What is the Role of a Line Manager: Roles, Responsibilities and Skills
In this guide, we’ll tell you all you need to know about the position and the skills you need to bring to the table.
What is the Line Manager’s Role?
As organisations grow more complex and distributed, line managers (also known as team leaders or supervisors) play a vital role in bridging the gap between the senior level of management and frontline employees. This critical managerial position is coming under increased scrutiny, with expectations rising for line managers to motivate teams, enable organisational agility, and drive business results.
Becoming a line manager is usually one of the first steps you take when you start to climb the ladder towards higher positions in business.
But who is a line manager, what do they do, and how can you succeed in the role?
In this guide, we’ll tell you all you need to know about the position and the skills you need to bring to the table.
Introduction
- What Is a Line Manager?
- What Does a Line Manager Do?
- What Skills Do You Need to Become a Line Manager?
- What Makes a Good Line Manager?
- How to Develop Essential Line Manager Skills
- Practical Tips for Line Managers
- FAQs
- Final Thoughts
What Is a Line Manager?
A line manager is typically defined as a lower or middle manager who directly oversees a team of frontline workers. Unlike executive or senior managers who take a broader strategic role, the line manager focuses on day-to-day operations and execution of tasks. They are responsible for translating high-level goals into concrete actions that their direct reports can implement.
Line managers occupy the critical space between senior leadership who dictate company direction, and non-managerial staff members who carry out frontline work. This middle management layer empowers information sharing between levels, enabling alignment and quick problem resolution. As opposed to department heads who manage other managers, line managers have direct authority over their team of employees.
Within the organisational hierarchy, the line manager role has power over their team but must also report upwards to their own boss. Therefore, a key duty is funnelling employee feedback to upper management and conveying wider organisational initiatives downwards. The line management role differentiates itself by this two-way communication responsibility.
What Does a Line Manager Do?
A line manager wears many hats in their quest to enable team and company success. Some of their key responsibilities include:
- Overseeing day-to-day operations of their department or project team. This involves coordination, scheduling, and ensuring activities align with company goals.
- Translating business strategies into specific objectives and plans for their team. They break down big-picture goals into actionable steps.
- Monitoring team progress through regular check-ins and reviews. When roadblocks emerge, the line manager troubleshoots solutions.
- Serving as the main point of contact between senior management and frontline employees. They funnel information between levels and facilitate open communication.
- Managing administrative tasks like budgeting, resource allocation, performance evaluations, and discipline. This optimises departmental productivity.
- Identifying team training needs and skill gaps. The line manager arranges development opportunities accordingly. And if you’re not sure about the training needs of your team, you can always get in touch with our friendly team and book a consultation.
- Leading and motivating their team through workflow changes, adversity, and growth.
- Providing feedback on team and individual performance and coaching for improvement. This enables professional growth.
An effective line manager juggles leadership, project management, performance optimisation, and communication duties. They align activities to business objectives and rally their team to succeed.
What Key Skills Do You Need to Become a Line Manager?
Being an impactful line manager requires a diverse set of hard and soft skills. Some of the most important abilities include:
Soft Skills:
- Emotional intelligence to read team dynamics and respond to unspoken needs.
- Interpersonal skills for clear and effective communication, active listening, and conflict resolution.
- Influencing and motivating teams to follow objectives.
- Negotiation skills to balance team interests with organisational goals.
- Organisational skills to ensure that you assign tasks to the right people and can follow up properly.
Hard Skills:
- Project management abilities to juggle multiple tasks efficiently.
- Budgeting and resource planning to optimise departmental productivity.
- Data analysis to interpret team performance metrics and identify improvement areas.
Adaptive Skills:
- Agility to adapt to changing organisational goals and evolve management strategies accordingly is vital. Line managers must stay attuned to fluctuations in company priorities driven by market conditions.
- Proactiveness in monitoring industry advancements through continuing education demonstrates a commitment to incorporating best practices. Line managers should continuously seek out knowledge to enhance their leadership.
- Pursuing ongoing professional development for oneself models a growth mindset for teams. Line managers must champion lifelong learning not only for direct reports but also for the enhancement of their own skills. So, get in touch and start your learning journey with Impact Factory today.
The most effective line managers combine strategy execution in the current environment with the flexibility to adjust their approach as conditions dictate. Strong adaptive skills empower them to lead teams through organisational and industry evolution.
What Makes a Good Line Manager?
The most effective line managers’ roles blend strong leadership with camaraderie. They motivate and develop team members while also relating as fellow contributors. Some hallmarks of successful line managers include:
- Inspiring team members by connecting work to a higher purpose.
- Fostering open communication and actively listening to concerns.
