601-09 WORKER ROLES AND COMPETENCIES – Community Learning Development

Community Learning Development Resource 601 – 09

ROLES AND COMPETENCIES – A TOOL FOR REFLECTIVE SELF-ASSESSMENT (adapted from Mintzberg, H.1996)

SUMMARY

It seems to be a common characteristic of face-to-face work with communities and neighbourhoods, that individual workers need to have the capacity to self-manage and plan and organise their own practice. This resource is for the use by an individual worker to explore their own perception of their role and practice, to reflect on and review their performance and their competence, to discuss with others and to identify their own development and training needs.

Henry Mintzberg, an American ‘Management Guru’ has written a number of internationally recognised books and articles on the work of managers. He has consistently encouraged managers to believe in and develop their own potential to take on a variety of roles.

AS A WORKER ……

Are you constantly under the direction and supervision of a line-manager with clear instructions and guidance about what you can and can’t do, and with no scope for developing your work beyond what is prescribed for you?

OR

Do you find yourself in the position of using your own initiative and making decisions about the work?
Do you manage your own workload and organise your day-to-day routine and priorities?
Do you have a degree of independence for managing yourself and your work?
Do you work individually and in isolated circumstances?
Are you encouraged to take responsibility for particular aspects of the work within your agency or organisation?
Do you find that you are managing yourself?

This resource enables you to reflect on your understanding of management role and management tasks and to score your own performance in relation to management competencies within Mintzberg’s range of roles.

MINTZBERG’S MANAGEMENT ROLES

Are these roles part of your practice – have you found yourself needing to perform these roles? Do you understand what they are about?

INTERPERSONAL ROLES

Figurehead

Leader

Maintainer / Supporter

Liaison / Networker

Trainer / Supervisor

INFORMATIONAL ROLES

Monitor /Evaluator

Disseminator

Spokesperson / Representative

DECISIONAL ROLES

Entrepeneur / Initiator

Disturbance Handler / Crisis Manager

Resource Allocator

Negotiator

The Mintzberg framework which follows, identifies competencies within each of the above roles and this may help you if you are unsure about what each role involves and whether or not is part of what you do.

INTRODUCING THE MINTZBERG TOOL

The Mintzberg tool is a framework, which identifies key management roles. The user is encouraged to self-assess their own competence within each role. This activity should prompt further reflection on roles and competencies – strengths and areas for development.

The activity may also prompt dialogue and discussion with peers, prompt colleagues to reflect collaboratively, or contribute to a training and development session or appraisal conversation.

TERMS AND LANGUAGE

The UNIT – the work situation for which the worker is responsible

The ORGANISATION – the work setting within which the unit functions – the agency or service, or a part of a collaborative, themed, partnership or networking approach. Any workers within these arrangements are described as colleagues.

Score your own perception on the competence scale for each competence

Low Level = 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 = High Level

1. INTERPERSONAL ROLES

ROLE	COMPETENCY	SCORE
Figurehead	I develop and maintain a personal code of ethics	1 2 3 4
	I am concerned to inspire and encourage	1 2 3 4
	I maintain a positive approach in communicating	1 2 3 4
	I consistently demonstrate a concern for equality and an anti-discriminatory stance	1 2 3 4
	I have concern for individuals	1 2 3 4
	I provide a model of occupational role behaviour through example	1 2 3 4

Leader	I take responsibility for my unit strategy	1 2 3 4
	I adopt an appropriate leadership style	1 2 3 4
	I maintain an overview of the work of my unit	1 2 3 4
	I understands my power base and my capacity to delegate	1 2 3 4
	I enable and use decision-making groups	1 2 3 4
	I delegate administration and control of responsibility to others where possible	1 2 3 4
	I encourage collaborative and participatory styles of working	1 2 3 4
	I have a priority concern for the effectiveness of the work	1 2 3 4
	I have concern for accountability	1 2 3 4

Maintainer / Supporter	I maintain the stability and effectiveness of my unit	1 2 3 4
	I encourage and maintain effective relationships with other relevant workers	1 2 3 4
	I support and encourage other workers in provision and developing initiatives	1 2 3 4
	I listen to colleagues and discuss their problems with them	1 2 3 4
	I offer only constructive criticism	1 2 3 4
	I maintain confidentiality	1 2 3 4
	I strive for continuous improvement within my unit	1 2 3 4
	I maintain flexibility in the control and direction of my unit	1 2 3 4

Liaison / Networker	I develop a network of mutually beneficial contacts	1 2 3 4
	I maintain a network of contacts	1 2 3 4
	I move outside my own professional arena with ease	1 2 3 4
	I communicate effectively in the non-professional arena	1 2 3 4
	I build and maintain reciprocating relationships	1 2 3 4
	I interact with the community effectively	1 2 3 4
	I stimulate and maintain informal organisational contacts	1 2 3 4
	I am aware of my position in the work arena	1 2 3 4
	I develop and support collective working styles	1 2 3 4

Trainer / Supervisor	I keep up-to-date professionally	1 2 3 4
	I seek personal professional development	1 2 3 4
	I encourage colleagues to seek professional development	1 2 3 4
	I am comfortable being supervised	1 2 3 4
	I provide effective supervision for others	1 2 3 4
	I adapt training and learning for others to reflect changes in policies and priorities	1 2 3 4
	I encourage colleagues to develop confidence in their roles	1 2 3 4
	I identify and evaluate personal strengths and weaknesses	1 2 3 4
	I engage in the training and development of colleagues	1 2 3 4
	I affirm and support the organisation’s training requirements	1 2 3 4

