Question

What are the manager's roles in a development system? Which role do you think is most difficult for the typical manager? Which is the easiest role? List the reasons why managers might resist involvement in career management.

Answer 1

The manager’s roles in a career management system include self-assessment, reality check, goal setting, and action planning. In self-assessment managers’ provide assessment information to identify strengths, weaknesses, interests, and values. In the reality check role, managers’ communicate performance evaluation to show where the employee fits into long-range plans of the company. In the goal setting role, managers’ ensure that the goal is specific, challenging, and attainable as well as committing to helping the employees reach the goal. In the action-planning role, managers’ identify resources employees need to reach goal including courses, work experience, and relationships. The most difficult role is the reality check role because here managers’ have to communicate with their employees about their performance and evaluations. This may be very hard for some managers because not many are comfortable with commenting on employees’ progress because they don’t want to create conflict, may not be as knowledgeable as the employee being evaluated, and the manager may feel that the employee will take it as criticism and become defensive. The easiest role for managers is the goal setting role because almost every manager has an idea on what the goals for the company are to be and in this role they have to make those goals clear and attainable to the employee. Managers may resist involvement in the management career program because they may not feel comfortable with such a structured program. Many managers are not comfortable being involved in all the steps.