What is Management?
Any business or task requires monitoring or controlling of affairs that are performed by a set of people. The people administering or supervising the affairs of any organization is called Management. The structure, size, and nature of the organization or business may vary in each aspect but the functions and characteristics remain the same. The prime objective of management is building and preserving the business environment within an organization to achieve its business objectives efficiently.
The very first rule of management is delegating people. Nothing can be accomplished on its own. So, assembling a set of people and getting them together to accomplish their business goals and objectives effectively is the right way of managing things. The organizations are viewed as systems and management is defined as the human actions which impel certain activities depending upon their roles to facilitate the useful outcomes from a system. The governing bodies within an organization have the responsibility to manage overall functions within a defined structure. Management is a continuous effort of ensuring the improvement of all processes and systems of an organization. In simple words, it’s about integrating the 5Ms for achieving the desired results. The 5Ms refer to the optimization of different terms involved together such as men, material, machine, money, and methods.
Functions of Management
The learning and understanding of this concept lead to knowing its functions. So what could be the possible functions of the management? What is the purpose of forming management? How do they operate and run any business?
To accomplish a business goal, the management formulates a set of responsibilities. The whole process includes planning, organizing, hiring, leading, and controlling the business affairs by recruiting different entities or manpower to perform different roles as per their expertise or skillset. Let’s take a look at how it works at each level.
Planning
The first and foremost core function of the management is defining goals for the company’s future direction and determining the resources required for it. It forms a layout for several departments within any organization. Strategic business planning within an organization works towards defining their business goals, prioritizing the business objectives, developing strategic planning around it, and executing it in the most possible way to get desired outcomes. The review or feedback further keeps on improving and achieving the most of it. Planning and scheduling for achieving targets is the first line of action for the initial phase of any business.
Organizing
The second step is organizing the setup. The line of action for this phase is designing, structuring, assignment, and coordination of the tasks. Once the layout plan is ready, it leads to organizing the activities and resources to achieve the business goals. The identification and division of work by forming different departments and assigning work based on different skill sets is what comes under organizing the entire process. A proper hierarchical structure is defined to the subordinates to manage a clear reporting relationship who owns or supervises the resources within a specific department.
Staffing
Staffing is the hiring process of employees within an organization. The entire process involves ensuring that the right prospect is hired for the job. The work criteria and the skillset match is the important task of this phase. The right assessment and evaluation of the talent hired for a specific job lead to a good contribution for the team. The human resource department in the organization ensures the recruitment, hiring, orientation, training, and development of the people working in a system. A different set of activities and tasks are performed internally within the departments for improved productivity, better knowledge, and the learning process of the employees.
Directing
It’s a key managerial function performed individually at the manager’s level. Directing the resources includes instructing, counseling, and guiding people within a team to achieve the business goals. The only rule of direction is leading and motivating people for their better performance. Ensuring the right coordination and improving efficiency while facilitating change within a team and overseeing the performance leads to the accomplishment of business objectives.
Controlling
Controlling involves several activities to be taken into consideration to ensure the performance of employees. This helps the managers to evaluate the effectiveness of their planning and leading activities within a team. There are different departments in an organization that contribute to working towards making the business a great success. For instance, various departments including Human Resource, Finance, and Accounts, IT and Support, etc. perform different roles within a structured hierarchy which is driven towards a common goal.
Characteristics of Management
The primary goal of the management is to convey effective leadership examples not just by commanding the set of instructions in official business meetings but by showing them in their behaviors and acting as a role model to their subordinates. Here is a list of characteristics that make it a success at different levels.
Management is a result-driven process
This is the core characteristic of management–driving a focused and goal-oriented process to ensure that the individual efforts are in sync with the business goals of an enterprise. The organizations formulate a list of goals that are communicated and shared with the executives at different levels of hierarchy to meet their annual performance in a targeted way.
Management is a multidimensional activity
The first dimension of this activity is work management, the second is people management and the third is operations management. Every organization exists for some tasks and management works towards achieving these tasks. Managing the work requires rigorous planning, staffing, organizing, budgeting, and execution of certain activities which is called work management. Second, managing the internal teams, decision-making, problem-solving things require dealing with people in an organization. Creation of small or large teams as per the tasks and managing their conflicts or grievances while ensuring a harmonious relationship with each other is an integral part of personnel management. And similarly managing the operations of any product/service in an organization is called operations management. The interesting aspect of the third dimension is that it is linked to both people and work.
Management is the group of influential decision-makers
The management is a group of highly skilled resources at each level who is intended to take strong decisions which leaves a great impact on the people within the entire work process. The hierarchy is structured in a way that facilitates a combined effort towards the accomplishment of a business goal.
