Mastering Management Functions: Essential Skills and Roles for Business Leaders

Management is defined as the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational objectives in a changing environment. The job of a contemporary manager can be conceptualized in many different ways. The most widely accepted approaches, however, are from the perspectives of basic managerial functions, common managerial roles, and fundamental managerial skills.

Managerial Functions 

The functions which describe managerial job, when put together, make up the management process. This process is analyzed into key functions of management viz., planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Planning, organizing and controlling which deal mostly with non-human aspects are known as mechanics of management, whereas staffing and direction which are primarily concerned with human aspects constitute dynamics of management. In the conceptual scheme, though the functions are listed out in a sequence, I practice they are interlocked as a system. As all functions are not equally important for all managers, time spent by them for each of these functions varies according to their levels in the organization. 

These functions have been discussed below:

1. Planning: Planning refers to anticipate the opportunity, problems and conditions and choosing from among the alternative future courses of action. The planning process generally includes the following activities.
• Forecasting is looking ahead to anticipate the opportunity, problems and conditions in a future period of time.
• Establishing objectives means setting the end results to be accomplished by directing organizational efforts.
• Programming is establishing sequence and priority of actions to be followed in the attainment of the objectives.
• Scheduling is deciding on time sequence for program steps.
• Budgeting is allocation of resources to minimize costs.
• Establishing procedures means developing and applying standardized methods of performing a specific work.
• Developing policies involve establishment and interpretation of standing decisions that apply to repetitive questions and problems of significance to be organization as a whole.
2. Organizing function: The organizing function of management is the process of defining and grouping of activities and creating authority relationship among them. It consists of
• Developing the organization structure which involves identification of task and grouping them into units or departments for performance.
• Delegating authority to the managers and making him responsible for group performance.
• Establishing relations creating conditions necessary for mutually cooperatives efforts of people in the organization.
3. Staffing: Planning the organization with suitable personnel constitutes the staffing function. It involves selection, training and development, compensation, and appraisal of subordinates by the manager. Manpower planning and manpower management looks after these activities and try to ensure suitable methods of remuneration and performance appraisal of the employees.
4. Directing Function: involves managing people and the work through the means of motivation, proper leadership, effective communication and coordination. A manager must develop ability to command. He should issue orders and instructions without arousing any resentment among the subordinates. He must be able to secure willing obedience from his subordinates without destroying their initiative and creativity. Moreover, it requires a sound communication system to enable exchange of ideas and information for common understanding.
5. Controlling Function: enables management to ensure that achievement is in accordance with the established plans it involves:
• Establishing performance standards for evaluating results.
• Performance on the basis of records and reports on the progress of work.
• Performance evaluation against the standards set.
• Corrective action to regulate operations, remove deficiencies and improve performance

Managerial Roles

As a manager, you probably fulfil many different roles every day. For instance, as well as leading your team, you might find yourself resolving a conflict, negotiating new contracts, representing your department at a board meeting, or approving a request for a new computer system. Put simply, you're constantly switching roles as tasks, situations, and expectations change. Management expert and professor, Henry Mintzberg, recognized this. He argued that there are ten primary roles or behaviours that can be used to categorize a manager's different functions are divided into three groups: interpersonal, informational, and decisional. According to Mintzberg (1973), managerial roles are as follows:

1. Informational roles: This involves the role of assimilating and disseminating information as and when required. Following are the main sub-roles, which managers often perform:
• Monitor - collecting information from organizations, both from inside and outside of the organization.
• Disseminator - communicating information to organizational members
• Spokesperson - representing the organization to outsiders
2. Decisional roles: It involves decision making. Again, this role can be subdivided in to the following:
• Entrepreneur - initiating new ideas to improve organizational performance
• Disturbance handlers - taking corrective action to cope with adverse situation
• Resource allocators - allocating human, physical, and monetary resources
• Negotiator - negotiating with trade unions, or any other stakeholders
3. Interpersonal roles: This role involves activities with people working in the organization. This is supportive role for informational and decisional roles. Interpersonal roles can be categorized under three subheadings:
• Figurehead -  Ceremonial and symbolic role
• Leadership -  leading organization in terms of recruiting, motivating etc.
• Liaison - Liaoning with external bodies and public relations activities.

Management Skills 

A manager's job is varied and complex. Managers need certain skills to perform the duties and activities associated with being a manager. What type of skills does a manager need? Robert L. Katz (1974) found that managers needed three essential management skills

1. Technical skills: The ability is to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on the job. Vocational and on the job training programs can be used to develop this type of skill.
2. Human Skill: This is the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people (both individually and a group). This requires sensitivity towards others issues and concerns. People, who are proficient in technical skill, but not with interpersonal skills, may face difficult to manage their subordinates, To acquire the Human Skill, it is pertinent to recognize the feelings and sentiments of others, ability to motivate others even in adverse situation, and communicate own feelings to others in a positive and inspiring way.
3. Conceptual Skill: This is an ability to critically analyze, diagnose a situation and forward a feasible solution. It requires creative thinking, generating options and choosing the best available option. A mark of a good leader is to be able to provide consistent motivation to his team encouraging them to attain excellence and quality in their performance. A good leader is always looking for ways to improve production and standards. Here are six management skills you can develop as a leader in working to create a quality effective team.
4. Diagnostic Skills Most successful managers also bring diagnostic skills to the organization. Diagnostic skills allow the manager to better understand cause-and-effect relationships and to recognize the optimal solution to problems. Of course, not every manager has an equal allotment of these four basic skills. Nor are equal allotments critical. For example, the optimal skills mix tends to vary with the manager`s level in the organization. First-line managers generally need to depend more on their technical and interpersonal skills and less on their conceptual and diagnostic skills. Top managers tend to exhibit the reverse combination-a greater emphasis on conceptual and diagnostic skills and a somewhat lesser dependence on technical and interpersonal skills. Middle managers require a more even distribution of skills.

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