Business Management Positions

As we think about people in management positions we tend to think they job is easy, laid back and they just tell people what to do all day while the employees put their hands to the grinding stone. This however is not the case. In addition to the big five we learn about in chapter two: 1) personality traits, 2) values, 3) attitudes, 4) moods, and 5) emotion, their role takes the form of interpersonal roles, information roles and decision maker roles.

To make sure the company is successful under their watch a manager must possess a combination of skills from the technical, conceptual and have a personal relationship with the cogs (employees/investors) of the company to ensure the forward movement towards success. Aside from their value system there are also the four functions of management: 1) planning, 2) organizing, 3) leading and 4) controlling. In order to understand these functions you first need to know that management is the process of working together with people along side resources to accomplish organizational goals (Bateman-Snell, 2006).

Although the face of business is changing from day to day the four tried and true principles always remain constant. Working in a field where I am constantly dealing with changes in employees, designs, outsourcing and constant contact with different companies across the country these for bases are the holding points that help me keep everything flowing forward.

Function 1. Planning – To perform the planning task, managers identify and select appropriate organizational goals and courses of action; they develop strategies for how to achieve high performance. The three steps involved in planning are (1) deciding which goals the organization will pursue, (2) deciding what strategies to adopt to attain those goals, and (3) deciding how to allocate organizational resources to pursue the strategies that attain those goals (McGraw-Hill,2011).

Without planning the other three functions would not be needed. Planning...