manager is a person who plans, organizes, directs, and controls the allocation of human, material, financial, and information resources in pursuit of the organization’s goals. The many different types of managers include department managers, product managers, account managers, plant managers, division managers, district managers, and task force managers. What they all have in common is responsibility for the efforts of a group of people who share a goal and access to resources that the group can use in pursuing its goal.
An important responsibility of managers such as Laing is to ensure that their groups understand their goals and how achieving their goals is related to the success of their organizations. Saatchi ; Saatchi’s primary goal is to “make clients’ brands famous. ” While achieving that goal, the company also has the goal of making its own name famous. It achieves these goals by producing excellent advertising for its current clients and by attracting new accounts (Brodin, 1997).
The purpose of this essay is to talk about what the managers do, and how important is managerial leadership for the running effective organizations. Now let us consider systematically what managers do – the functions they perform and the specific tasks included in these functions. The successful managers capably performs four basic managerial functions: planning, organization, leading, and controlling. After managers have prepared plans, they must translate those relatively abstract ideas into reality.
Organizing is the process of creating a structure of relationships that will enable employees to carry out management’s plans and meet organizational goals. By organizing effectively, managers can better coordinate human, material, and information resources. An organization’s success depends largely on management’s ability to utilize those resources efficiently and effectively. After management has made plans, created a structure, and hired the right personnel, someone must lead the organization.
Leading involves communicating with and motivating others to perform the tasks necessary to achieve the organization’s goals. Leading is not done only after planning and organizing end; it is a crucial element of those functions. The process by which a person, group, or organization consciously monitors performance and takes corrective action is controlling. Just as a thermostat sends signals to a heating system that the room temperature is too high or too low, so a management control system sends to signals to managers that things are not working out as planned and that corrective action is needed.
Also, we looked at some of the different theories of management and grouped them into four quadrants based on whether the individuals espousing these theories were more internally or externally oriented, more focused on control or flexibility. We will continue to use this framework to consider the roles of the manager. Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.
Nothing better prepares the ground for such leadership than a spirit of management that confirms in the day-to-day practices of the organization strict principles of conduct and responsibility, high standards of performance, and respect for the individual and his work. For to leadership, too, the words of the savings bank advertisement apply: “Wishing won’t make it so; doing will. ” (Drucker, 1955). Leadership can be thought of us the process of influencing others to direct their efforts toward the pursuit of specific goals.
In the context of organizational behavior, leadership is mainly concerned with managerial style. We can learn a lot of experience from successful leadership. First, trust must be established. Giving employees more freedom to act autonomously and make decision is a necessary first step. Second, leaders must clarify the direction in which people should be headed. Clear, consistent communication helps people feel confident that they can make the right decisions. Third, effective leaders encourage others to take risks. A project’s failure should not derail a person’s career.
