diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/697-iam_role-replace-UpdateRoleDescription-with-UpdateRole.yml b/changelogs/fragments/697-iam_role-replace-UpdateRoleDescription-with-UpdateRole.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a31b43451d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/697-iam_role-replace-UpdateRoleDescription-with-UpdateRole.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+- iam_role - Modified iam_role internal code to replace update_role_description with update_role (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.aws/pull/697).
diff --git a/plugins/modules/iam_role.py b/plugins/modules/iam_role.py
index e95ed0afddf..f5699edf8b5 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/iam_role.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/iam_role.py
@@ -327,7 +327,7 @@ def update_role_description(connection, module, params, role):
         return True
 
     try:
-        connection.update_role_description(RoleName=params['RoleName'], Description=params['Description'], aws_retry=True)
+        connection.update_role(RoleName=params['RoleName'], Description=params['Description'], aws_retry=True)
     except (botocore.exceptions.ClientError, botocore.exceptions.BotoCoreError) as e:
         module.fail_json_aws(e, msg="Unable to update description for role {0}".format(params['RoleName']))
     return True