As the week goes on, additional updates to the original strategy may necessitate another meeting to keep progress on track. Managers also hold additional meetings with key stakeholders and other department heads to report progress happening within their team. They essentially act as the liaison between their team members and upper management.
The specific duties of a manager often vary from one company to the next. Larger companies have multiple levels of managers responsible for different aspects of the organization like production, projects, administration, development, marketing, information technology and other areas. Smaller businesses and retail stores may have one general manager who oversees all employees, including lower levels of management like supervisors. Related: Learn About Being a Manager. Managers in a senior-level position may possess many of the same responsibilities as a manager, though on a more strategic level.
They often have five to 10 years of managerial experience and specialize in a particular area of business like marketing or accounting. They typically:. Senior-level managers possess the knowledge and expertise to guide supervisors in their roles. Because this position is a level up from the role of a manager, the level of responsibility increases in a broader scope. The senior title commonly follows the manager's background, where they oversee their department.
For example, they may hold the title of senior marketing manager, senior accounting manager and other titles that add another layer of management to a department. When managers recognize the need to add new team members or let go of specific employees, they typically must get approval from senior-level managers. This is because they have a better understanding of the company's unique challenges and culture.
They often possess valuable insight regarding the desired skills and passion needed for the job. When ending employment, they want to ensure that they understand the truth behind the decision, which may take time to evaluate.
Senior managers often set precise goals and objectives based on a strategic planning process. They create the overall direction of their team, implementing this strategy through strong communication that includes a plan of action, clear expectations and accountability.
Their objectives become the focus of the department, which lower-level managers may refer to as they lead their team members in daily tasks. Increased responsibility in a senior-level role means increased exposure to problem-solving and decision-making in the workplace.
Senior managers must understand how to identify issues and resolve time-sensitive challenges that arise. This requires creativity and innovation to find new solutions to complex issues. Senior managers commonly control cost and budgeting for the departments they oversee.
They work with the manager to ensure funds get used appropriately and the budget stays on track. So while both positions require people skills, department managers are inherently dependent on people; they wouldn't have a department without them.
On the other end of the spectrum, it's entirely possible that a project manager may work intermittently with people or even alone. But whatever the people element may be, both department managers and project managers benefit from another group of essential skills, including:. While these skills are justifiably important for any type of manager, a department manager and project manager will use them in different ways.
And depending on their particular business or industry, they may lean on some skills more than others as they carry out their responsibilities. Leadership is the ability to communicate a vision and inspire people to embrace that vision.
Top managers are often required to fulfill what Mintzberg described as figurehead activities. They are the public face of the management team and represent the business in legal, economic, and social forums. First-line managers lead both by example when they actively participate in the tasks assigned to their workers and by modeling the policies and work ethics of the organization.
Informational roles involve the receiving and sending of information—whether as a spokesperson, a mentor, a trainer, or an administrator.
A top manager is a voice of the organization and has to be aware that even personal opinions will reflect for better or worse on the business. With the free flow of information on the Internet, it is very difficult for top managers to separate their personal identities from their corporate positions. Middle managers must skillfully determine what information from top management should be shared with others, how it should be interpreted, and how it should be presented.
Similarly, they must weigh the value of information they receive from first-line managers and employees in order to decide what to forward to top management.
If transmitted information tends to be untrue or trivial, then the manager will be viewed as a nonreliable source and his or her opinions discounted. The informational role for first-line managers is primarily one of disseminating what they have been given and helping the employees to see how their own contributions further organizational goals. They have a responsibility to see that the employees understand what they need to be successful in their jobs. All managers are required to make decisions, but managers at different levels make different kinds of decisions.
According to Mintzberg, there are four primary types of management decision roles. These include the following:. To summarize, managers must play many roles. Some are better than others in particular roles and will tend to be called on for those jobs.
Putting a diverse management team in place will ensure that the organization has enough managers to meet most challenges. The Manager is pushing to become a Director level similar to some of the heads of other larger more complex functions who are managing larger teams and teams who are managers.
The Manager is very competent and the organization does not want to lose them. However, since their team is small and rather junior, but at the same time, there is no planned growth for that function, what can the company do to keep motivating the employee to become a Director similar to the heads of other larger functions?
In your opinion what are the differences between Manager and Director, other than competencies of the individual? What role does this person play in making decisions that impact the whole organization? What strategic role does this person play within the organization. We look not only at if a person is directing a large team — but the level of the decisions the person is responsible as well as their role in planning and setting strategy.
A Manager can be taking care of part of the plan developed by the Director. I think you need to have a definition of Director and if your Manager understands what is involved in being a Director, it will be easier to discuss career direction and help the Manager prepare for any future Director opportunities.
Status and status symbols drive some people crazy. Money will not help here. You have to find a solution that will keep him in the organization without disrupting the established hierarchy. Your options are: make him an associate director; give him some status symbols of a director without the title, perks; committees, head of project, etc. It is a simple risk management situation. The other Directors are heads of large strategic functions who are managing managers.
Presumably the positions are evaluated. You could update the information concerning the manager job and re-evaluate, to be certain the position is a solid manager not Director position. The variances like skills gap analysis may suggest ways the manager can be counseled to strengthen certain necessary skills.
Possibly the manager can be given a different title, but the integrity of the job evaluation process should not be compromised. For the future, you will need to ensure that decisions of this kind are based on process and not on political maneuvering, favoritism, retention, etc.
Define clearly what a Director position entails and how it differs from a Manager position. What are the clear criteria that can be applied to determining whether a person acts as a Manager or Director?
As others have already said, the number of direct reports is not central. The key question is: to what extent is the person involved in steering the direction of the company. Please keep us updated on how your situation pans out. Scale and complexity is a very influential dimension of any kind of competency and especially for managerial competencies.
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