Professional Managers tasks include the following:
(i) Providing Direction to the Firm: The first task, envisioning goals, is one of the tasks that should never be delegated. It is the ability to define overarching goals that serve to unify people and focus energies. It’s about effectively declaring what’s possible for the team to achieve and compelling them to accomplish more than they ever thought it was possible.
(ii) Managing Survival and Growth: Ensuring the survival of the firm is a critical task of a manager. The manager must also seek growth. Two sets of factors impinge upon the firm’s survival and growth. The first is the set of factors that are internal to the firm and are largely controllable. These internal factors are choice of technology, the efficiency of labor, competence of managerial staff, company image, financial resources, etc. The second set of factors are external to the firm, like government policy, laws and regulations, changing customer tastes, attitudes, and values, increasing competition, etc.
(iii) Maintaining Firm’s Efficiency: A manager has not only to perform and produce results, but he has to do so in the most efficient manner. The more output a manager can produce with the same input, the greater will be the profit.
(iv) Meeting the Competition Challenge: A manager must anticipate and prepare for the increasing competition. Competition is increasing in terms of more producers, products, better quality, etc.
(v) Innovation: Innovation is finding new, different, and better ways of doing existing tasks. To plan and manage for innovation is an on-going task of a manager. The manager must maintain close contact and relation with customers. Keeping track of competitor’s activities and moves can also be a source of innovation, as can improvements in technology.
(vi) Renewal: Managers are responsible for fostering the process of renewal. Renewing has to do with providing new processes and resources. The practices and strategy that got you where you are today may be inadequate for the challenges and opportunities you face tomorrow.
(vii) Building Human Organization: Man is by far the most critical resource of an organization. A good worker is a valuable asset to any company. Every manager must constantly lookout for people with potential and attract them to join the company.
(viii) Leadership: Organizational success is determined by the quality of leadership that is exhibited. “A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader,” says Gemmy Allen (1998). Leadership is the power of persuasion of one person over others to inspire actions towards achieving the goals of the company. Those in the leadership role must be able to influence/motivate workers to an elevated goal and direct themselves to the duties or responsibilities assigned during the planning process. Leadership involves the interpersonal characteristic of a manager’s position that includes communication and close contact with team members. The only way a manager can be acknowledged as a leader is by continually demonstrating his abilities.
(ix) Change Management: A manager has to perform the task of a change agent. It’s the manager’s task to ensure that the change is introduced and incorporated in a smooth manner with the least disturbance and resistance.
(x) Selection of Information Technology: Today’s managers are faced with a bewildering array of information technology choices that promise to change the way work gets done. Computers, the internet, intranets, telecommunications, and a seemingly infinite range of software applications confront the modern manager with the challenge of using the best technology.
Some of the critical responsibilities of a professional manager are towards customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, distributors and retailers, industry and competition, union, government, and society. Therefore in brief it is the responsibility of a manager to take care of the above-mentioned things by handling or directing them with a degree of skill.
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