Managerial Jobs Are The Same At All Levels Of An Organisation"

Managerial jobs are the same at all levels of an organisation"

A manager is someone that works with and through others by planning, co-ordinating their activities in order to accomplish organisational goals with the required efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is about obtaining optimal results from the least amount of input. Effectiveness is about completing activities to achieve the organisational goals. There are many organisational structures such as a traditional hierarchal one where there are many different levels of managers compare to a less hierarchal flat matrix one where people in different levels of the organisation can usually freely communicate directly with each other regardless of seniority. The form the organisation structure will depend on the size and the type of organisation. Managerial roles will differ within an organisation and between different organisations. In a traditional hierarchal /pyramid organisation we have the non-managerial employees, first line managers, middle managers and top managers. Managerial roles within such an organisation may require some similar core skill sets but the people they manage and the impact of their decisions will differ depending on the type/level of manager they are within the company. Managerial roles at different levels will also differ within the company depending on the personality/style of the person which will make them more suitable to one management level and not another. So it appears that the role of a first line manager would be different of that of a top manager.

The basic functions of managers at different levels of an organisation can be described as follows: First line managers or team leaders manage the work of the non-managerial staff that is directly involved in the production and creation of the company's products or services. Middle managers as the name suggest reports to top management and manage the first line managers. They consist of all management levels between the first line managers and top management. They may have titles such as division, department, national, branch, sales, and commercial manager. They are accountable for directing or managing and represent one or more functional areas such as sales, service, marketing, logistics, finance, human resources. Top managers have positions at or near the top of an organisation. They are expected to plan, set and sell strategic organisational goals and make organisational wide decisions that will determine the path a company will take. Top managers may have titles such as general manager, chief executive officer, managing director.

To further explore if management roles are the same or not within a company at different levels we need to analyse in more depth what functions managers perform and what are the core skill sets and competencies of a manager. It can be said that management can be described as four basic functions being: "planning, organising, leading and controlling".

Planning requires defining goals, establishing strategies for achieving set goals and developing plans to co-ordinate and integrating activities. Organising involves "determining what needs to be done and how and who to do it ". It also involves allocating, grouping of set tasks and the reporting structure and where decisions are made. Leading "involves motivating sub-ordinates, influencing individuals or teams as they work, selecting the most efficient communication channels and dealing in any way with employees behaviour issues". The controlling function is the final function of a manager's role. After the goals are set (planning function), structures put in place to achieve the tasks (organising function) and staff are hired, trained and motivated (leading function) there needs to be a process put in place to monitor and evaluate the progress of the set tasks compare to the initially set goals. If there is a deviation from the set goals and things could be done more efficiently the manager would need to adjust the process to get optimal results for the organisation (control function). Henri Fayol an early twentieth century industrialist used the functional approach to describe roles of all managers. The functional theories were based on personal experience as he was the managing director of a French coal mining firm.

Contemporary research done over the three organisational levels of six hundred managers suggests that all managers have to perform the four basic functions as describe by Henri Fayol but to different degrees. The research found the following: In terms of time spent leading first line managers spend fifty one percent of their overall time performing the function compared to thirty six percent by middle managers and twenty two percent by top managers. In terms of time spent organising first line managers spend twenty four percent of their overall time performing the function compared to thirty three percent by middle managers and thirty six percent by top managers. In terms of time spent planning first line managers spend fifteen percent of their overall time performing the function compared to eighteen percent by middle managers and twenty eight