The changing role of Middle Managers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The changing role of Middle Managers - Essay Example This team’s focus is more towards the long term goals of the company in terms of growth, profitability, withstanding competition, compliance with regulations, satisfying shareholders and increasingly being good corporate citizens in society in terms of the environment and sustainable business practices. Line managers tend to technical experts at specific tasks such as production, quality, purchasing, product development, marketing, sales, advertising or accounting. The middle manager serves as the interface between the small senior team and the much larger number of line managers (Jones and George, 2003). 2.1 The principal tasks for a middle manager Anthony Dance who describes himself as a Middle Manager Coach lists the differences between the middle managers’ role and that of the line managers who report to him. In a 2011 magazine article, he describes the middle manager as the manager of mangers whereas line mangers are mangers of specific functions. The middle manger ’s performance is dependent on the performance of others and his set of duties is often not very clearly defined. Anthony Dance breaks up the traditional role of a middle manager into three principal categories, Strategic tasks, Technical tasks and People tasks. The Strategic tasks include the understanding of the objectives for the company set by the senior management and breaking those into actionable tasks for the line managers, providing feedback to senior management on any problems and recommending corrections, financial and performance analysis and reporting, and communication both upwards and downwards. The Technical tasks include administration, ensuring compliance with plans and co-ordination between line functions. The most important function, however, are the...Anthony Dance who describes himself as a Middle Manager Coach lists the differences between the middle managers’ role and that of the line managers who report to him. In a 2011 magazine article, he de scribes the middle manager as the manager of managers whereas line managers are managers of specific functions. The middle manger’s performance is dependent on the performance of others and his set of duties is often not very clearly defined. Anthony Dance breaks up the traditional role of a middle manager into three principal categories, Strategic tasks, Technical tasks and People tasks. The Strategic tasks include the understanding of the objectives for the company set by the senior management and breaking those into actionable tasks for the line managers, providing feedback to senior management on any problems and recommending corrections, financial and performance analysis and reporting, and communication both upwards and downwards. The Technical tasks include administration, ensuring compliance with plans and co-ordination between line functions. The most important function, however, are the People tasks which include leading the team, motivating them and developing new leaders. Good middle managers strive to constantly improve the performance of line managers and remove those who fail to improve. The problem in most organizations comes from the middle manager not spending enough time on people tasks, either because he is overloaded with the other tasks or because he is uncomfortable with handling people issues.