Roles of Manager free essay sample

What are the roles of manager in organization? An effective manager will bring about significant impact on life, growth, and development of an organization. Based on the research done by Mintzberg (1973) about the nature of managerial work or behaviours, he had identified ten specific roles most commonly seen within organizations. These ten specific roles were classified into three categories, including interpersonal, informational and decisional roles as follows:- First category is interpersonal roles. Interpersonal roles involves the behaviours associated with human interaction i. e. roles that allow a manager to interact with his or her employees for the purpose of achieving organizational goals. There are three roles listed under interpersonal roles i. e. figurehead, leader and liaison. Second category is informational roles. Informational roles are roles where a manager generates and shares knowledge to successfully achieve organizational goals. The three roles listed under informational roles are monitor, disseminate and spokesperson. Third and last category is decisional roles. We will write a custom essay sample on Roles of Manager or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Decisional roles include roles such as entrepreneur, disturbance-handler, resource-allocator and negotiator. For this assignment, I have selected three articles on two well-known managers in Malaysia depicting three different managerial roles they played in their respective organisations. The first manager is Tan Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes (â€Å"Fernandes†), the group chief executive officer (â€Å"CEO†) and founder of AirAsia Berhad (â€Å"AirAsia†) and the articles selected are, 1) â€Å"Tony Fernandes – Dream the Impossible† dated 22 November written by Chris Forrest Harvey, and 2) â€Å"Fying on Budget† dated 3 December 2010 published in Forbes. The second manager is Mr. Kellee Kam (â€Å"Kam†), group managing director of RHB Capital Berhad based on the article â€Å"The Young Banker and the Maestro† dated 4 June 2012 published in The Edge Malaysia. In these three articles, I will explore the managerial roles displayed by these two managers relating to interpersonal roles and decisional roles being leader role, entrepreneur role and negotiator role respectively. Leader Role Leader role is mainly all managerial activities involving subordinates. Some of these actions involved leadership, example the hiring and firing, building relationships with employees and communicates with, motivates, and coaches them. Duties are at heart of the manager-subordinate relationship and include communicating performance goals, structuring and motivating subordinates, overseeing their progress, promoting and encouraging their development, assigning responsibilities, delegating power inside the firm, defines the structures and working environments Meanwhile Mintzberg (1973) a manager is in charge of an organizational unit and hence is responsible for the work of the people of that unit. Thus his actions in this regard constitute the leader role. Based on the â€Å"Dream Impossible Article†, I will explore in details the display of a leader role by Fernandes. The following are examples set out in the said article which shown Fernandes’ role and actions in building a unique work culture and environment in AirAsia:- Staff development and motivation, promoting and encouraging their development. Staff are called Allstar and they are encourage to learn, grow, and to achieve their dreams and pursue their passions. Fernandes uses â€Å"dream the impossible, believe the unbelievable, and never take no for an answer† as the company philosophy and to build it up as part of the DNA of AirAsia. Fernandes makes clear to his staff that they do not need to stay where they are, ten years down the road. Staff with good performance are given opportunities to develop their career further and be promoted. There was one example where a lady who was hired as a flight attendant at AirAsia Thailand. A year into it, she asked Fernandes that she would like to be a pilot. Fernandes indicated that if she can get the relevant certificates, he would approve it. She did and she became first officer and subsequently she became full time captain and flying the plane. By living his dreams which is to own an airline company, own a football team and own a F1 team, Fernandes’ own examples encourages his staff to pursue their dreams; Hire the right person. When Fernandes hires people, he looks for two things i. e. the hunger in their eyes and passion in their hearts. Fernandes and his partners both were in the music business prior to taking over AirAsia and they didn’t know anything about airline industry. But because they had passion, they were willing to work very hard. So when Fernandes hires, he looks for the right person which is a person with passion for aviation job. To Fernandes, his AirAsia staff are what makes AirAsia ahead of competitions; Communicating goals and assigning responsibilities. AirAsia’s inspiration is very simple based on the tagline â€Å"Everyone can fly. † It is not just a catchy slogan but it is what Fernandes and AirAsia staff actually do. It is a mission that Fernandes instilled in AirAsia staff and this inspire them to do everything possible to achieve this goal. AirAsia staff work is not just to fill up the seats but to enable people to fly and they believe when AirAsia enable people to fly, they bring families together, friends together, and children and parents together. Valued staff. Fernandes established a working atmosphere where his employees know that they are valuable to their organization. Mr Tony stressed that people were the biggest asset to an organisation and to him â€Å"employees come