The Role and Functions of a Manager

It is important that managers understand their attributes to determine how they will engage in management practices. This is particularly important because managing people is a difficult task especially because these individuals have different attributes. I am a student who is currently studying my major in Marketing, and I have an interest in learning and working in industries requiring creativity such as managing people, sales and advertising. The focus of my statement of purpose is to determine how my artefacts can help me in becoming effective at work in different scenarios. Furthermore, I will have the opportunity to examine if my artefacts and determine how they can help me in identifying the functions that will help me in becoming effective in my career path. In this reflective journal, I will try to focus on the roles and responsibilities of a manager. I will analyze my personality from e-portfolio and how it is related to emotional intelligence. I will assess my leadership quality on the light of contemporary leadership theories.

What is Management?

            One of the artefacts that are as a result of the test is that I am emotional and that I can make a decision based on my feelings. For a manager, making decisions based on feelings is not good because I can make decisions that are not guided by facts, bur is leaned towards my feelings. However, there is a benefit to having these emotions as one of my artefacts. For instance, they will help me in understanding my subordinates such that every decision I make will have to consider how they will feel. As a result, I will have emotional intelligence when dealing with other people. This will aid in ensuring that I can manage my subordinates properly at all times.

Why do managers need to be effective in working in different contexts? What is involved in the management of Organizations?

Henri Fayol identified there are three set of skills of a manager these are: Technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills. Technical skills are the analytical capability of the managers. Conceptual skills encompass visionary quality of the manager such a holding creative ideas, conceive an innovative picture of the future picture of the present organization (Matthews, Zeidner and Roberts, 2011, p.114). Human skills are the internal qualities which make a manager a good team leader, team member etc. Human skill enables the manager to understand and motivate other people through effective communication. Teamwork depends on co-operation, collaboration, communicating ideas among others.

            Managing people is one of the most difficult jobs. Individuals are different in terms of behaviour, norms, and values. Social skills and relationship development is crucial for the leadership role. My personal emotion and understanding the emotions of others help to manage interactions. According to the Goleman (1996), effective leaders are alike in a critical way that they have a high degree of emotional intelligence.  There are several benefits of emotional intelligence such as improved leadership skills. It results from the ability to negotiate, collaborate, manage conflicts and influence the positive changes in the working environment.

As a social being the success of a human depends on the ability to interact effectively in work life and personal family life. Mayer and Salovey (1999) found a well-developed EQ refers to the capability of understanding own feelings and sharing others feelings. High emotional intelligence helps to reduce the stress of self and others. There are some debates between EQ and EL. EL refers to emotional literacy which can be learned. The assumption behind this notion is the intelligence of a human is fixed. There are three different types of models of EQ: Ability model, trait model, and the mixed model. The ability to focus on people’s ability to perceive, use and generate emotions is called ability model. Trait model is concerned with the self-perception measured by self-reporting. The mixed model is the combination of both ability and trait model (Goleman, 1996, p.48).

According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, my type of personality is ENFP. ENFP is called campaigner. ENFP stands for extraversion, intuition, feeling, and perception. This test resonates my personality. The positive side of ENFP is excellent communication skill, enthusiasm and full of curiosity. The dark side of ENFP is easily hurt and stressed out easily.

There are mainly five components of emotional intelligence: Self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, and empathy. Theory suggests that only communicating with people doesn’t show high EQ. High EQ refers to how a person is capable of positively interact with a person so that the person feel good.

Figure: 1 Goleman’s emotional intelligence model (Goleman, 1996).

Wilding (2017, p.63) mentioned self-awareness underpins EQ. It means how aware a person is about his/her habitual patterns, emotions and others. Emotions are expressed through non-verbal communication, such as gesture and facial expressions. Identifying the feelings through facial expression or non-verbal communication is a basic element of EQ.

Key Business functions that managers need to address to be effective in their career

As ENFP type I have a high level of emotional intelligence. I love to work in the field that satisfies my need for development, exploration. As an excellent communicator, I love to work in a team in order to work with different people. ENFP can be both leader and follower. I am able to see the perspective of others. This quality makes me empathic person. But sometimes it is very hard to control emotions. I can react very negative when I am hurt or in a bad mood.

There are some statements which may indicate the gaps in emotional intelligence. These are,

•    Not seeing what is the big deal

•    Not enough smart to get this

•    If I can understand it, anyone can.

•    It doesn’t matter how anyone feels, the work must be done this way.

Some experts tried to explain the behaviour by mapping the brain. They drew on research from biology and neuropsychology. Goleman (1996) termed it amygdale hijack. This part of the brain is the ancient reptilian brain which reacts to the signs of physical and psychological danger. If it senses the threat, it either fights or flight from the threat.

Freeze response is the first response of human when he/she feels fear. It is normally short-lived feelings and for others, it can persist. It can give the time to take the best action for the situation. It makes difficult to deal with the situation (Bowkett, 2007, p.62). The classic response to fear is flight. It refers to running away from any conflict or withdrawing from a fight. It can resolve the threat but in case of a relationship, it is about delaying the solution. The fight is the general sign of anger it is the response to the perceived threat.

Conclusion

I think it needs more time to self-assess and to work with our emotion. It is one kind of exercise or practice which can make a big difference in the long run. If we look at the successful leaders it is very clear that they show a high level of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness, self-motivation, and empathy are inter-chained cycles. A person is able to able control and redirect impulses and moods through good self-awareness. Sometimes holding the emotions is very dangerous for mental health. So I need to know when I will express my emotion and when I should let it go. If we can understand the source or origin or emotions of each other while working in a team, we are more attuned to each other. It becomes more crucial when teams are cross-cultural or global. After all, in workplace emotional intelligence comes down to a good relationship through understanding, expressing thoughts and solving problems under pressure.

Bibliography

Bowkett, S. (2007). Emotional intelligence. London: Network Continuum Education, pp.56-89.

Goleman, D. (1996). Emotional intelligence. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, pp.6-129.

Matthews, G., Zeidner, M. and Roberts, R. (2011). Emotional intelligence: A promise unfulfilled? Japanese Psychological Research, 54(2), pp.105-127.

Mayer, J. and Salovey, P. (1999). The intelligence of emotional intelligence. Intelligence, 17(4), pp.433-442.

Wilding, C. (2017). Emotional Intelligence. London: Hodder & Stoughton, pp.45-67.