Basic Management Principles

Being an effective manager is no easy task by any means, and no matter what field you are operating in, principles remain the same for business administration and management.

Whether you are heading or running a multi-million dollar corporation, or even if you are organizing a birthday party for your child, there are some rules and concepts that universally apply to every situation where people, time and resource management is necessary.

Development of management is a huge field of study and there are professionals who have dedicated their lives towards studying it and commenting on it, but the true essence comes from effective people skills. It involves gathering the right people to do a certain job, and to show them the right way to do it, and to motivate them to do so constantly.

Primarily, there are 5 different functions of management. They are:

Planning: This is the very first step, and it involves the setting of the goals of certain activities. People can work better only when they have a clear vision of what it is they are setting out to achieve.

Management involves the fixing of these goals, and communicating them to people. This is most commonly seen in the form of mission statements and vision statements that are created by companies, and also in the form of realistic targets.

Staffing: The next function is to recruit the right people for the job. There is a proper method in which to carry out this task, and choosing the most appropriate people is vitally important. People with the right skill sets and experience levels are absolutely necessary for the smooth working of an organization.

Organizing: Once the goals are set and the people are acquired, it is important to determine and establish the exact nature of job of each employee. This ensures that there is no duplication of work, and also no confusion about who is supposed to do what. This also involves the division of labor, the delegation of authority and departmentalization.

Controlling: This is perhaps the most important function of all, as it involves comparing the real performance with expected performance. If there is a difference then the manager needs to understand why, and then proceed to solve the problem. This is where leadership skills and motivational qualities come in.

On the other hand, if the performance is better than expected, then the manager has to reward the workers, and ensure that they keep these performance levels up.

Directing: As mentioned earlier, the manager has to react once results have been compared to the expected performance. The reasons for disparities should be found, and the manager should strive to make the workers improve their performance in a positive manner. This also involves the inculcation of time management.

In order to achieve and follow these principles, there are certain qualities and characteristics that a manager must definitely have. These skills will help him make a genuine connection with the people he/she works with, and it will also help him to get the best out of them.

Here are some of the features that all good managers naturally possess.

• Problem solving
• Logical thinking
• Technical knowledge
• Ethical thinking
• Effective communication
• Reasonable and understanding behavior

With the right skills, no obstacle can be big enough to pull the team down. Good managers ensure that the team works for each other, and all disputes and resolves are solved amicably, with the sole aim of achieving the objectives.

Strategic planning is another area that is crucial to the running of a business. One of the risks is to make a detailed SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the business and then handle each factor with extreme care. Strategic planning is a basic principle of the aims to be achieved and how to go about achieving them.

Strategic planning also gives details about what could potentially derail the task, and how it should be dealt with. All possible outcomes must be thought about, and one must be as best prepared as possible. There are many unseen forces and contingencies that could ruin everything, and only effective strategic planning can help one avoid calamities.

This information is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more nuances involved in the art of management. You must read all that you can on the subject and that will improve your knowledge substantially.