- Organisation – Dividing work especially large projects into smaller tasks, which are then delegated to others. This is vital in large firms where departments have to work towards large tasks which too many can seem impossible. Delegation is crucial in making people feel they have an active role in the firm.
- Co-ordination – The ability to bring various parts of the organisation together. Departmental co-operation in large firms can be difficult and so it is the job of a manager to fulfil the task of breeding an atmosphere of cross-departmental support.
- Planning – Setting clear objectives, this is for both for the manager and his staff. Objectives have to be realistic, specific, measurable and challenging.
- Directing – Giving instructions to others and making decisions. It is vital that all instructions given are communicated well and that decisions are made due to knowledge and not through a “feeling”.
- Budgeting – Making decisions based on forecasts made for the next year, in small firms the managers themselves may have to do the budget.
These 6 areas are the functions of management, however it is just as key in management to know the right way of carrying out these functions. There are a number of management “styles” which can be adopted by managers, these methods can also be referred to as leadership “styles” and describe the different types of leader one can find.
These three styles of leadership and management have positive and negative attributes, for a manager or a leader to adopt one of these styles for every situation would be reckless. It is one of the key aspects of leadership and management to be able to adapt to the situation and find a way of empathising with those whom they work with. People skills and an ability to motivate those under your control is a key sign of a good manager and leader. Leadership itself is a quality which is not found in all managers, leadership is a quality which can make people excel over their peers examples of great leaders in business are Rupert Murdock the man who pioneered Sky television, Richard Branson the entrepreneur behind the Virgin brand and Bill Gates the genius behind Microsoft, historical examples are Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill and Michael Collins. All these people had the qualities, which made them rise above the rest and take the masses with them through their leadership qualities.
Leadership, in business, is something that produces innovation, entrepreneurialism and ambition, without good managers and leaders then we would not have the modern advances we have today.
The key aspects of both management and leadership are very similar; they both rely on a sense of being able to utilise all available resources be they people, technology etc. to influence and drive the organisation and its people towards achieving its goals, it is the leaders who instigate the goals and the managers who marshal those goals to try and get the organisation and its people to reach their maximum potential.
