What is a General Manager?

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What is a General Manager?

🔥 A General Manager (GM) is an executive / senior role within a company, overseeing most or all of a firm's functions. Contrary to functional managers, GMs have a broad, overall responsibility for profit and loss in a company (or a major part of it), and they manage across all or at least multiple functions (i.e., finance, marketing, operations).

DEFINITION OF A GENERAL MANAGER
A general manager is a person who has a broad, overall, general management responsibility for a particular business or organization or some substantial area of it.

JOB TITLES of GENERAL MANAGERS
Persons having a general management responsibility may be called in various ways and hold many different job titles, including (but not limited to):

• President
• Senior Vice-President (SVP)
• Vice-President (VP)
• Regional Vice-President (Regional VP)
• CEO
• Senior Partner
• Partner
• Managing Director (MD)
• Director
• General Manager (GM)
• Manager
• Country Manager
• Segment Manager
• Regional Manager
• District Manager
• Branch Manager
• Etc.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GENERAL MANAGERS
People performing the above mentioned jobs are all general managers. What sets a GM apart is that he or she has a broad, overall, general management responsibility for a particular area of a business or organization. Unlike a functional manager who has a responsibility just for a particular function, like HR, Logistics, Finance, Marketing, etc.

Another thing what distinguishes a GM is that he or she is typically a generalist, while a functional manager is typically a specialist.

A generic management education like business administration, business economics or business law, and/or a broad experience with multiple functions in the company are a typical background.

Typically a GM ranks higher and has a higher salary than functional managers when they are in the same part of the organization. On the other hand, a CFO with the finance responsibility for an entire multinational ranks higher and earns more than the GM of the Italian subsidiary of that firm.

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		1 Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar India
	Should a GM be Paid Equal on Par with CFO? As a generalist a general manager motivates people and makes people work to their potential and in some cases he increases the potential capacity also... Which in turn yields the financial results... In such cases a GM should be paid equal or even more than CFO I suppose. Editor: as mentioned in the base topic, this depends on the level of the GM. If he is GM of a very important part or project of the organization or even heads the entire firm (CEO) then yes, he could be paid more than a CFO.

		3 Blondeel Consultant, Morocco
	What is the Key Role of a General Manager A general manager is indeed all what you write. In my opinion you forgot however the most important role of a GM:. He is responsible for defining and driving the strategy to develop permanently the business and set up long lasting competitive advantages.

		4 Loh Tean Hin CxO / Board, Indonesia
	Renumeration of General Manager Role Remuneration for a GM should be higher when turning around an organisation from loss to gain. Especially when there was a CEO or CFO or any CxO earlier hanging on in the comfort zone but not performing and taking credit for what used to be successful. I am not trying to be fanatic that even LIFO basis or salaries reduction should never be imposed to this poor fellow.

		1 Mark Buzan Canada
	Use of Term GM in Non-profit Organizations? I wonder if others could comment on this distinction in the nonprofit or association world? In particular, I have seen the "GM" title used in manufacturing and construction related associations. However, in the same term, others have been quick to point out the difference between a GM and an Executive Director or President of a smaller organization. Thoughts?

		0 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	The Function of General Regardless of the actual job title, all managers are managers of functions; whether at: Supervisor level (i.e. SECTION MANAGERS: the first level of people in any organisation with people reporting to them) reporting to DEPARTMENT level MANAGERS reporting to FUNCTIONAL level MANAGERS, reporting to a CORPORATE level MANAGER (who may have any of the titles given in the list). I would assume that those with a "Director" level title are Board of Directors members. Many titles are, of course, ego-status focused. Regardless of the geographic area (shop-floor / the world) or functional focus (production, admin etc, to 'directing-managing the corporate business') each is, arguably, a 'functional specialism'. Yes, the 'corporate-business function' is different from the 'specialist technical function' but it too requires 'specialist technical knowledge and skill qualifications' from its manager. All managers (regardless of level/title) are accountable for managing the people/team reporting to them to achieve their required objectives. Essentially the difference is one of 1. Scale (i.e. increasing numbers e.g. the number of people/organisation levels reporting to them, budget size etc. Not necessarily apparent from the job title) and 2. The micro-to-macro focal span of their functional specialism. Promotion is usually from an aspect of e.g. 'operations or finance etc, to all of 'operations' or finance… to the combined, corporate, general (over-all) manager level. Remember: The higher up the organisation you are the more you are accountable for the people who manage the people who… and also the further your distance from and extent to which you are out of touch with, the reality of the 'front line'.