What does a team / line manager do?

First I should define what I believe is a manager – A manager is the person in an organisation that is in charge of and responsible for the activities, actions and output of a group of people that are all united around a common goal or function. For example, a football team, a group of accountants, workers in a restaurant. The authority of this manager comes from the organisation and is stated formally (so not like a project manager who has no formal authority) as they are responsible internally and externally for the behaviour and output of their team members.

Team / Line managers are responsible for the following –

Capacity / workload of the team – team is not over or under loaded

Assign work to the team. Then monitor and evaluate progress and support with removing any barriers that could stop their team members delivering.

Get work for the team to perform – support sales, interact with other departments that their team supports / works with

Ensure that their team members have the required equipment, system access etc to do their job

Ensure that their team members have the required skills, qualifications, experiences, attitude etc that they need to do the job

They support their team members (pastural care) through have regular meetings. This is important for remote workers as otherwise remote workers can feel ignored and not part of the team, department, organisation etc

They communicate corporate / organisation messaging to the team and outline how the team needs to act / are affected by the corporate communication / direction

Ensure that they and their team up to date with changes, initiatives, decision etc within the organisation, industry etc in regards to how these may affect the team and their ability to do their job