As China’s economy grows, Chinese enterprises are facing more and more challenges as well as opportunities. As an indispensible component of the Chinese economy, the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are of course playing a very important role and their future matters to China’s economy. After the implementation of the reform and opening policy in 1978, Chinese SOEs have danced to that tune ever since. Managers, as one of the important factors that shape the development of SOEs, their working styles and responsibilities have witnessed remarkable transformation too. This thesis studied the managerial roles and competencies of effective managers in one of the successful SOEs in China in order to analyze how the effective managers spread their wings in the SOEs. Face-to-face interviews with ten effective managers have been conducted in order to explore the interviewees’ managerial roles and competencies. The triangulation analysis was adopted to delineate why these managers could become effective and how they use their competence to make themselves effective. During the analysis, data from four different sources were used: documents on work description, performance records and organization memorabilia; recommendation of HR department and superiors; interviews with effective manager themselves and their sub-ordinates. In this way, the thesis helped to enhance the consciousness on the state of the managers in the state-owned enterprises and offered some practical advice and III guidance for those aspiring managers by profiling the effective managers who have excelled in Chinese business. Eighteen managerial roles have been found and been categorized into four different groups. The informational roles support the effective managers to manage through information which is processed to encourage other people to take the necessary actions. Interpersonal plane focuses on people’s interaction. Effective managers emphasize the development of people to enhance the strength of an individual, a team, and the whole unit. Action plane directly emphasizes the work, especially the process, results, strategy, and any uncertainties during the accomplishment of tasks. And lastly, the technical plane, which is the typical plane in the manufacturing enterprises, focuses on the technicians and the technical details of their works. However, it should be pointed out that not all the roles have been adopted by all the effective managers all the times. Each effective manager has his or her own emphasis on some specific managerial roles and not all managerial roles are suitable or needed for the managers who are in different position or departments. They usually choose one or two suitable roles at a time to finish one task. Competences, as one of the key factors that can help to realize the managerial roles, have been analyzed in three parts. Skills are the basic competences of effective managers which are the useful tools for the managers to act in different roles. For example, the skills relevant to people’s interaction may affect the results of acting as interviewer, disturbance handler, and coordinator. Knowledge like management knowledge, psychology, and product knowledge, is another indispensable competence IV for effective managers under different situations. Attitude is the foundation of effective managers to accomplish all work and tasks. The effective managers in this investigation uphold that attitude is the most important competence for them on both work and life. Without a right attitude, it is impossible for employees to be promoted and managers could not be regarded as effective managers.