What Is The Point Of Managers?

What is the point of managers? Why does an organisation need them anyway? 

Given the somewhat negative view of managers, I wonder how you might answer that question? In the past, managers on courses I have run have said various things, such as ‘to ensure employees do their jobs and fulfil their contracts’, or ‘to ensure that people are following company rules and regulations’, or ‘to solve problems and make sure departments run smoothly’. 

All of these have various elements of truth to them. However, none of them capture the actual main point of the manager’s role. 

To understand it better, consider that of a soccer manager, or in fact any professional sports manager (in the US you would call him a coach.) At this point, some may be thinking ‘what has sport got to do with business?’ Plenty actually, starting with the fact that nearly all professional sports clubs around the world are now primarily run as businesses, especially in the top leagues (even if their fans do not like to think they are!)

In the UK, during the 2022-2023 soccer season, 74 managers of English professional football clubs left their jobs, the vast majority getting fired. That is nearly 75% of them, baring in mind that several worked for the same club. 

What was the main reason these managers lost their jobs? It is pretty obvious, but let’s state it. They lost their jobs because their team was not achieving the expected results. The clubs’ boards, in fear of the club being relegated to a lower league, or worried about losing money, decided that the manager must be replaced in order to improve the results.

Most organisations do not exist in the highly pressurised fishbowl of professional soccer, but the point of any manager is just the same. Essentially, their main purpose, is to achieve the required results of the team, department or division that they are leading. This is why it is vital for a manager to know the goals – the required results – that their organisation or line manager is expecting their department to achieve. That is something to definitely find out if you are unsure.

The similarities with professional sport do not end there. Just like a sports manager is not on the field of play getting the scores, so the business manager is usually not the one ‘in the field’ trying to get the results. Essentially, they are leading a team of others who do this. (The exception being supervisors and team leaders. They resemble ‘player-managers’ – you do not see many of these in professional sport these days).

It should therefore be obvious to any manager that, if your main point is to achieve the required results and you do this through the employees you lead, then each one of those employees are actually your greatest asset. The question to ask then is do you treat them that way? Do you value them?

Managers are exceptionally important to any organisation. Their primary purpose is to achieve the required results through the efforts of their team. As an introduction to how a manager can be more effective, the recognition of this is a good place to start. However, this is not anything new. In 1964, management theorists Robert Blake and Jane Mouton gave the following definition of management: “Management is achieving results through the efforts of others.”

The question is, are your managers achieving the required results with their team? And do they treat their employees as if they value them as their greatest asset? If not, perhaps they need some training to enhance the skills and knowledge on how to lead their employees more effectively and to get the best from them. Do let us know if we can help you with this. 

Richard Pheasant is director and lead trainer of Bespoke Business Training. He has provided training to several thousand managers since moving into business training nearly 13 years ago, both in Europe and the Middle-East. Previous to that, he lectured on leadership at a university in the Arabian Gulf.