Management is the face of a company/enterprise
From top to low level, each resource in management contributes towards the growth and success of a business venture. So each resource represents the company that needs to be nourished effectively and equally.
Management is a group effort
Management is a group activity based on certain rules and policies. Various authorities and disciplines are involved within the entire process which contributes towards the knowledge gain and maintaining a healthy work culture in an enterprise.
Purpose of the Management
With so many formal, informal and semi-formal perspectives and views, the management is a constantly evolving stream. Without management, no business can run successfully, so it serves a great purpose in any organization. Let’s take a look at how important it is in a company.
- To streamline the functions and keep the business running it is required to have management and human resources in place. Management plays an important role in integrating the organizational goals along with the individual efforts of the resources and making it a business success.
- The managers focus on improving productivity with the minimum wastage of resources. Through effective planning, controlling and staffing solutions the managers aim to get maximum productivity. To ensure that all the business activities are conducted ethically, the processes are closely monitored and tracked. The business activities are regulated in a way that ensures a good practice, sound judgment and high performance of the employees to sustain in this competitive world.
- Efficient managers make it easy for the employees to adapt to any environmental change. They motivate their resources to a level that it’s beneficial for their personal growth as well. The management has this convincing capability that a certain change impelled within the organization isn’t only going to serve the business purpose but will have a great effect on the personal growth of a resource.
Levels of Management
The levels of management in a company suggest the division line of authorities that exists within different managerial positions. The managerial layers and levels depend upon the size of the company and the workforces involved in it. The level of management is directly proportional to the size of the company. The chain of command differs based on the authorities involved and the decision-making is followed in a particular fashion within an organization. Generally, the companies have three levels of management that they maintain and follow.
Top-level management
The first category is administrative, general, or top-level management. This level includes the Board of Directors, Chief Executives, or Managing Director of a company. The management at this level oversees the business goals, policies, and procedures of any organization. This level is considered a source of strategic planning, organizing, and execution of all business activities, etc. This is the highest level of hierarchy in a company that looks into the business policies and their effective execution etc.
The roles and responsibilities of this level of management are focused on the following:
- Formulating the business objectives for the organization
- Circulating the important instructions for the departments and announcing the specific budgets and procedures to ensure its successful implementation
- Offering their skills to strategically plan the policies to achieve the business targets
- Managing the appointments of several executives for middle-level management and holding control over various departments by their strong decision-making practices
- Managing a business communication with the potential clients on the behalf of the company and holding accountability towards the organization’s shareholders for the performance
- Leading, guiding, and offering overall direction to the different departments and subordinates, ensuring harmony and collaboration through motivating work cultures
Mid-level Management
In this category of mid-level management, the managers of a branch or a department run the show. These managers are directly accountable to the top-level management and report about all the important decisions and activities to them. They are responsible for the smooth functioning of their respective departments. For small size enterprises, there is the only layer of management that handles the entire strategies and execution of the policies and procedures.
Their roles and responsibilities can be summarized as follows:
- Ensuring the execution of the policies and business planning of the organization as communicated by the top-level management
- Documenting the plans for the sub-units of the enterprises under their supervision
- Initiating the recruitment plans and actively participating in the hiring, orientation, and training processes of lower-level management
- Implementing the policies through the low-level management in a satisfactory way and resolving their queries attached to it
- Sharing employees’ performance and business reports to the top managers in a timely manner
- Encouraging lower-level managers for better performance and appreciating their work
Operative or Lower Level Management
In this category of operational or lower-level management, the supervisors, superintendents, Team Leaders, and other executives work. They ensure the execution and coordination of the daily routine activities. A smooth workflow and completion of projects, meeting deliverables on time, etc. is the core responsibility of this level of management.
Here are the responsibilities handled by this group of management:
- Allocating the daily tasks and activities to other executives who directly report them
- Training and guiding them in their day-to-day activities to ensure the completion of tasks assigned to them
- Ensuring the quality of work and maintaining harmonious relations with the low-level management
- Working as a mediator between the mid and low-level managers and resolving their problems, offering suggestions, etc.
- Taking the concerns of the executives to the higher level of management
- Addressing the grievances of workers and keeping a solution-oriented approach to resolve their problems
- Mentoring the subordinates and conducting their hiring processes, managing the orientation& training related processes for them
- Documenting the performance reports and sharing them with the reporting managers
To sum up, Management is a systematic authority, a specialized group of people that works on certain rules, principles, and techniques in large or small size enterprises to achieve a specific, planned target or a business goal. The integration of services and processes are managed in a way that synchronizes the efforts of each group and department of the organization which effectively contributes to its success.
