What is an administrator?
An administrator is a person who gets results through other people. An administrator is responsible for carrying out the activities necessary to achieve organizational goals. More specifically, a manager performs certain basic functions in order for the organization to move toward achieving those goals. (Allen and Gilmore, p.20)
Over the years, various definitions of what is administration and, therefore, what is an administrator have been raised. Mintzberg (2013, p.26) has very well summarized what happened in the following terms:
Henry Fayol viewed management through the exercise of control, while Tom Peters viewed it as "doing." Instead, Michael Porter has equated it with thinking, specifically analyzing. Warren Bennis has described it as leading, while Herbert Simon sees it as making decisions, with which the Harvard Business Review has said on its cover, for years, that it is "The magazine of decision makers. ». Everyone has been wrong because everyone was right. Managing is not any of these things but all of them, it is controlling and doing, it is managing and thinking, it is leading and deciding and many more, not added but mixed. If any of these activities is removed, the administrator's work is not completed.
According to what Mintzberg expressed, it could then be said that:
An administrator is the one who controls, executes, manages, analyzes, communicates, links, plans, leads, negotiates, motivates and makes decisions, among many other activities, within an organization, an area, branch, unit or department of the same, with the purpose of achieving certain objectives.
This definition is based on what an administrator does, so it can be supplemented if more is known about the administrator's tasks specifically, as can be seen below.
What does an administrator do?
According to the established academic theory, the work of the administrator could be synthesized in the functions that make up the administrative process: planning, organization, direction and control.
The administrator is the person in charge of planning, organizing, directing and controlling activities in an institution, optimally manages the material, human, financial and technological resources that are entrusted to him, in order to achieve the objectives that the institution has previously set.. (Juárez, p.21)
Although it is true that these activities are inherent to the fact of managing, they turn out not to be the activities that administrators carry out on a day-to-day basis.
Drucker (1963, p.54) when asking the question , What is the administrator's job? found that:
The manager's job is to direct the organization's resources and efforts toward opportunities that will allow it to achieve financially significant results. It sounds trite and it is. But every analysis of effective resource and effort allocation that I have seen or done, across various businesses, clearly showed that most of the time, work, attention, and money go to "problems" first rather than to problems. opportunities, and second, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performances will have minimal impact on results.
Mintzberg (1975, pp. 4-8) identified 10 roles through which he describes the administrator's work, the administrator's activity while executing these roles is between reflection (thinks, evaluates, analyzes) and action (participates, assigns, decides), interacting with others, inside and outside the organization, the business unit, the area or the department, according to their level. These roles are integrated into 3 categories: interpersonal, informational and decision-making.
- Interpersonal roles. There are three administrator roles that arise directly from formal authority and involve basic interpersonal relationships:
- The administrator as the visible head of the organization. As the head of an organizational unit, every administrator must perform some ceremonial functions. The president welcomes the dignitaries of tourism. The foreman attends a worker's wedding. The sales manager has lunch with an important customer. These duties can sometimes be routine, they do not involve important decision making or overly formal communication. However, they are important to the smooth running of an organization and cannot be ignored. The manager as leader. Managers are responsible for the work of the people in their unit. Your actions in this regard constitute the role of leader. Some of these measures involve direct leadership, for example, in most organizations managers are normally responsible for hiring and training their own staff. In addition, there is the indirect exercise of the role of leader. For example, each manager must motivate and encourage employees, reconciling in some way their individual needs with the goals of the organization. The administrator as a link. In this role the manager makes contacts outside the vertical chain of command. Managers spend as much time with their peers and others outside of their units as they do with their own subordinates and very little time with their own superiors.
- The administrator as a receiver of information. The administrator, as a monitor, is constantly analyzing the environment to obtain information, this is largely the result of his network of personal contacts. Much of the information that the manager accumulates in this role comes to him verbally, often as gossip, hearsay, or speculation. The administrator as a disseminator of information. In the role of disseminator, the manager distributes privileged information directly to subordinates, who otherwise would not have access to it. When subordinates do not have the possibility to easily contact each other, the manager serves as a bridge between them. The administrator as spokesperson. In the role of spokesperson, the administrator sends information outside the organization. A president makes a speech to press for an organizational cause, a supervisor suggests to a supplier a modification of a product or of the delivery conditions.
- The administrator as an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, he seeks to improve his unit (or the organization as a whole), to adapt it to the changing conditions of the environment. This occurs through the development of new products, new ways of carrying out key processes, reorganizations of a department or corporate restructuring, mergers or acquisitions, and public relations campaigns, among others. The manager as a disturbance controller. Problems, crises, are factors that must be taken into account and must be managed. In this role the administrator seeks to make the challenges and problems faced by the organization or its area, be taken in the best way by his team and that the transitions are as positive as they can be.The administrator as a resource allocator. In this role you will decide who will receive what, in terms of resources, human, financial and otherwise, including your own time. The administrator as a negotiator. Whether you are trying to get a new customer, a new employee, or trying to end a contract with a supplier, the manager will always be negotiating in search of the best for his unit, his department, his branch or the entire organization.
