5 Key Steps of Management

There is a great range of things you have to take into consideration if you are a Manager. This article attempts to simplify these into 5 main steps that may help you in your Business.





The Five Keys for Management

• Communication

• Cooperation

• Motivation

• Leadership

• Delegation



Communication



There is a current tendency to give up on communications. For instance, in psychology the fashion is sensitivity training, where the avowed aim is not communication, but "self-awareness". The focus is on "I" and not on "Thou". Two decades ago the rhetoric stressed "empathy", now it stresses "doing one’s thing". However strong the requirement for self-knowledge is, we need communication at least as much that is presuming that self-knowledge is possible at all without communication. In spite of the sorry state of communications in theory and practise, we have learned a great deal regarding communication and information. Most of this knowledge has, however, not been the result of the work on communications. It has rather been a by-product of work in many seemingly unrelated fields, from learning theory to genetics and electronic engineering.



Coordination



We define coordination as the process of achieving orderly cooperative group effort and unity of action in pursuit of common purpose. We clearly link coordination to the functions of organising, planning and control. It is becoming increasingly important as a subject of study because of the growing complexity of modern organisations and the great number of people they employ. It arises especially out of the need to integrate the contributions of specialists into the work of traditional functions.



Mary Parker Follett was one of the first researchers to study the problems of coordination in organisations. Among her principles she stated the following: Coordination should be present in the early stages of planning. Results cannot be coordinated. Ironing out divergent points of view at the outset is important.



Motivation



We motivate all human behaviour. The idea of motivation is psychological and refers to the manner in which the needs and drives of an individual direct control or explain his or her behaviour. In management position, motivating refers to the process by which the leader induces people to act desirably towards the attainment of

organisational goals or objectives. The manager can only succeed in motivating if he creates the climate within the organisation that enables individuals to satisfy their personal needs through the performance of organisational tasks.



Leadership



There have been many definitions of leadership. Tannenbaum defines it as "interpersonal influence exercised in situations and directed through the communication process towards the attainment of goals". Alternatively, Zaleznik and Moment define leadership as An interaction in which the conscious intentions of one person are communicated in his behaviour, verbal and otherwise, with the consequence that the other person wants to, and does behave, according to the first person’s intentions.



Delegating



No one person in a large organisation can perform all the tasks and make all the decisions. Delegation is the process by which authority is vested in a subordinate by a superior. It is the mechanism that allows organisations to grow by allowing the routine decisions to be handled at the lowest competent level consistent with satisfactory performance. It is also the mechanism that allows specialist knowledge to be introduced to further the advancement of the organisation. Delegation is, therefore, one of the most vital organisational processes, enabling the executive to enlarge and extend his sphere of personal influence and effectiveness. The latter fact is important when it is considered that the executive may have line, staff and functional responsibility that have to be handled simultaneously.



The process of delegation has four basic steps:



1. Defining the tasks, activities and responsibilities which are to be delegated with the objectives and goals.

2. Selecting a competent delegate to carry the authority and shoulder the responsibility.

3. Specifying the organisational and informational relationships and the limits of authority.

4. Establishing controls to ensure that the authority is properly used.





This article has been put together by the distance learning organisation Start Learning who are experts in home study.



If you want to find out more about Management Theory or many other distance learning courses please browse their website: Start Learning



Kerrana McAvoy

Academic Director – Start Learning

Start Learning