What Is the Role of a Manager in Business?
The role of a manager in a business setting is to coordinate the various aspects and activities of a business to achieve desired goals and outcomes. In order to achieve these goals, a manager must fulfill many roles.
According to Henry Mintzberg, a management expert and professor, managers fulfill 10 major roles in a company. They act as figurehead, leader, liaison, monitor, disseminator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. All of these roles focus on the gathering, distribution and use of information and can be organized into three different categories. Interpersonal roles involve providing information and ideas to employees and supervisors. The interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader and liaison. Informational roles include monitor, disseminator and spokesperson. The informational roles of a manager focus on processing information relevant to a company. This can involve delivering information to outside parties or ensuring the right information reaches the right people within a business. Finally, the decisional category includes the entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator roles. Decisional roles involve using information in the most beneficial way. A manager exercising decisional roles may be involved in solving problems within the company, redirecting sidelined projects and determining what resources are needed to achieve specific outcomes.
