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One way of gaining a clearer picture of the nature of managerial jobs, i.e. what managers do, would be to list all the activities in a giant job description. An example is set out below. The list does not describe the job of an actual manager but sets out typical managerial activities.

The manager’s job

• Makes forecasts
• Monitors progress
• Makes analyses
• Exercises control
• Thinks creatively/logically
• Determines information needs
• Calculates and weighs risks
• Establishes/uses management information systems
• Makes sound decisions
• Manages his or her time
• Determines goals
• Copes with stress
• Sets priorities
• Adjusts to change
• Prepares plans
• Develops his or her skills and knowledge
• Schedules activities
• Establishes control systems
• Sets/agrees budgets

The manager and their team

• Builds and maintains their team
• Makes presentations
• Selects staff
• Conducts meetings
• Sets performance standards
• Writes reports and correspondence
• Raises productivity
• Interviews
• Motivates people
• Counsels and advises
• Arranges incentives
• Identifies organizational difficulties
• Designs jobs
• Creates conditions for change
• Improves the quality of working life
• Implements/manages/copes with change
• Monitors and appraises performance
• Designs new organization/team structures
• Harmonizes conflicting objectives
• Establishes reporting lines
• Handles conflict
• Develops internal communication systems
• Leads
• Takes account of environmental factors affecting the organization (economic, environmental, technological, social, political)
• Adopts appropriate management styles
• Communicates effectively
• Negotiates/persuades/influences

Table 1. The ‘job description’ approach

Listing and grouping a manager’s activities goes a little way towards making some sense out of the complexities of managerial work, but it does not offer any explanations. Another difficulty is that many other jobs have many of these components. Nurses, sales staff, engineers, chefs and cooks, and office workers, for example, often carry out some of these activities. Another way of making sense of managerial activities is to examine management roles.

Acknowledgements

Adapted from The Open University’s OpenLearn (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) material entitled Managing and managing people under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence. As such, it is also made available under the same licence agreement.