number one, customers number two because if you have a happy workforce, they will look after your customers anyway. † Break down the hierarchy relationship between manager and subordinates. Fernandes encourages AirAsia staff to speak up and he wants to get â€Å"every brain in the game† by relaxing formality and breaking down walls. His view is that AirAsia is not a one man show. The company needs all the 10,000 big brains working for them. In doing so, Fernandes makes AirAsia workspace into an open plan workspace where nobody has room. Literally – AirAsia senior management sits with all other Allstar in an open floor plan. Secondly, every staff has his contact number so that people from errand boys to senior management will just call, text, and email him directly, and they get problems solved very quickly; and Staff training. Fernandes started a training academy in Kuala Lumpur because he believes strongly in training and cultivating the company own resources. AirAsia staff from different countries will come to KL to be trained in one month and when they leave, they leave with AirAsia culture with them. Entrepreneur A manager is wearing an entrepreneur hat when he identifies new ideas, implements innovations, seeks opportunities, and plans for the future. Further, he looks for ways to improve productivity and efficiency within his organization and directs the change process from development to implementation. Mintzberg (1973) indicated that an entrepreneur is someone who seeks to improve his unit and adapt to changing conditions in environment. He is also described as the voluntary initiator of change. Based on the â€Å"Fying on Budget† article, I will explore in details the display of an entrepreneur role by Fernandes. The following are examples set out in the said article which shown Fernandes’ entrepreneurship roles and actions in AirAsia: Low-cost concept, new idea, new market. Discount airlines in Asia? Then years ago they barely existed, and in many countries the average consumer couldn’t afford to fly anywhere. But an agent of change was at work to change the terms of the trade. Fernandes took over the Malaysia’s then ailing AirAsia in 2001 and relaunched it as a no-frills airline in the mold of Ireland’s Ryanair based on budget airlines model such as online booking, no free meals or drinks, a simple fleet line-up, a focus on short and medium range flights, quick turnaround times in airports. AirAsia was ripe to reap form the pent-up demand for cheap ticket. Now nearly a fifth of the region’s airline seats are supplied by low-cost carriers, and the share for domestic flights in some countries is much higher. Sydney’s Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, which compiles statistics on the low-cost carriers, sees rapid growth accelerating, with budget seats making up half the region’s capacity by 2015. What is remarkable is that this boom owes so much to a single, charismatic pioneer, Fernandes. Since then Fernandes has transformed Asia-Pacific air travel by introducing the low-cost concept and pushing countries to free up their airline markets. After AirAsia blazed the trail, some two dozen other budget carriers followed. Implement innovations and improvements. Today Fernandes has build up AirAsia as the largest low cost carrier in Asia-Pacific region, with nearly 8,000 employees, 100 planes and 140 routes including 40 that no airline had served before. Fernandes also set up Thai AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia, each where AirAsia has 49% state and this allow AirAsia to work efficiently across borders. Further, after the success of AirAsia’s short-haul flights, in 2007, AirAsia set up AirAsiaX and expanded into long-haul flights. Fernandes calls it â€Å"AirAsia on steroids,† with fares as low as 50% below the legacy-carrier prices for flights from Kuala Lumpur to Australia, Tokyo, Seoul, Jeddah, Theran, London and, soon, Paris and Christchurch. This enable AirAsia flies throughout Southeast Asia, to numerous cities in China and India, and long haul to South Korea, Japan, the Middle East, Australia and Europe. Cost reduction. AirAsia’s operating costs, which the aviation centre ranks as the world’s lowest, at just 3. 52 US cents per available seat-kilometre in the second quarter of 2010. Yet profits were plenty, given operating revenue per available seat of 4. 87 US cents. By comparison, full-service Malaysia Airlines endured costs of 8. 75 US cents per kilometre on revenue of only 7. 9 US cents. Thai Airways meanwhile piled up costs of 7. 15 US cents on revenue of 6. 76 US cents. Yet AirAsia also scores on service. Passengers polled by Skytraz ranked it the world’s best low-cost airline in 2009 and 2010. Leverage on existing business. Budget fliers need a budget place to stay so Fernandes leveraged AirAsia. com’s web traffic and launched Tune Hotels in 2007. Billed as â€Å"five-star rooms at one-star prices,† the brand has 11 hotels in Malaysia, Bali and London, with more opening in the U. K. , India, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines and China. For a typical rate of USD25 a night, quests can count on a clean, comfortable, stylishly modern room in a good location. Behind the hotels stands the privately held Tune Group. There is Tune Talk (for low-cost roaming mobile telecoms) and Tune Money (for prepaid debit cards and insurance). Negotiator Negotiator role means a manager who acts as a representative for the company during times of negotiation be it with other organizations, competitors, contractors, suppliers, and employees and where he looks out for the best interests of his company. Mintzberg (1973) stated that negotiations are duties of the manager as only he has the authority to commit organizational resources in â€Å"real-time†, and only he has the nerve-centre information that important negotiations require. A manager will focus on working and discussing within the firm in order to reach agreements within the firm and with externals. Based on the â€Å"The Young Banker and the Maestro†, I will explore in details Kam’s role and skills in negotiating on behalf of his organization, RHB Capital Berhad (â€Å"RHBCap†) in acquiring OSK Investment Bank Berhad (â€Å"OSKIB†) from OSK Holdings Berhad (â€Å"OSK†). The largest shareholder of OSK was Tan Sri Ong Leong Huat (â€Å"OLH†) himself with slightly more than 40% equity interests. The deal was successfully close off at a price tag of 1. 