TASK 4

MSMT 214

CLINICAL LABORATORY MANAGEMENT,

QUALITY ASSURANCE,
ACCREDITATION AND ETHICS

INTERPERSONAL, INFORMATIONAL AND DECISIONAL ROLES

OF A LABORATORY MANAGER

R-JAY S. BAUTISTA,
RMT
Managerial
Roles
A managerial role can be defined as an organized set of behaviors that are engaged in
and identified with a specific status in a managerial hierarchy. Interpersonal roles
involve a manager working within their team or organization, informational roles involve
gathering and sharing information, and decisional roles involve making decisions. Each
of these manager categories contains three to four specific role types. A manager's
specific set of roles will depend on the size and structure of their organization, as well as
their position within the company. There are three main categories of managerial types:
interpersonal, informational, and decisional. Each category contains different roles that a
manager may play in order to complete their job successfully.
INTERPERSONAL
ROLES
• This role covers the relationship that a laboratory manager has to have with others.
Three interpersonal roles includes figurehead, leader and liaison.
• Laboratory managers must act as figureheads because of their formal authority and
symbolic figure of the laboratory organization.
• As leaders, laboratory managers have to consider the needs of hospital, laboratory
department, and those of the individuals especially the laboratory staff that involves
under the his/her management.
• Being a liaison deals with the horizontal relationships which studies of work activity in
the laboratory have been shown to be important to a laboratory manager.
• A laboratory manager usually maintains a network of relationships, both inside and
outside of the department. Dealing with people, formally and informally, up and down
the hierarchy and sideways within it. Hence, a laboratory manager is often most
visible when performing these interpersonal roles.
INFORMATIONAL
ROLES
• Laboratory managers must collect disseminate and transmit information and these
activities have three corresponding informational roles: monitor, disseminator and
spokesperson.
• In monitoring what goes in the laboratory organization, the laboratory manager will
seek and receive information about both internal and external events and transmit it
to his/her people in the laboratory.
• The process of transmission of information the dissemination role. The laboratory
managers has to give acquired information concerning the laboratory organization
and its personnel and to others, taking on the role of spokesperson to both the
laboratory department and those in positions concerning the information.
• Laboratory managers need not collect or disseminate every item themselves, but must
retain authority and integrity by ensuring the information they handle is correct.
DECISIONAL ROLES
• This is the most crucial part of any managerial activity. Laboratory managers
based on the different types of decisions, namely, entrepreneur, disturbance
handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
• As entrepreneurs, laboratory managers make decisions about changing what is
happening the laboratory organization.
• As disturbance handlers, they are required to make decisions arising from events
that are beyond their control and which are unpredictable.
• The resource allocation of a laboratory manager is central to much
organizational analysis. He/She has to contribute on the decisions about the
allocation of laboratory equipments and supplies, laboratory workers, schedules
and other resources.
• Laboratory managers has to negotiate with others and in the process be able to
make decisions about the commitment of laboratory organizational resources.