Manager Roles

Although all four types of managers engage in planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, if you were to follow them around during a typical day on the job, you would probably not use these terms to describe what they actually do. Rather, what you’d see are the various roles managers play.

Managers talk to people, gather and give information, and make decisions. Furthermore, these three major roles can be sub-divided into subroles. More than anything else, management jobs are people-intensive. In fulfilling the interpersonal role of management, managers perform three subroles: figurehead, leader, and liaison.

In the figurehead role, managers perform ceremonial duties such as greeting company visitors, speaking at the opening of a new facility, or representing the company at a community luncheon to support local charities.

In the leader role, managers motivate and encourage workers to accomplish organizational objectives. One way managers can act as leaders is to establish challenging goals.

In the liaison role, managers deal with people outside their units. Studies consistently indicate that managers spend as much time with outsiders as they do with their own subordinates and their own bosses.

Manager roles and subroles provide a framework for planning, leading, organizing and controlling.