Who are managers? Am sure as a worker or as a client of an organization, you would have come across different types of managers, such as the human resource manager, finance manager, business manager, principal manager, senior manager and so on.

A lay man's definition of a manager would be ''someone in an organization who bosses people around, and told people within the organization what to do and how to do it''. Now it isn't quite that simple a definition anymore. This is because the changing nature of the work place and business environment have imbibed some managerial ability or activity in job roles and job functions.
In the present day now, managerial responsibilities are shared by managers and team members. So how then do we define a manager?.



A manager may be defined as a person within an organization or establishment that coordinates, overseas and directs the work of others so that the organizational goals can be accomplished. It may also be defined as a person who aims at achieving stated objectives of an organisation by effective utilisation of people and resources at his disposal.A manager in other words controls the activities of others.Examples of managers are governors,presidents,ceo's to mention a  few,and they are believed  to work to accomplish  a goal of the organisation and directly supervise one or more people in a formal organisation.The managers aim at achieving stated objectives of the enterprise or business function by directing the human capital or human activities in the production of goods and services.some of the things a manager does are:
1.They assume responsibilities
2. They lead the team to achieving stated objectives
3. They promote the efficiency of resources
4. They work with and through people
5. They are accountable to the people who employed them
6. They are motivators.-they motivate thier team to the achieving of thier objectives
7.  They are decision makers
8. They think analytically and conceptually

Managers should possess good leadership abilities, they should not seek personal glory but they should be able to serve others and bring out the best in their surbodinates, so that the surbodinates learn from them and perform their responsibilities dilligently and accurately for the overall success of the organization.

Managers may have work duties not related to coordinating and overseeing other's work, for example an insurance claims supervisor might process claims in addition to coordinating the work activities of other claims clerk.



Where do managers work?
From the above discussion, it is quite obvious that managers work in organizations. What then is an organization?. An organization may be defined as a deliberate arrangement of people to achieve a specific purpose. Organizations may be small scale, medium sized or large scale. For example, a school club is an organization, churches, mosques, government and so on.
There are three main characteristics of an organization, and they are:

1). Organizations are set up to achieve a specific purpose, meaning that organizations do not aimlessly gather people without any end they seek to reach.

2). Organizations are made up of people: without people, there is no one to coordinate organizational activities and the buildings or assets cannot achieve their purpose by themselves.

3) There must be an organizational structure within which members do their work.



What do managers do?
Henri fayol a french business man proposed in the early part of the twentieth century that all managers perform five functions which are:

1)Planning
2)Organizing
3)Commanding
4)Cordinating
5) Controlling


Lets quickly take a look at these functions.

1) Planning: Planning is  very essentialto everyday life, without a plan people wait for the wind to take them anywhere it so desires,they have no destination in mind. It may take them to a place of success or a place of failure. However if you have a particular destination in mind, you have got to plan the best way to get there and i am sure it would be success we would all aim to achieve.
Because organizations are purpose driven, someone must define that purpose and its means of achievement. This then becomes a job for the manager.

Managers that engage in planning on behalf of the organization set goals, establish strategies for achieving these goals, and develop plans to integrate and coordinate activities.



2) Organizing: Managers also arrange and structure work to accomplish organizational goals. After planning, managers have to allocate resources based on plans to achieve organizational goals when managers orgaise they determine tasks to be done, how tasks are to be done,who is to do them, how tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made.


3)commanding: As earlier discussed, a good manager must have the ability to be a good leader to be successful at his job. Managers need to motivate surbodinates, communicate efficiently with surbodinates and superiors, resolve work group conflicts, influence individuals, supervise successfully.

4) Coordinating:Coordination requires: linking together activities,communication, an association between resources, information, and services, group effort.A manager who performs the five managerial functions well will certainly achieve coordination. In other words coordination is derived from the execution of planning, organizing, staffing, influencing, and controlling.
One of the more challenging tasks for managers when they are coordinating activities is to ensure cooperation. Cooperation means people working together willingly for a common purpose. The cooperation of others is helpful when coordinating activities. Nonetheless, a manager cannot depend solely on cooperation to achieve the desired outcome.


5) Controlling: Controlling is mostly paired with evaluation of performance. Evaluation and control ensures that a company is achieving what it set out to accomplish by comparing performance with desired results and taking corrective actions as needed.
Managers must monitor and evaluate performance,if those goals are not being achieved, its the managers job to get the work back on track.