77 times of OSKIB’s book value, valuing the deal at RM1. 95 billion showing that Kam was no pushover despite asking price rumoured to be at least 2. 0 times book value. Further, Kam was able to convinced OLH to accept shares of RHBCap as the purchase consideration resulting in OSK emerging as a substantial shareholder of RHBCap with a 10% stake. This works to the benefit of RHBCap as they have a new substantial shareholder joining RHBCap wagon on long term basis. The following are examples set out in the said article which shown Kam’s role and actions in negotiating the acquisition of OSKIB:- When RHBCap announced in early 2012 that it plans to acquire OSKIB, industry observers wondered if the young Mr Kellee Kam, at just 38 could best OSKIB founder Tan Sri Ong Leong Huat, in striking a deal that favoured RHBCap; OLH, 67 of age is almost twice Kam’s age and has been a successful player in the financial services industry for more than four decades. People who know OLH say he is known to drive hard bargain and it would take some doing to win one over him. Hence the stage was set for some interesting dynamics between the young professional banker and the maestro; Kam and OLH each led their teams in the negotiations from opposite sides of the table and each wanted to get the best deal fir their stakeholders especially OLH since he has more than 40% stake in OSKIB; At the end Kam was able to convince OLH to sell OSKIB at 1. 77 times financed by cash and RHBcap shares showing that he was no pushover using the following negotiating skills:- i) He showed respect to OLH who was twice his age and twice his experience in financial services industry. â€Å"To have done what he has done at OSK†¦. he is among the people who were around long before people like me came onto the scene. They built the industry. † This was Kam’s acknowledgment of his respect for OLH. ii) He identified OLH as a straight-talking businessman, so he used his experience in handling straight-talking mentors in RHBCap in his negotiations with TSOLH; iii) Although it was hard for him being a professional manager to try to understand the entrepreneur mindset, especially one who had built a business from scratch. But Kame did not let this difficulty to deter him. Further, he went in with nothing to lose attitude and hence did not succumb to fear because he thought that the worse OLH could say is no, and they would have got away with a drink and a chance to have had a good discussion with a guy who had built a successful company; iv) Though price is one of the most important factors any buying or selling deal, his approach was not to talk about price first because he understands OLH is a businessman who was more interested for a long term capital gain than immediate cash money. Hence Kam started off his negotiation by checking whether they share the same vision for the combined entity and that if OLH was to dispose OSKIB, whether he is interested to take a strategic stake in RHBCap and to involve in growing the combined entity together. v) Once both parties agreed there was going to be enhanced value for the merged entity which will make the enlarged RHB-OSK entity into no. 1 domestic stockbroking house and third sizable Malaysian investment bank player on the Asean bank consolidation scene alongside Maybank and CIMB, price was secondary matter. This approach took a bit longer but once they crossed that bridge, it was easier to come to a settlement price. Thus at the end Kam was able to seal the deal while still protecting RHBCap’s interest. Conclusions Even though Mintzberg’s research was conducted many years ago, his discoveries of the ten managerial roles are still seen in business today. However, each individual manager is unique as their experiences, backgrounds, talents, skill sets different from one another. Example, a manager from marketing background may due to the nature of its work mastered a liaison role since his/her main responsibilities are to establish and maintain contacts within and outside the organization, build up favors and networking. Meanwhile a manager from purchasing background may be an expert in taking up negotiator role since most part of its jobs require him/her to get the best bargain for its organization. Entrepreneurs, creative directors or designers on the other hand may have exceptational talents and very strong in entrepreneur role but weak in interpersonal roles. Hence, it is unlikely to pin down and rate each managerial role from the most difficult to the less difficult. All these depend on the individual manager, their past trainings, experiences and skills set that they have mastered over the years. In real world, at any given time, a manager may be carrying out some combination of those roles to varying degrees, from none of their time to 100% of their time. Meaning those roles overlap and a manager must learn to balance them in order to manage effectively. According to Mintzberg â€Å"The manager who only communicates or only conceives never gets anything done. So a manager has to be good in all three categories of the managerial roles to be effective in their organizations.