Effective Management: Functions, Skills, and Leadership
Management
Important factors that caused change: global competition and the introduction of new information technology.
Management is the achievement of organizational objectives through adequate and effective planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources.
This definition contains two important ideas:
- integrates the four functions of management: planning, organizing, directing and controlling
- requires the achievement of organizational goals adequately and efficiently.
Management Functions
A manager’s job performance includes four basic functions: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.
Planning involves:
- formulating the objectives pursued by the organization
- determining courses of action needed to achieve them
- identifying and deciding how to allocate organizational resources to achieve those goals.
Control is the assessment of organizational performance and taking corrective action.
The control process includes several activities:
- establish performance standards
- measuring current performance in relation to those standards
- implement actions to correct any deviations
- reset the standards, if necessary
Direction
Management Levels
Larger organizations are often grouped into three categories:
- Senior management
- Middle management
- First-line management
Technical Manager Functions:
- take corporate goals and objectives broken down into business units
- link independent plans from the units under their responsibility for senior management review
- serve as internal communication links, through interpretation and transmission of senior management priorities and channeling/translating information from lower levels upwards
Management Roles
Three conceptual categories: informational, interpersonal, and decisional.
Information Roles
Includes three components: monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson.
Monitor: seeks current information from multiple sources, usually other managers and the analysis of written materials, to stay informed.
Disseminator: transmits current information to members of the organization for their use.
Spokesperson: transmits information to superiors and external parties on the functioning and evolution of the company.
Interpersonal Roles
They belong to the field of interaction and are figurehead, leader, and liaison.
Figurehead: complies with routine duties of a legal or social nature.
Leader: covers the relationship with subordinates to motivate, inform, influence them, and create teams.
Liaison: refers to creating information sources within and outside the company.
Decisional Roles
Refers to cases where a decision can be taken and intervened.
Entrepreneur: the manager looks for opportunities to initiate change.
Disturbance Handler: resolves conflicts among subordinates or between departments and manages unforeseen anomalies of major importance.
Resource Allocator: includes decisions about allocating staff time, equipment, budget, and other resources to obtain desired results.
Negotiator: represents the organization in all important negotiations.
Tasks of Executive Work
Managerial Skills
List of Managerial Skills: Conceptual, human, and technical.
Conceptual: have the following characteristics:
- see the organization as a whole, formed by interdependent parts
- analyze and diagnose a situation, distinguishing between causes and effects
Human: refers to the ability to collaborate with others effectively in a team.
Technical: are the knowledge and skills needed to perform a specific activity within the organization.
Skills
Leadership
Different Sources of Power: reward, coercive, expert, legitimate, and referent.
Reward: if subordinates see them as able to provide something that meets their needs or desires. Two conditions: A) the size of the reward B) belief that it will be granted.
Coercive: the manager’s ability to impose sanctions when the employee stops cooperating.
Expert: based on the manager’s technical knowledge or skills.
Referent: or charismatic power comes from personal characteristics of individuals who deserve the appreciation of others.
Legitimate: based on the manager’s position within the organization.
A leader defines a series of special qualities:
- creates a vision that sets the way forward
- persuades rather than commands, to generate credibility and commitment by the organization
- is a team player
- values positive risk-taking
- is always predisposed to learn
- motivates employees and rewards good performance
Motivation
The set of psychological processes that induce the emergence, continuity, and persistence of voluntary decisions aimed at certain targets, which managers must understand to lead their subordinates.