Management Development - Essay Example

Planning is the foundation of all other management functions. The manager as planner assesses the present position of the company and allocates various steps to improve the company’s position in the future. Further, the manager locates the resources necessary to achieve the organization’s objectives. 1 Leadership involves effective communication skills, decision-making skills, planning and implementation, intelligence, and last but not least, influence. A manager, as a leader, needs to motivate employees to perform at their optimum level.

In addition, leading entails having a vision and guiding the employees to fulfill this vision through effective communication. Organizing which comprise creating a structure for both the oral and written plans to be accomplished is yet another critical function. The manager delegates the various responsibilities and subtasks to the competent employees. What is more, managers address the important dimension of implementation of the various plans which are formulated. Finally, controlling involves monitoring the implementation of the plans and the various activities in order to ensure that the goals of the company are achieved.

As controller, the manager handles conflict and controls any problems which may occur in the day to day running of the organization. Henry Mintzberg (1980) identified three categories of roles of a manager namely interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles. The interpersonal roles of the manager comprise the figurehead, leader and liaison. The informational roles include monitor, disseminator and spokesman. The decisional roles involve entrepreneur, disturbance handler, negotiator and resource allocator.

The four areas of management in which I would like to improve are the manger as a leader, the manager as an organizer, the manager as a decision-maker and the manager as a planner. These four areas are critical to my role as a manager. Firstly, a manager who is unable to lead