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1. Understand your role

Key ideas

To be successful managers must understand their role.
The role of the manager is to achieve the business goals set for them and at the same time, provide an environment that allows their staff to be effective and satisfied with their work while developing their full potential.

Overview

Organisations exist to coordinate the work of many people towards a common business purpose (producing the organisation's products and/or services). To deliver its purpose, each organisation has a strategy, decided by the owner or the Board (as representatives of the owners), with business objectives, decided by the CEO. The work is then organised by managers and delegated to the right people, at the right level and in the right roles.

Critical to the organisation of work is for every employee to be clear on what work they must do to play their part. Therefore to be successful, managers must understand their role in the organisation and the role of their direct reports. They must have a clear understanding of what each role is accountable to do and what authorities they have to do it. This understanding goes beyond the technical and programming aspects of a role and extends to the requirements of managing people.