Levels of Management
Definition
Frontline Managers (Operational Managers)
This type of manager is the backbone of the organization. Other titles such as supervisor
or sales manager, but all in all this position is a critical role between management and non-
management in the workplace.
Summary
In the article of a journal of business research, the role of the service managers perceived
career success and frontline employees learning processes and service improvement, has a lot of
insight on how to be a successful manager. Frontline employees are a key source in service
development and improvement process. Surprisingly play frontline employee who has perfected
their service performance, has not received enough recognition, this article explores the personal
learning process that a frontline employee uses to improve services. A frontline manager has a lot
to learn from the frontline employee and their ways to provide a successful service. Frontline
managers job is to be able to juggle both non-managerial and managerial experiences in the
organization. This research reveals the learning process for frontline employees and what the
frontline manager role plays into the learning process. All in all this study focuses on a
formalized organizational idea for employees to learn about their work environment.
Discussion
As the frontline manager the job is to be able to manage every aspect of the workplace
and to take accountability for anything that could go wrong. What a Frontline manager also finds
a way to balance out non-managers and managers so that the workplace runs smoothly. “As a
result of such perceptions, employees may feel exhausted, disengaged, and stressed; resist the
intended changes; promote self-serving agendas; obstruct intra- and inter-departmental
communication; deplete personal and firm resources and generally undermine the success of the
planned strategic decision (Bouckenooghe, 2012)” (Lampaki, 2018). By demanding
organizational politics, in the workplace to control and monitor non-managers, this will cause
stressors towards frontline managers. The goal in this article is to motivate frontline managers to
perform their tasks well and to motivate and help others. Both articles have the same goal, for
things to run smoothly in the workplace, and so that manager and non-managerial relationships
could coexist. “Because successful managers are also proactive, have high social status, and are
“visible” in the workplace, others notice these managers’ ethos. According to social learning
theory, FLEs generally see their managers as role models and consequently infer that their
managers expect them to have similar work values (e.g., put in as many hours or act
proactively)” (De Jong, 2021). It is more likely that frontline managers and non-managers are
more productive at work when in a understanding work environment. In the first article frontline
managers focus on learning about what nonmanagers must deal with daily (with customers and
job-related tasks. Then the second article we learned that certain types of managers make it
difficult to make a successful environment to coexist. Both articles have one main goal which is
to make sure that there is a productivity in the workplace. Organizational politics in the
workplace can cause negativity and lower productivity rates. The role of any managerial position
is mostly to know the job better than nonmanagers and to be able to keep a nice balance of
positivity. This article expresses that when negativity enters the workplace that moral and
psychological strains turn into performance issues and higher turnover rates. It is the managers
role to make sure that this is not the case, and it should not be tolerated. I especially as a top
manager where you rely on the frontline manager to manage the non-managers and expect
everything to run smoothly. Top managers need to comprehend that in certain situations cannot
work out the way they would like because they’re not even sure what goes down on the bottom
level. Therefore, better communication is also something that could help avoid situations like this
in the workplace. All managers should have better communication between each meetings and
have a common goal.
Biblical integration
Ephesians 6:5-9
"5
Bondservants,
[a]
obey your earthly masters
[b]
with fear and
trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-
pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,7 rendering service
with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this
he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same
to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master[c] and yours is in
heaven, and that there is no partiality with him” (New International Version). In the biblical
worldview the frontline manager is the master as well as the servant in a sense. If you need to be
the manager is available to take over a non-management and management position in any given
situation. By doing so the servant can easily connect with the frontline manager due to the nature
of their multitasking abilities. It is important to be able to understand both non-management and
management roles to run a successful operation.
Reference:
De Jong, A. (2021). The role of the service manager’s perceived career success in frontline
employees’ learning processes and service improvement. Journal of Business
Research, 134, 601-617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.051
Lampaki, A., & Papadakis, V. (2018). The impact of organisational politics and trust in the top
management team on strategic decision implementation success: A middle-manager's
perspective. European Management Journal, 36(5), 627-
637. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.07.005
Discussion Replies:
You will be required to post a substantive reply of at least 300 words each to a minimum of
TWO classmates’ threads.
•
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Do not simply revisit what was discussed in the thread, but add information from the
unique article you researched on the concept and compare the findings. Did the findings
of the article you found and the articles used in the original thread agree, disagree,
address different aspects of the concept?
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