- Proactively identifying potential problems through risk analysis and addressing them before escalation.
- Possessing self-awareness to reflect on and improve their own leadership practices.
- Providing timely feedback and development opportunities.
- Celebrating team wins and giving credit where due.
- Leading by example through integrity, work ethic, and accountability.
At their core, excellent line managers care deeply about their team’s welfare and enable them to thrive. Their daily prioritisation of people ultimately drives superior results.
How to Develop Essential Line Manager Skills
Continuous skills development is key for line managers seeking to strengthen their leadership capabilities. Here are some approaches that tend to be effective:
- Honest self-assessment to identify one’s strengths and growth areas as a baseline. Then, pursue training opportunities and experts to build on strengths and shore up weaknesses. With Impact Factory, you can take advantage of our 2-day line management course, take a one-to-one training session, or join our 5-day Intensive to dive deep into the skills that will help you to become a better line manager.
- Learning from the experience of colleagues. Scheduling regular coffee meetings or lunches with other line managers allows for a cathartic exchange of war stories and ideas on overcoming shared challenges. Mentorship from accomplished senior managers can shortcut the trial-and-error learning curve dramatically.
- Staying proactive about keeping management skills sharp through habits like reading industry publications to stay current on new methods. Also, consistently seeking feedback from one’s team on strengths and areas for improvement as a manager. Then putting those suggestions into practice.
Growing as a leader takes dedication, but it increases one’s impact.
Practical Tips for Line Managers
Drawing from many years of experience, line managers can identify practices that optimise team performance:
- Set clear expectations from day one and document processes to limit reliance on tribal knowledge. Schedule regular one-on-ones with each employee to touch base and provide coaching. Make these meetings bi-directional conversations.
- Make time to recognise great work by calling out successes immediately and rewarding them, even if just through small gestures. This motivates teams.
- Have difficult conversations promptly to address emerging performance problems before escalation. Early intervention is key.
- Advocate for getting teams the tools and resources they need to excel. Overseeing team output is important, but managers must also enable their success.
FAQs
Some frequent questions related to the role of a line manager include:
What is the responsibility of line management for safety?
Line managers play a key role in cultivating workplace safety. They are responsible for implementing safety protocols, identifying hazards, ensuring proper training, and conducting inspections and audits. As the overseer of daily operations, the line manager serves as the frontline champion of safety culture.
How do you describe line management on a CV?
On a resume, line management experience should highlight leadership accomplishments that exhibit strategic thinking, people management capabilities, and business impact. Quantify achievements such as “improved team productivity by 20%” or “reduced project costs by 15%.”
What is the responsibility of a line manager and staff manager?
The line manager directly oversees frontline employees and day-to-day activities. The staff manager has broader human resources duties, including workforce planning, talent acquisition, compensation, and organisational development. Staff managers support line managers.
What is the difference between a manager and a line manager?
All line managers are managers, but not vice versa. Line managers focus on daily oversight and operations of their direct reports. Managers in other functions like Finance or HR engage in specialised tactical or strategic work unique to their disciplines.
Is your line manager your boss?
Yes, the line manager is considered the direct boss or supervisor of their team of frontline employees. Line managers have authority over their direct reports in areas like task allocation, schedules, eave approvals, performance reviews, discipline, etc. A line manager also acts as a direct report to higher-level managers or executives.
Final Thoughts
Line managers make the executive vision tangible and rally teams to execute. With their ears to the ground and fingerprints on day-to-day operations, they are perfectly positioned to enable agility and continuous improvement.
However, excelling in the line manager role requires an evolving skillset. Ongoing training, self-reflection, and a thirst for growth are essential. The difference between good and great line managers comes down to investing in their own development.
For both new managers and veterans, the journey never ends. Approaching the multifaceted line manager role with this growth mindset will lead to immense responsibility, impact, and fulfilment throughout a career of leadership. The opportunity to mentor, motivate, and maximise people and teams makes line management incredibly rewarding.
How Impact Factory Can Help
Now you know what a line manager does and what you need to become one. But how can you gain the skills? At the Impact Factory, we offer courses that can help you regardless of your experience. Whether you’re new to the role or want to brush up on your knowledge, our training is a great opportunity to bring your skills to the next level.
So, what should you do next?
Browse through the offer on our website and get in touch with our team!
But if you need more help deciding, here are some useful resources for you:
- Line Management Course – Explore what you can learn during the course and how it could impact your development in the role.
- How To Excel As A New Line Manager – Are you new to the role? Here’s what you can do to shine as a line manager!
How To Be An Effective And Inspiring Line Manager – One of the biggest challenges as a manager is to keep your team motivated. Here’s how you can do it.
