Managerial Roles, Function and Skills

Ten Facts of Managerial Life

1. Managers work long hours: The number of hours worked tends to increase as one climbs the managerial ladder.

2. Managers are busy: A typical managers day is made up of hundreds of brief incidents or episodes. Activity rates tend to decrease as rank increases.

3. A managers work is fragmented: Episodes are brief. Given managers high activity level, they have little time to devote to any single activity. Interruptions and discontinuity form the rule

4. The managers job is varied: Managers engage in a variety of activities (paperwork, phone calls, scheduled and unscheduled meetings and inspection tours/visits), interact with a variety of people and deal with a variety of content areas.

5. Managers are homebodies: Managers spend most of their time pursing activities within their own organizations. As managerial rank increases, managers spend proportionately more time outside work areas and organizations.

6. The managers work is primarily oral: Managers at all levels spend the majority of their time communicating verbally (by personal contract or telephone).

7. Managers use a lot of contracts: Consistent with their high level of verbal communication, managers continually exchange information with superiors, peers, subordinates and outsiders on an ongoing basis.

8. Managers are not reflective planners: The typical manager is too busy to find uninterrupted blocks of time for reflective planning.

9. Information is the basic ingredient of the managers work: Managers spend most of their time obtaining, interpreting and giving information.

10. Managers dont know how they spend their time: Managers consistently overestimate the time they spend on production, reading and writing, phone calls, thinking and calculating underestimate the time spent on meetings and informal discussions.