In today’s world the central factor in the success of any economy is the management expertise available to that economy. The problem of managerial productivity is not so much one of labor productivity as it is one of management productivity. The low worker productivity everyone talks about is only a symptom; the real problem is with management. This was supported by Whetton ; Cameron (1995) who provide support for this point of view when they contend that “The factor most responsible for business failure is ‘bad management’ and the best way to overcome the business failures is to provide better management”. In this 21st century the most challenging tasks are executed by managers of different levels, these levels might reflect the position of a president of a state or a person who is leading an organization of ten staffs only.
In most of the countries, it has been found that the managers lack the ability to innovate and to manage organizations profitably and responsibly and indicate that there is a low availability of suitably qualified people in the population as a whole (Ristow ; Amos, 1996). It would seem, therefore, that the challenge facing is twofold: the development of skills among the population as a whole and, perhaps more importantly, the development of a properly educated, trained and developed management cadre.
According to theoretical approach of a manager we know that managers are the people who plan, organize, lead and control activities to achieve organizational goals and objectives. To achieve these organizational goals and objectives personnel who hold the position of a manager has to convergence a several number of managerial roles. Managerial roles vary according to organization’s size, resources, environment, people, and activities and mostly by its objectives. But the generic concept of managerial role was first introduced into the analysis of managerial work by Henry Mintzberg (1973).
By the role he understood “a set of certain behavioral rules associated with a concrete organization or post.” The classification of managerial roles of H. Mintzberg is grouped into the three blocks: Interpersonal, Informational and decisional roles (another name – Managerial proper). Moreover, these three classifications of managerial roles are break down in to more detailed categories, they are as follows:Managerial roles are generically defined and it is hard to classify them according to the infrastructural or economical influence of a nation or a country. But, due to cultural, environmental and organizational influences personnel holding managerial position of an organization in different countries take part in different movements without being aware of that they are basically conducting different managerial roles.
INTERPERSONAL ROLES
Figurehead According to the figurehead roles managers are the Symbolic leader of the organization performing duties of social and legal character (Mintzberg, 1973). That includes attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies, hosting receptions, presentations and other activities. For example; in countries like USA and UK managers are like to represent themselves and their companies by attending different cultural programs as a chief guest or a social figure. But in countries like Bangladesh and India mid-level managers of public sector companies are not entitled to attend social ceremonies alone on behalf of their corporation.
It is viewed that managers of public sector organizations hold a number of significant information and they should not be attending any social program representing his company without being personally invited. Though this practice sounds like back dated conceptual approach, but in reality many managers have been found to give priorities to the outsourcing or third parties who work as a supplier for that company and taking advantage of bidding tender by unethically influencing the manager. In this case it should be mentioned that personnel who are the chair person usually carries out the social, inspirational, legal and ceremonial duties (Jaman, 1995).
Leader
The leader role is in the heart of the manager-subordinate relationship and managerial power and persistent where subordinates are involved even where perhaps the relationship is not directly interpersonal. To execute this role a manager needs to define the structures and environments within which sub-ordinates work and are motivated, supervise and questions activities to keep them alert. Selects, encourages, promotes and disciplines and also tries to balance subordinate and organisational needs for efficient operations (Mintzberg, 1973).
In the case of John Blayer, human resource manager of Aztec Industries, the Sydney base electronic company, we can find some real practice of leadership role when he tried to motivate his subordinates by empowering and delegating authority to design an affirmative action program that will be able to demonstrate that the company has every intension of implementing the program. By delegating the task to his subordinate John was trying to arouse the realization of responsibly and adequate faith in the mind of the assistant coworker (Nankervis, Compton and McCarthy, 1999b, p. 253). Though it was a hard thing to do and the impact of doing things wrong might result in lost of resource, time and money.
On the other hand, Jaman (1995) states that in southern economies where unemployment is a major factor, managers usually don’t want to delegate such significant jobs to subordinate because of the fear of failing to do the task properly. In that case the manager will remain responsible and may severely penalize by the top authority. Liaison Managers act as an information and communication centre. It is vital to build up favors. Managers are to be skilled to shape maintain internal and external contacts for information exchange. These contacts give access to databases facts, requirements, probabilities etc.
Specifically, in the case of US health care system, TennCare at Meharry and the University of Tennessee, both Academic Health Centres’ (AHCs) upper-level managers are essential to meeting the demands of the health care market. While facing the losses operating revenue and lost of market share, the action both AHCs to meet these challenges can be attributed to their managers. For instance, the roles of their managers include developing strategies to increase patient volume through aggressive marketing and networking, such as direct communication and collaboration among various administrative personnel both in and between the hospital and university.
This allows administration to receive and request information that will enable them to understand market changes (Kristina, 2002, pp. 43-58). Under the consideration of developing countries, Chinese managers invest considerable time in building up connections, which serve as valuable sources of information in a society where business inventory levels were once considered a state secret. In this context, we expect the liaison role in the Chinese environment to be focused on the gathering and transmission of information regarding the availability and allocation of critical but scarce economic resources (Shenkar, Ronen, Shefy & Chow, 1998, pp. 51-72).
