4 Fuctions of Management

The Four Functions of Management

A look at contemporary management requires a look into the four functions of management. These are basic building blocks of sound management practices and are present in all successful corporations today. The four functions are; planning, organization, leading, and control. The first of these, planning, is appropriately placed in the terms of importance also.

Planning is the most important part of a corporation’s stature. Any corporation that wants to survive and meet all of its targeted goals knows planning is the first and foremost step in that journey. To lay out the intended track and desired goal is a guarantee to realize what actions must be taken and what structure is needed. In light of this knowledge the corporation will know what senior executive staff to tailor into position and how to attract or develop from within its junior executive managers. This falls into the region of organization and will be discussed further into the paper.

In returning to the realm of planning let’s delve into the details and background for a companies existence. The planning stage is a point for the company to recognize opportunities and challenges from internal and external sources and plan for all known possible contingencies. An obvious point is sometimes not so obvious nor dealt with in the planning stage. This is the area of knowing what niche of the market the company intends to target. Successful corporations know exactly what market they are intending to reach. They lay out strategies to get their product or service to their market mass in the most impact full presentation possible.

The next stage is organization. As stated earlier; the executive staff is part of the organizational phase and deserves a considerable amount of focus to ensure the intended and planned goals of the corporation are propagated through its management staffing. Most fortune 500 companies now pay particular attention to it’s senior level and manager level staffing through company sponsored training and routine developmental feedback. Though not new to the business world; the form of executive training in present day is greatly advanced in concept and allotted time. At the corporation I am employed; the managerial staff is required to commit to paper and task list their individual developmental goals for a period of 90 days and status with their department head monthly and the General Manager biannually on the progression and feedback of the goals. We are also interviewed by the senior staff annually and provided with direct feedback to what a snapshot in time reveals of a persons upward mobility prospect. This is used as a formulative guide to what this corporation’s senior management model is and what components of the individual needs attention to fit that model.

This type of molding can be an understandable point for debate. However this paper is simply in the context of how management functions at my present employer and not the ethics of this action or diversity of personality and new ideas an individual offers to the growth aspect of a company. This is a great transitional point into the next topic of Leading.

Leading is a phase were all types of managerial styles are introduced from the individual level and many are just as solid and result delivering as their counterparts. It is the basic follow through that carries a manager into a leadership role. Follow through in human relations as well as projects and actions promised delivers the impression of a leader people will trust and enjoy doing what they can for them. An effective manager is the person that can bring out the best in a person and ask them to not only put out their best effort but also analyze the process they deal with day in and out for potential improvement.

I tend to show a genuine side of personal caring to my team and often status with them individually to discuss their personal development goals, and when asked, offer guidance in their educational track towards the goals they have already expressed as their ambition. Another factor I employ is empowerment. I choose not to micro-manage my team. In place I am inclined to guide them through unclear areas of their tasks and offer support in removing hurdles or supplying technical experts to assist them in their daily tasks and challenges. I nurture autonomy in my team also by giving them the responsibility for tasks completion and empowerment to speak with the executives of other departments in a one on one setting to convey task needs and win mutual agreements. This