Many Hats of a Manager

The Many Hats of a Manager

Today’s manager needs to be able to frequently and quickly change hats in order to be an effective manager. The different hats that a manager wears represent the different tasks that a manager encounters every day.

Some of the hats that managers wear are as follows:

• Linguist

• Motivator

• Leader

• Mentor

An important hat that managers at all levels wear is the linguist’s hat. “Managers need to understand the differences in linguistic styles. Linguistic style is how a person talks, this includes tone of voice, volume, directness or indirectness and the length of pauses. For example, if a manager knows that some women in the group are reluctant to speak up in meetings not because they have nothing to say, but because of their linguistic style should lead managers to ensure that these women have a chance to talk (Essentials to Contemporary Management, 6th Ed, pg 593).” When a manager understands that people have different ways or styles of communicating, it makes his job less difficult and he will be able to assign tasks that best fit his employees and he will then be able to motivate his employees.

Managers need to be able to motivate his employees to “behave the way they do in organizations (Essentials to Contemporary Management, 6th Ed, pg 593).” Motivation can come from two factors. They are intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is when a manager’s sense of accomplishment and achievement are performed for its own sake – the motivation comes from the work itself. Some people would say that he has a career and not a job. He is doing this because he loves what he does.

Extrinsic motivation is behavior is to acquire material or social rewards or to avoid punishment. It is the source of the motivation, not the motivation itself.

People can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated.

Managers need to be able to lead or influence their employees. Leadership comes in many different...