2. INFORMATIONAL ROLES

Monitor / Evaluator	I design and maintain information systems	1 2 3 4
	I seek and receive information	1 2 3 4
	I collect, analyse and prioritise data	1 2 3 4
	I understand input and outcome aspects of my units work	1 2 3 4
	I encourage and operate open self-evaluation approaches	1 2 3 4
	I develop shared evaluation models for the unit	1 2 3 4
	I provide analyses of strengths and weaknesses	1 2 3 4
	I identify areas of need and opportunities for improvement	1 2 3 4
	I participate in collaborative approaches to monitoring and evaluation	1 2 3 4

Disseminator	I develop and encourage open communication within my unit	1 2 3 4
	I am concerned to share information about unit activity	1 2 3 4
	I understand and use relevant communications media	1 2 3 4
	I prioritise to share good practice	1 2 3 4
	I share understanding in relation to policies and priorities	1 2 3 4
	I provide understandable information for receivers	1 2 3 4
	I take positive action to initiate and develop desired sharing	1 2 3 4
	I takes positive action in translating and filtering messages	1 2 3 4

Spokesperson/ Representative	I represent my unit in organisational and agency/service forums	1 2 3 4
	I prepare for and participate in organisational and agency/service forums	1 2 3 4
	I assist senior managers in policy preparation	1 2 3 4
	I contribute to team/agency working or networking from areas of own expertise	1 2 3 4
	I maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders	1 2 3 4
	I act in a public relations capacity	1 2 3 4

	I develop my own formal status within work arenas with colleague endorsement	1 2 3 4
	I develop my own formal status within work arenas based on expertise	1 2 3 4

3. DECISIONAL ROLES

Entrepeneur / Initiator	I identify needs and interests in relation to the work of my unit	1 2 3 4
	I keep up-to-date professionally with developments in my field of work	1 2 3 4
	I develop an open information receiving system	1 2 3 4
	I seek to review and develop my units’ services and provision	1 2 3 4
	I seek planned solutions to address issues and solve problems	1 2 3 4
	I contribute to collaborative and partnership initiatives	1 2 3 4
	I integrate decisions	1 2 3 4
	I integrate planning	1 2 3 4
	I develop an encouraging unique culture in respect of initiatives	1 2 3 4

Disturbance handler / Crisis manager	I develop an understanding of systems and procedures	1 2 3 4
	I perceive threats to my unit	1 2 3 4
	I can plan and operate within a short and long-term framework	1 2 3 4
	I anticipate and control the effects of disturbances	1 2 3 4
	I recommend the termination of activities	1 2 3 4
	I develop listening sensitivity	1 2 3 4
	I make decisions	1 2 3 4
	I recognise accountability for my decisions	1 2 3 4

Resource allocator	I set personal priorities	1 2 3 4
	I devise appropriate prioritising systems	1 2 3 4
	I manage my units’ organisation and functions	1 2 3 4
	I develop a unit policy for resource allocation	1 2 3 4
	I operate resource allocation systems	1 2 3 4
	I set up and maintain the unit resources	1 2 3 4
	I identify and promote access to other resources	1 2 3 4
	I match human resources to task requirements	1 2 3 4
	I control and balance budgets to maximise effects	1 2 3 4
	I schedule own time and the work of the unit	1 2 3 4

Negotiator	I understand the political and cultural context of the work	1 2 3 4
	I represent interests in an objective manner	1 2 3 4
	I relate to formal bureaucratic and management information systems	1 2 3 4
	I adopt and encourage appropriate working style and cultures	1 2 3 4
	I demonstrate flexibility of personality and adaptability	1 2 3 4
	I can express unit needs for action	1 2 3 4
	I am concerned to advocate for others within an equality framework	1 2 3 4

FURTHER ACTIVITIES

1. REFLECTION

You now have a record

What does completing the activity tell you?
Do you understand Mintzberg’s roles and competencies?
How relevant are these to your own work?
Are there surprises about what is included or what isn’t included?

Explore and analyse the record – identify and review strengths and areas for development/improvement

What are your strengths?
What are the roles or competencies that you need to work on?
In relation to each area for development/improvement – what is the nature of the problem or challenge that needs to be addressed?
What sort of training and development opportunities do you need?

Action plan

What support do you need?
Who do you need to talk to?
Can you identify and connect with opportunities for development?

2. ANALYSING THE NATURE OF THE LIMITATIONS, CONSTRAINTS AND BARRIERS WHICH AFFECT YOUR PERFORMANCE

Review the record – where do the specific issues and difficulties lie:

Within me?
Within my agency or organisation?
Within the work?

What else needs to be done in addition to seeking training and development opportunities – are there issues, which need to be addressed by the agency/organisation?

3. WORKER PRACTICE, WHICH SUPPORTS SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Always record and analyse practice and experience (Mintzberg’s tool is just a framework and a prompt)

Reflect on the recorded evidence and implications

Review – identify development and training needs and actions

Action-planning – put in place how you are going to address your needs and improve your practice.