Drucker (p.275), for his part, established that there are five tasks that make up the work of an administrator: he establishes objectives, organizes, motivates and communicates, measures and finally, develops his people.
- Set goals. The administrator sets goals for each area, communicates them to those people whose participation is required to achieve them, and decides what needs to be done to meet them. Organize. The manager analyzes the necessary activities, decisions and relationships. It classifies work, breaks it down into manageable activities, and classifies them into manageable jobs. Group these units and jobs into an organizational structure. It also selects people to manage these units and for key jobs. Motivate and communicate. The manager makes his people a team. He does so through practice and in his relationships with the people with whom he works; It does so through its "people decisions," decisions about pay, placement and promotions; He does so through constant communication, to and from his subordinates, from and to his superiors, and from and to his colleagues. To size. The administrator establishes criteria and indexes, few factors are so important for the performance of the organization and those who comprise it. It ensures that each person knows the performance measures of the entire organization and, at the same time, those of their function and thus helps them to fulfill them. She analyzes, evaluates and interprets performance and, as in all other areas of her work, communicates the meaning of the measures and their results to her subordinates, her superiors, and her colleagues. Develop his people and himself. With the rise of the knowledge worker, this task has grown in importance. In a knowledge economy, people are the organization's most important asset and it is up to the manager to develop them.
Administrator profile: skills and competencies
Katz (pp. 6-18) raised the existence of three types of essential skills for the administrator to be able to effectively execute the administrative process:
- Technical ability. It consists of using the knowledge, methods, techniques and equipment necessary to carry out their specific tasks through their instruction, experience and education. Human ability. It consists of the ability and discernment to work with people, understand their attitudes and motivations, and apply effective leadership. Conceptual ability. It consists of the ability to understand the complexities of the global organization and to adjust the behavior of the person within the organization. This ability allows the person to behave in accordance with the objectives of the total organization and not just in accordance with the objectives and needs of her immediate group.
Robbins and De Cenzo (p.13) add to the three essential skills, proposed by Katz, a fourth:
- Political ability. Ability to improve personal position, establish a power base and establish the right contacts. Managers who have good political skills are often better at finding resources than those who do not. They also get higher evaluations and get more promotions.
In addition, these same authors propose six sets of behaviors that explain little more than 50% of the effectiveness of a manager, they call them specific skills and are:
- Control the organization's environment and its resources. Ability to take action and take the lead in making changes in the environment. It involves basing decisions on resources within a framework of clear, up-to-date and accurate knowledge of the organization's objectives. Organize and coordinate. It consists of organizing things around tasks and, from there, they coordinate relationships of interdependence between tasks, when appropriate. Manage information. Understand the use of communication and information channels to identify problems, understand changes in the environment and make good decisions. Promote growth and development. Through constant learning, the administrator fosters his personal growth and development as well as those of his people. Motivate employees and manage conflicts. Through positive reinforcement they generate in their people the desire to do their job and by eliminating conflicts they inhibit possible problems that undermine motivation. Solve strategic problems. They take responsibility for their decisions and ensure that subordinates apply their decision-making skills appropriately.
The American Management Association (p.2) has established 4 key skills / competencies that the manager should have:
- Critical thinking and problem solving. The ability to make decisions, solve problems, and take appropriate action; Effective communication. Ability to synthesize and transmit their ideas, both in written and oral form; Collaboration and teamwork. The ability to work effectively with others, including those from diverse groups and with opposing points of view; Creativity and innovation. The ability to see what is not there and make something happen.
Drucker (2004, p.3), in another of his masterful writings, indicated that effective managers follow eight simple rules:
- They ask what needs to be done They ask: Is this the right thing for the company? They draw up an action plan They take responsibility for decisions They take responsibility for communicating They focus on opportunities They hold productive meetings They don't think or say 'I', they think and say 'we'.
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Through the following video tutorial (5 videos, 36 minutes) you will be able to learn more about the functions, roles and abilities of administrators (managers, directors) in an organization.
Bibliography
- Allen, William R. and Gilmore, Harold L. What Managers Do. American Management Association, 1993. American Management Association. Critical skills survey, 2010. Drucker, Peter F. Managing for Business Effectiveness. Harvard Business Review, May - June 1963 Drucker, Peter F. Management. Tasks, Responsibilities, Practice. Truman Talley Books / EP Dutton, 1986.Drucker, Peter F. What makes an Effective Executive. Harvard Business Review, June 2004. Juárez Martínez, Gerardo D. Management training for school effectiveness. EUMED, 2006 Katz, Robet Lee, Skills of an Effective Administrator. Harvard Business Press, 1974. Mintzberg, Henry. Simply Managing: What Managers Do - and Can Do Better. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013. Mintzberg, Henry. The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact. In: Harvard Business Review, July - August 1975 Robbins, Stephen P. and De Cenzo,David A. Management Fundamentals: Essential Concepts and Applications. Pearson Education, 2009.
