Mangers' Roles and Skills

Managers acquire managerial skills that are being used widely in firms and organisations around the world. Managers “coordinate and oversee the work activities of others so that their activities are completed efficiently and effectively” (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2012, p.12). Using managerial skills, a manager will be able to manage and sustain an organisation and to achieve the organisation’s goals. Henri Fayol is one of the first researcher who have studied different management theories and as how to define them. Following the theories of Fayol, Henry Mintzberg realise that the management functions by Fayol was too broad and so Mintzberg narrowed down to 3 types of management roles and later on Robert. L. Katz pursued the work of Mintzberg to define 3 types of management skills. All these researchers have continually devoted their work so that every organisation may understand how the managerial theories work. The purpose of this essay is to relate the different theories of Fayol, Mintzberg and Katz to the application of the theories in today’s world. A manager is interviewed to get information about the experience she has in her organisation and whether it links to the managerial functions, roles and skills.

In this interview, Mrs X introduced her work as a manager in her organisation which is a university. Mrs X works as a financial manager in University Y which is a private university in Malaysia. There are over 600 staffs working in this university which proves that this is a large organisation. Mrs X prepares the financial reports and also reports to the organisation’s top management as well as board of directors. Mrs X has only two staffs under her department which is the financial planning department and she oversees their work. Therefore, Mrs X is classified as a middle line manager in University Y. Mrs X’s main job is to prepare company’s financial budget and projection, costing, pricing and project matters.

The classical management...