Principles of Management

Management is the process of coordinating work activities so that they are completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people. The process represents the ongoing functions or primary activities engaged in by managers. These functions are typically labeled planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Managerial Concerns

Efficiency is often described as "doing the things right"--- refers to getting the most output from the least amount of inputs. Because managers deal with limited inputs—including resources such as people, money, and equipment—they are concerned with the efficient use of those resources.

Effectiveness is often described as "doing the right things"—that is, those work activities that will help the organization reach its goals.

Who are Managers?

Someone who coordinates and oversees the work of other people so that organizational goals can be accomplished is called manager. They were the organizational members who told others what to do and how to do it. It was easy to differentiate managers from non-managerial employees. Managers can be classified into three categories:

•  First-Line Managers

They manage the work of non-managerial employees.

• Middle Managers

They manage the work of first-line managers.

• Top Managers

They are responsible for making organization-wide decisions and establishing plans and goals that affect the entire organization.

What do Managers Do?

In the early part of the twentieth century, a French industrialist by the name of Henri Fayol
proposed that all managers perform five management functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling.

The planning function involves the process of defining goals, establishing strategies to achieve goals,developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Arranging and structuring work to accomplish organizational goals is called organizing. Leading is the process to work with and through people to accomplish goals. 

The final management function managers perform is controlling. After the goals are set and the plans are formulated (planning), the structural arrangements determined (organizing), and the people hired, trained, and motivated (leading), there has to be some evaluation of whether things are going as planned.To ensure that work is going as it should, managers must monitor and evaluate
performance.   

The management process is the set of ongoing decisions and work
activities in which managers engage as they plan, organize, lead, and control. 

Management Roles

The term management roles refers to specific categories of managerial behavior.

Management Skills

Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers need three essential
skills.
Technical skills (Low-Level Management Skills) include knowledge of and proficiency in a certain
specialized field, such as engineering, computers, accounting, or manufacturing. These skills are
more important at lower levels of management since these managers are dealing directly with
employees doing the organization's work.  

Human skills (Middle Management Skills) involve the ability to work well with other people both individually and in a group. Managers with good human skills are able to get the best out of their people. They know how to communicate, motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust. 

Finally, conceptual skills (Top Management Skills) are the skills managers must have to think and to conceptualize about abstract and complex situations. Using these skills, managers must be able to see the organization as a whole, understand the relationships among various subunits, and visualize how the organization fits into its broader environment.