Management Skills

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Summary of Key Points

MANAGING AND THE MANAGER’S JOB

Management is a set of activities (including planning and decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling) directed at an organization’s resources (human, financial, physical, and information) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. A manager is someone whose primary responsibility is to carry out the management process within an organization.

The basic activities that comprise the management process are planning and decision making (determining courses of action), organizing (coordinating activities and resources), leading (motivating and managing people), and controlling (monitoring and evaluating activities). These activities are not performed on a systematic and predictable schedule.

Managers can be differentiated by level and by area. By level, we can identify top, middle, and first-line managers. Kinds of managers by area include marketing, financial, operations, human resource, administrative, and specialized managers.

Managers have ten basic roles to play: three interpersonal roles (figurehead, leader, and liaison), three informational roles (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson), and four decisional roles (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator). Effective managers also tend to have technical, interpersonal, conceptual, diagnostic, communication, decision-making, and time-management skills. The manager’s job is characterized by varied, unpredictable, no routine and fragmented work, often performed at a relentless pace. Managers also receive a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

The effective practice of management requires a synthesis of science and art; that is, a blend of rational objectivity and intuitive insight. Most managers attain their skills and positions through a combination of education and experience.

Management processes are applicable in a wide variety of settings,...