FUNCTIONS OF A MANAGER

Functions of a manager

Managers perform variety of duties and tasks,ranging from planning,to organizing,staffing,leading,controlling,representing and communicating and so on.Now lets analyze the various classifications of the functions of managers.Please keep in mind that the classification is not airtight and there are interlocking and even overlapping elements.

•  Planning: planning involves selecting objectives and the strategies,policies,programs and procedures for achieving them either for the enterprise as a whole or for a division or any organized part of the enterprise. In planning, decision making is involved and it is assumed that the best strategies,policies,procedures are chosen among best alternative course of action. Planning ranges from setting corporate level strategies,business units strategies,to choosing the best accounting policies in depreciation,end of the year date and so on and also choosing the best policies relating to prices competition authority. Programs also are chosen from among alternatives. For example the company may decide the best programs fro internal control,production,management succession and so on.and lastly procedures requiring a specific method of handling paper,products and people.

 Planning is a pervasive function. In any organization,managers at every level engage in planning.The need for planning as the responsibility of managers depends on the type and size of the organization as well as the management level. As earlier dis used,there are corporate level plans,business level plans and also functional or departmental plans. Corporate level plans are plans aimed to provide direction for diversified organizations.Business level plans aim at managing the interest and operations of a particular line of business,while functional level plans create a framework for managers in each functional area to carry out decisions of the business and corporate level planning.

• Organzing: Planning is regarded as a blue print for business actions and decisions while organizing provides the framework for carrying out business actions and decisions. Organizing according to koontz 1980 "involves the establishment of an intentional structure of roles through determination of the activities required to achieve the goals of an enterprise and each part of it,the grouping of these activities,the assignment of such groups of activities to a manager,the delegation of authority to carry them out,and provision for coordination of authority and informational relationships horizontally and vertically in the organization structure". The above definition and lists of activities constitutes the organizing function. So it is assumed that in the case of a one man business that the organization is not organized since he performs most of the duties himself and he has no one to delegate to. But on the occurrence of delegating authority to subordinates and providing coordination between the buyer and himself,then the organizing function would be fulfilled.

It should be noted that the organization structure is not an end I itself but a tool for accomplishing enterprise objectives.

• Staffing: Staffing involves the process of sourcing for the best personnel to fill and keep filled the positions provided for by the organizational structure. It therefore involves the inventorying,appraising,selecting candidates for positions;compensating and training or otherwise developing both candidates for positions; compensating and training position holders to perform their tasks effectively.

• Leading: leadership refers to the process of influencing people In a planned direction by inspiring,motivating and directing their activities to help in the attainment of group or organizational goals through non-compulsive means. Features of effective leadership includes;

1) it is both a role and influencing process.

2) it creates a vision of the future

3) it develops a rational strategy for moving towards that vision.

4) It highly motivates the core group of people.Managing people can be troublesome task,because the willingness and effort each person brings to the table may vary largely,so all managers would agree that their most important problems arise from people,their desires,attitude,their behaviour as individuals and also in groups,so there is a need for effective managers to also be effective leaders.

• Controlling: Controlling is the measuring and correcting of activities of subordinates to assure that events conform to plans.So control measures performance against a benchmark or some preset goals and plans,then it shows where negative deviations exist and then puts in motion actions to correct deviations and help assure accomplishment of plans. Control and planning are closely related, planning provides for the establishment of organizational objectives and the means of attaining the objectives,while control measures the progress towards achieving these goals and enables the manager to detect deviations from the plan and take timely and corrective actions.

Although planning must precede controlling,plans are not self-achieving.The plans guide managers in the use of resources to accomplish specific goals,then activities are monitored to determine whether they conform to planned actions.

Types of control include:

Pre-action control: it is also called pre controls.It ensures that there is a correlation between the plans and availabilty of resources before embarking on any action.

Feed-forward control:They can also be called steering control or feed forward controls. Their main aim is to detect and correct deviations from standards before a particular sequence of action is completed.

Screening control: Also known as yes or no control. Screening control as the name implies checks for aspects of a procedure that essentially needed to be approved before the operation is continued.

Feedback control: It is a post action control,it gives a feedback on the conforming of actual activities to preset goals and objectives,and reassures the results of a completed action and identifies the causes of deviation from the planned activities and applies findings to similar future actions.

Concurrent control: Also known as the real time control,this type of control is imbibed in the course of organizational activity.

• Coordination: Coordination is the process of synergizing the objectives and efforts of the separate units of an organization, in order to achieve the predetermined goals effectively and efficiently.Coordination has been perceived differently by management scholars,some consider it to be a separate function of the manager. It seems more accurate,however to regard it as the essence of managership,for the achievement of harmony of individual efforts towards the accomplishment of group goals.

The need for coordination can be attributed to specialization, interdependence of tasks and human differences.

Task specialization: Specialization involves dividing tasks into specialized function or departments to save time and increase productivity.Coordination is important in task specialization in order to harmonize the various activities of each specialized department for the smooth running of the business.

In large organizations,the problems of coordination tend to be more than in small firms. This is because as organizations grow,the complexity of activities involved increases and specialists would have to be hired,and also there might be increase in the delegation of activities.

Task dependency: interdependence of work may occur in three ways which are:

a) pooled interdependence: here,activities are not directly dependent on each other but the failure of one activity may threaten the entire operation of the company.

b) Sequential Interdependence: This is a system where output of one unit are inputs for the following work unit.

c) Reciprocal interdependence: it refers to activities that are interdependent and interrelated.

Human differences: Human capital are regarded as the greatest assets of a business,this is because with all the assets in the world,be it materials,money and technology with no competent staff to operate or utilize them,would be rendered useless. Since human beings are from different settings,perceptions,attitudes and values of people will therefore vary and create a coordination problem which must be properly addressed by the organization.