User talk:Zhetquemado

MANAGERIAL ROLES Interpersonal roles. The first category of managerial roles are those related to working with people-the interpersonal roles. Top managers often serve as figureheads. They perform ceremonial functions and entertain on behalf of the organization. Top managers serve as symbols of the organization itself. Information roles. The second set of roles is related to information. These roles are more important than ever before. Mintzberg says that mangers play the role of monitor. Monitors are always seeking information. Both from outside the organization and from inside. They develop systems that keep track of the progress of the overall performance of their unit. They oversee the use of resources. Decision-making roles. The last set of roles is related to decision making. Managers often have to serve as disturbance handlers. Conflict resolution and crisis response are often among the more challenging aspects of a manager’s job. WHAT RESOURCES DO MANAGERS USE? One definition of a manager is someone who holds the authority to commit organizational resources, and managers, do infact, spend a large amount of time managing a number of diverse resources. The resources controlled by managers are of four main types: Human resources are all the employees who work in an organization. These employees have varying levels of skill, experience, and education, but they all should be considered an essential part of the organization. In libraries, There are many different classifications of employees, including professional librarians, paraprofessionals, clerical workers, technical specialists, and, in many libraries, part-time workers such as student assistants and pages. Managers are incharge of the distribution of all of the human resources throughout an organization. Financial resources are the sources of funding used to operate an organizaton. In the for-propit world, the funding sources are usually are the customers who purchase goods and services. Managers in all types of organization are increasingly held accountable for the financial resources of those organizations. Physical resources are the tangible or material parts of an organization. They consist of assets ranging from supplies to the actual building where an organization functions. Often libraries are located in spaces that are provided by other entities, such as cities or universities, but library managers are still accountable for the proper management of all physical resources. Information resources are an increasingly important part of all organizations, including libraries. One of the prime functions of libraries has always been to provide information resources, but the particular information resources that the managers control are those that relate to the functioning of the organization itself.

WHAT SKILLS ARE NEEDED BY TODAY’S MANAGERS? What managerial skills do librarians need? Obviously, they need different sets of skills at different levels of management. Robert Katz identified three skills essential to successful management: technical,human and conceptual skills. Technical skills, those skills that relate to specific functions and tasks, are most important at the first-line level. To be an effective first-line manager or supervisor, an individual has to understand the process that is being carried out. It would be very difficult for a library manager to supervise a group of copy catalogers without knowing about cataloging and classification. On the other hand, the library director may have had such technical knowledge at one time, but because the director now does no cataloging or or classification, he or she may not still possess such skills, especially in newer competencies such as producing metadata records. Because top-level managers are often in charge of many diverse units, they often have either never known or have lost proficiency in many of the technical skills that are so important for lower-level managers and supervisors. At the upper level, managers need to have more conceptual skills and be able to look at the so-called big picture of the organization. The human skill, the ability to interact effectively eith people, is important at all levels.

Reference: Henry Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work (New York:                    Harper and Row, 1973), 36.