Organizational Behavior: Roles and Functions of Managers, Lecture notes of Organization Behaviour

Download Organizational Behavior: Roles and Functions of Managers and more Lecture notes Organization Behaviour in PDF only on Docsity! ITE 3652 Organizational Behavior Lesson 1: Introduction to Organizational Behavior 1.0 Role of Managers in the Organisation In the business world every organization needs to have a manager who is responsible enough to look after the organization’s day-to-day activities. In the large bushiness, there are several managers, and each of them has a specific department that they should focus on. This way, the business owner can ensure that all areas of the company are well-managed. The role of managers has been discussed in the Henry Fayol s Functions of Management (early 20thCentury) and it has been clearly defined as Managers get things done through other people. At the same time Henry Fayol described that managers make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. They are also responsible for planning and directing the work of a group of individuals, monitoring work, and taking corrective action when necessary. It has been categorized in to three main levels of managers as; e Top Manager © Middle Manager ¢ First Line Manager These managers role is to work for the achievement of goals. Organization has been specified as a social unit composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Top Manager - The top managers make decisions about the organization, direct the organization to achieve its objectives and are instrumental in creating the vision and mission of the organization. They are the strategic think-tank of the organization. Middle Manager - General Managers, branch managers, and department managers are all examples of middle-level managers. They are accountable to the top management for their ITE 3562 BIT-UoM department’s function. Middle-level managers devote more time to organizational and directional functions than top-level managers. First Line Manager - supervisors, section leads, and foremen are examples of low-level management titles. These managers focus on controlling and directing. Low-level managers usually have the responsibility of: Assigning employees tasks; Guiding and supervising employees on day-to-day activities; Ensuring the quality and quantity of production; Making recommendations and suggestions, Up channeling employee problems. Figure 1.1 gives the levels of managers and their roles. President, Chairman of the Board, Vice-Presidents Department Head, Branch Manager, Dean of a school Middle Level Management Supervisor, Foreman, Office Manager First Level Management Salesmen, Clerical, Technical Employees: Individual Contributors Figure 1.1 Managerial Levels in the Organization. Henry Fayol put the qualities required by managers into the following categories: ¢ Physical — health, fitness © Mental — ability to understand and learn; judgment, mental ability and adaptability. * Moral - energy, firmness, willingness to accept responsibility, initiative, loyalty, tact, dignity. 2.0 Functions of Management Management has been described as a social process involving responsibility for economical and effective planning & regulation of operation of an enterprise in the fulfillment of given purposes. The major functions that a manager completes can be categorized into four different functions known as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. ITE 3562 BIT-UoM Technical skills include knowledge of and proficiency in certain specialized such as engineering, computers, finance or manufacturing. Human Skills: This is a very important skill for a manager. It gives the ability to work well with other people both individually and in a group. Managers with human skills can get best out of the people working with them. These skills required for a manager for effective communication, motivate the employees, leed and inspire the employees and build the trust. These skills are needed by managers at every level but top managers need them the most. Conceptual Skills: Conceptual skills are essential to higher level managers since it give s the ability to integrate and coordinate various activities. Conceptual skills are helpful in decision- making. Since all managers have to take decisions so these skills are essential for all managers but these become more important as they make up the organizational hierarchy. Senior managers must have the ability to think and to conceptualize about abstract solutions. They must be able to see the organization as a whole and the relationships among its various subunits and to visualize how the organization fits into its broader environment. These skills can be depicted in a diagram: Top manager Middle manager Supervisory manager Figure 1.3 Skills required by the different managerial levels Based on Luthan’s study about managers in he specified that most managers do participate in following activities = Traditional Management — Decision making, planning, controlling = Communication — Exchanging routine information and processing paper work ITE 3562 BIT—-UoM = HRM - Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing and training = Networking — Socialising, politicking interacting with others 5.0 What is Organizational Behavior? Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of investigating on the ways people act within groups in the organization and in common. This concept is used and applies in the real world business to make them operate effectively and efficiently. More over Organizational Behavior helps to understand the human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself. In the OB research work it has been studied the behavior of individuals primarily in their organizational roles. The major objective of OB study is to revitalize organizational theory and develop a better conceptualization of organizational life. Simply, “Organizational behavior is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals and groups act within the organisation”. Else what people do in an organisation and how their behavior affects the organization’s performances? 6.0 Lesson Summary As the first lesson of the course this gives the overall introduction to the organizational behavior. Basically OB is a study of identifying how people engage in their owner in an origination. This lesson discuss the key elements of management such as who is a manager, what are the managerial roles, key management functions and how they are related each other. At the same time it has been discussed the different skills required by the managers to perform their job. Finally the definition of OB has been discussed. ITE 3562 BIT-UoM