Management is considered to be a universal phenomenon. It is a widely used and popular term. Management is the act of getting people together to work and accomplish desired objects and goals using the available resources effectively and efficiently in an organization.
It comprises of organizing, planning, staffing, directing, leading and controlling organizational effort for the purpose of accomplishing a certain goal. On the other hand, resourcing encompasses the manipulation and deployment of financial resources, human resources, natural resources, and technological resources.
It is also right to say that management is purposive because it is an activity done with a certain purpose. Management directs group efforts towards achieving certain pre-determined goals. Management is the process of working with other people or working through other people to achieve organizational goals by using limited resources in the ever-changing world. Different organizations have different goals to achieve. For example, an enterprise may be launching new products by doing market research, and for others, it may be minimizing cost and maximizing profit.
Management entails creating an internal environment and puts into use different factors of production. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the management team to create such conditions that are conducive to maximize people’s efforts to attain goals effectively and efficiently. This includes determining salaries and wages, ensuring that raw materials are available, and coming up with rules and regulations.
Good management includes being both efficient and effective. Being effective is doing the appropriate task such as painting a room while being efficient is doing the task with minimum wastage of resources and ensuring that the task has been done correctly.
Management has three main roles in the achievement of objectives in an organization:
Interpersonal Roles
Just like the name suggests, interpersonal roles involve people in an organization and other ceremonial duties. Leaders are responsible for training, staffing, and other associated duties. Liaison is responsible for maintaining communication between informers and contacts that compose an organizational network. The figurehead is typically the symbolic head of the organization.
Informational Roles
These are roles related to receiving, collecting and disseminating of information. It involves monitoring which is seeking and receiving information to be able to understand the organization. The disseminator is responsible for transmitting all the important information received from outside stakeholders to other members of the organization while the spokesperson gets information from the managers and transmits the information to outside stakeholders. Examples of this information include policies, plans and more.
Decisional Roles
These are the roles that revolve around making choices in an organization. In most cases, the people who play decisional roles are the negotiator, the entrepreneur, the resource allocator and the disturbance handler.
The entrepreneur looks for opportunities, searches for change, respond to the change and exploit it. The resource allocator makes and approves all important decisions related to resource allocations. The negotiator represents the organization when it comes to major negotiations. The disturbance handler has the task of taking corrective action when the organization faces any form of disturbances.
The Major Functions of Management
Every business has managers. They do the same type of work in different businesses. Whether you manage a factory or a hair salon, the job of the manager consists of the same tasks. Organizing, planning, controlling and leading serve an important part in achieving the vision of management. All the components of management are important and you need all of them to function together to achieve goals.
Planning
This is the first component of management. Managers should determine what the goals of the organization are and how they can achieve the goals. Most of this information can be found from the mission and vision of the company. Setting up the goals and following up on the execution of the business plan are important components of the planning function. A manager in a local bar will need to have a hiring plan, a marketing plan and a sales plan to achieve organizational goals.
Organizing
Organizing is another important responsibility for managers and this includes organizing resources and people. Managers should know how many employees are needed for particular shifts to accomplish the objectives of a company. If the company doesn’t have the necessary resources to tackle their jobs, the organization will fail. Employees will see a manager be unprepared without an organized workplace and this will make them lose respect for the managers and their management techniques.
Leading
Leading and managing are entirely different. Managers manage workers, and they ensure that the tasks are done and completed on time. They ensure that the policies are followed. The staff will follow managers because they are the supervisors in charge of the employees. Employees will see a leader as someone who motivates them. The manager works as a leader in an ideal situation. Managers who want to effectively lead need to discover what motives their employees.
Controlling
This is a function of management and involves monitoring the performance of the firm to ensure that goals are being achieved. Managers should pay close attention to the costs in relation to the performance of the organization. If the company has a goal of increasing sales over the next two months, managers may check the progress of achieving the goal at the end of one month and share the information with the employees. This will build trust and an involvement feeling for the employees.
Managers have a lot of different tasks to accomplish. They need to plan, organize, lead and control. Managers act as a balancing act of different components and good managers are able to keep the balance and motivate employees.
Organizations have different levels of management. We have the top-level managers, the middle-level managers, and the low-level managers. Managers at different levels have different functions. Top-level managers consist of the managing director, the chief executive, and the directors. The middle-level managers consist of departmental and branch managers. The low-level managers are operation managers and supervisors.
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