Every organization needs a leader. But these days, businesses have expanded so widely that just one leader is no more enough. In fact, in most cases, almost every department needs a head and this is where managers come in handy. With arrival of business degrees and increased demand of employers, managers are now required to be more skilled than ever. In fact, academically, a manager is defined as someone who can use creative methods to bring solutions to the table for his business, workplace and employees. But overall, they perform the following five functions:
1. Planning: This is a constant function. Every organization has missions and objectives. The manager has to plan on how to put them to work to bring in prosperity. He has to focus on both short and long term goals. He must also translate the plans into action. The main intention here is to solve problems. It has its own steps as given here.
2. Organizing: This function makes the manager's position bolder. In other words, it gives him the right to arrange task forces. He must also tell them how they are to cooperate with one another and the way their communication must flow within the organization. Organizing must focus on the following:
- Specialization: dividing tasks so they can be managed easily and then assigning them to each individual by focusing on their skills.
- Departmentalization: this is about dividing tasks and employees according to the needs of the workplace or its consumers.
- Span of management: this has to do with effectively managing optimal number of employees.
- Authority relationship: this asks for arranging employees’ autonomy to take decision, creating assignments, directing, etc.
- Responsibility: performing specific duties for the organization
- Unity of command: a person should be available for each employee for reporting on specific activities.
- Line and staff: defining whether a person can be put in charge to direct or provide his input in the form of advice.
3. Staffing: Organizations need workers and yes, its the manager who must take up the major role in this. The function of staffing includes filling up job positions, helping current employees develop their skills by arranging training classes for them, performance evaluation and so on. All of them should be focused on accomplishing the plans of the management.
4. Directing: As stated earlier, manager is a leader. So directing means making sure that the employees are working in a way that it fulfills the plans designed by the manager. Within it the job may include motivating them as well as solve their job related problems. He must give them guidelines so that trust and quality can be maintained within the organization.
5. Controlling: This is a daunting function, but manager is required to fulfill it. Controlling consists of three steps. First of all, the manager must have a set of standard of measurement. This should help him detect issues in the workflow. This is done by measuring real performance against the set standard. Any weaknesses he comes up with must be corrected.
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