Business Studies
Create an action plan to help you become a successful manager. In your plan, explore, examine, and determine the four functions of management skills that are necessary for you to become a successful manager.
Use the Management Action Plan Template to complete your assignment.
Faculty Note: In looking at the worksheet the questions are designed with the expectation that one is not yet a manager, which makes sense as this is an entry-level course on management. If one is already or has been in a management level position you can discuss what you already use or due as well. The worksheet notes that the overall word count of each response (eight questions) should be 700 to 1050 words so try to make sure you do at least 100 words for each response as that will clearly put you over the overall required word count. Note, there is a section for each of the four functions and two items to respond to in each question and the overall thing you are explaining is this, how will you use what you have studied and learned to be an effective/good manager. I think that is a good thing to consider so this is a great assignment to complete and maybe even save to look back on 5 or 10 years down the road to see if your thoughts have changed.
P.S.: Though the rubric is set up so one can do individual comments on each item there are way too many to do it that way so I will mostly just do a summary feedback overview in the larger feedback text box for this assignment.
The function of Management: Planning
Planning is important in deciding the business goals, objectives and charting out a method that will accomplish the goals and objectives (Prasad, 2020). As a manager, I would use strategic planning, which entails responding to the environment. I will use strategic planning in setting priorities, directing resources and energy, guaranteeing that employees are functioning towards a shared goal, and strengthening operations to ensure that they revolve around the intended results/outcomes. Strategic plans focus on long-range goals which guide future activities. The planning process I would use is determining the strategic point, arranging the objectives, developing the strategic plan, and executing and reviewing the plan.
The function of Management: Organizing
Organizing entails grouping tasks, assigning tasks, allocating resources, and delegating authority across the organization (Prasad, 2020). The organizing process will allow me to coordinate the resources, employees, procedures as well as processes, thus facilitating the goals in the organizational plan. For instance, I will use organizing to anticipate problems, expectations, and decision-making due to changes that occur within organizations over time. I will focus on a functional approach in organizing activities within the organization. The functional approach allows the manager to combine individuals and groups with related activities into departments or units. This will establish relationships that will coordinate between responsibility and authority.
The function of Management: Leading
My leading approach will focus on influencing employee behavior as well as motivating them to meet the organizational objectives. I will demonstrate effective leadership characteristics such as transparency, influencing others, value ethics, innovation, and acting decisively. These characteristics will help me understand employees and use this to make change through high employee engagement. I would focus on the skills approach in leadership. Ideally, the skills approach to leadership focus on the belief that certain knowledge, abilities, and skills that can be developed or learned are essential in leadership. The three main skills for leadership that I would use in my approach include human, technical and conceptual skills.
The function of Management: Controlling
I would rely on management by objectives to measure performance. Management by objectives relies on a set of objective or quantifiable objectives against which to measure the performance of a company and its employees. Through comparing the actual productivity with fixed standards helps in identifying a problem and improving its efficiency. Management by objectives has been effective in performance appraisal and strategic approaches to enhancing performance (Prasad, 2020). I would use bureaucratic control to assess and monitor performance. Bureaucratic control entails the using formal arrangements of roles, rules, and rewards that are used to impact, evaluate and control performance.
References
Prasad, L. M. (2020). Principles and practice of management. Sultan Chand & Sons.
