Management FunctionsManagement FunctionsManagement is defined as the process of getting things done, effectively and efficiently, through and with other people to achieve specific goals and purposes. Henri Fayol, a French geologist and engineer who was one of the proponents of the Administrative Theory believed that management, regardless of the specialized area, was comprised of fourteen universal principles. These are Division of Labour or Work, Authority, Discipline, Unity of Command, Unity of Direction, Subordination of the individual interest to the general interest, Remuneration, Centralization, Scalar chain or Line of Authority, Order, Equity, Stability of tenure to personnel, Initiative and Esprit de Corps.
The functions of management describe the managers jobs. The four main functions of management are planning, organising, leading, and controlling, although some identify additional functions. The functions of management define the process of management as distinct from accounting, finance, marketing, and other business functions.
Planning is the core function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving these objectives. Planning is a process consisting of several steps. The process begins with environmental scanning, which simply means that planners must be aware of the critical contingencies facing their organization in terms of economic conditions, their competitors, and their customers.
They are three types of planning: strategic, tactical and operational. Planners must establish objectives, which are statements of what needs to be achieved and when, then identify alternative courses of action for achieving objectives. After evaluating the various alternatives, they must then make decisions about the best courses of action for achieving objectives.
Organising is the function of management that involves developing an organisational structure and allocating human resources to ensure the accomplishment of objectives. It determines what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
Leading involves influencing others toward the attainment of organisational objectives. Effective leading requires the manager to motivate subordinates, communicate effectively, and efficiently use power. If managers are effective leaders, their subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort toward the attainment of organizational objectives. To become effective at leading, managers must first understand their subordinates personalities, values, attitudes, and emotions.
The final management function is controlling. Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards. Controlling consists of three steps, which include establishing performance standards, comparing actual performance against standards, and taking corrective action when necessary. The managerial function of controlling should not be confused with control in the behavioral or manipulative sense. Effective controlling requires the existence of plans, since planning provides the necessary performance standards or objectives.
Henry Fayol first proposed five functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling, that managers perform, and while they continue to form the core of management functions, they have now been condensed to four functions as defined above. These functions are so termed as they represent the basic functions that management perform in an effort to achieve the defined purpose of the organization. They are called mission functions because they are the tasks of the manager. They highlight the job the manager needs to. They help to carry out the mission of the organization. These are the steps needed to achieve goals.
Each function has its own distinct and significant purpose. Although each has its separate contribution to the management process, one must admit that one function contributes to the other. The mission functions are also referred to as the core functions. Planning, organising, leading and controlling are a manager’s main guideline needed to accomplish the organisation’s goal.
The planning function is the foundation of the management process. Before any operations are put into place, before workers can be delegated, before goals can be accomplished, a plan needs to be established. When plans are created managers can easily detect what is to be organised, they know who is to be led and what controls are necessary to ensure goals are met. For example, a shoe making company received an order for ten special shoes. A plan needs to be put in place to ensure that the workers with the skill necessary are allocated to this order; what goes in first, the sole of the shoe or the laces; who does what and when should each area of the manufacturing process be completed. These are all linked
The Planning and Development Process
As a company, our company is more involved than any company in industrialising in Europe, at this stage, it is hard to understand what it will be like for everyone.
The organisation of a company means that all our workers, at least half of them have to have experience in a particular industry, and with that being said in our company we have to ensure every manager has different levels of experience. So in order to avoid a bad management environment at a factory we all need to work together to ensure our best management practices are followed as a whole, but if something goes wrong, that’s when we find ourselves in a bad situation. So this means that we need to think about other organisational roles.
There is always a risk of failure, but you can be sure that management is aware of the risks. We are very aware of everything that is going wrong in our organisation, and, in these positions, we must constantly be alert. That’s as it sounds and, as in the example above, we must be ready.
As for the management in these positions, we need to look for opportunities where we can get the people together and be able to do our job as effectively as possible. The very most important tasks being managed at these positions are making sure our people can deliver the goods and services that we need to make sure that a large majority of the people in these positions take the same kind of standard and we’re confident that the business organisation can manage the most important tasks as well.
Once we’ve got the people there and the people working, it would be possible to move to a new position and there are opportunities to move further down the line, and if we don’t go further down the line we’ve never really been successful.
How can we get into a better position in the organisation of an organisation for us to move to at this stage?
One of the most important roles we have to find is to manage the workers well, in a good way. Otherwise it will not be possible to run an organisation that gets the workers very well paid and gets very good facilities within the organisation.
Now we have to work on how we can get the most workers in this group into this right position. We will be looking at the different ways we can better manage the workers and our workers can have their workplaces and their workplaces will have their workers in different roles.
So, in order to become a more successful and competitive organisation, you need to work very well with the employees as well as the bosses. The biggest thing we can do now, is take the management of industrialising in Europe and implement our management changes and make them sustainable to our future needs.
About the Author John is a founder member of the European Leadership Association (