TASKS OF PROFESSIONAL MANAGER
There is a lot of confusion
over the much widely used terms-professional management and professional
managers. Some researchers contend there is nothing like professional
management. Management is a discipline. There are practitioners of this
discipline who practise management as a profession and thus are, professional managers.
Just as there are doctors and lawyers by profession similarly there are professional
managers. As doctors practise medicine, managers practise management. The only
difference between professional managers and other professionals is that, while
the latter must possess a formal degree in their discipline, a professional manager
need not have a formal degree or education in management. He may have learnt
the necessary skills and gained competence from his experience.
The second characteristic of a professional
manager is that his primary concern is the organisation or the company with
which he works. This is true whether the manager works for a private or public
sector or a multinational company; whether he is the executive director or the
personnel manager reporting to the executive director. The professional manager
always has his company's overall perspective in his mind and all his actions
are guided by the company's objectives.
The third and the most important characteristic of a professional manager is that he is responsible
for performance. Managing involves collecting and utilising resources (money, men,
materials and machines) in the most optimal manner for achievement of some
pre-determined objectives or results. It is the professional manager's responsibility
to utilise resources to produce the required results. Responsibility and performance
are really the key words in defining a manager's role. Performance implies action,
and action necessitates taking specific steps and doing certain tasks. Let us
first take up the various tasks which a manager is expected to do to produce
results.
1. PROVIDING PURPOSEFUL DIRECTION TO THE FIRM
A manager can be compared to
the captain of a ship who has first to set the course to reach the destination
and then steer the ship along the course. Similarly, a manager has to, first of
all, set objectives which the firm must achieve. Objectives provide the direction
in which the firm must move. Having decided upon the objectives, the manager
must constantly monitor the progress and activities of the firm to ensure that
it is moving in the desired direction. This is the first and foremost task of
every manager.
