Management, Leadership and the Internal Organization

Introduction

Management is the act of planning, controlling, directing and organizing an organization. It ensures that people work together to achieve the set goals using the available resources efficiently. The three types of skills that are necessary for managerial success may include:

• Technical skill is the knowledge of how to perform a task or operate a machine.
• Conceptual skill is the ability to analyze situations in an organization.
• Human or interpersonal managerial skill is the ability to communicate and work with people.

 Vision is more of a target that a firm has set. Ethical standards are rules that workers are expected to follow to ensure that work is done effectively. Vision motivates workers to work hard to achieve set goals (Boone, 2011).

Planning is an important action when the managers set procedures and steps that should be followed to complete tasks on time and avoid mistakes. Types of planning may include:

• Tactical planning which involves coming up with a strategy and ways to make it work. It helps achieve short-term goals.
• Operational planning which consists of daily or weekly plans aimed at achieving expected results in a given department or from a specific individual.
• Strategic planning which involves outlining of procedures to be followed to achieve the long term organization goals.

            In a strategic planning process, it is needed to define the company’s mission statement which is a statement of an organization’s intention. Then, one has to compare the results and set goals and find out why the company has failed. In addition, it is required to evaluate the factors that have led to the failure or success and then set goals. Finally, an individual must set the strategies to achieve these goals. The last step is to implement the set strategies.

There are two types of decisions made by managers which include:

• Programmed decisions which are commonly made to solve simple problems in an organization like a decision to order raw materials.
• Nonprogrammed decisions which are not common and may be very challenging, for instance, a decision to merge with another company.

Decision making process consists of identification of a problem or an opportunity, analysis of the actions to be taken, evaluation of them, selection and implementation of the most appropriate one and finally checking if the decision made is effective.

Leadership is the use of influence or power to direct or inspire people to work and meet certain goals. Leadership styles include: autocratic leadership which involves decisions making process without consulting workers and a democratic leader or asking for employee’s suggestions during this process.

Corporate culture is a set of beliefs and values of a given organization. It is important because it gives an identity to an organization.

The five major forms of departmentalization include product, geographical, functional, customer, and process departmentalization. The four main types of organization structures include line organization, line and staff organizations, committee and matrix organizations.

Human Resource Management from Recruitment to Labor Relations

Human resource management is the act of controlling the human work force. The responsibilities of human resources management include employing, training, selecting, and rewarding of the employees.

Recruitment and selection of a qualified person for the right work place ensures that the task is carried out effectively. While recruiting and selecting employees, human resource managers look for those candidates that are well qualified to perform tasks to be carried out. The managers identify job requirements, advertise the vacancy, review applications and interview candidates to hire the most appropriate one for the vacancy.

The orientation, training programs, and performance appraisals help companies develop their employees by improving their knowhow. Orientation gives an employee a chance to get used to new tasks and training ensures that the employee gets the required knowledge from experienced employees to perform a certain task. Performance appraisals which involve looking at employee’s job performance help to identify the causes of the failure and to come up with strategies to improve this performance.

Wages are compensations awarded to an employee after working for hours or after certain output. Salary is a compensation given to an employee on a periodic basis, for example a weekly or monthly basis. Fringe benefits include house and medical allowances.

Employee separation is a situation when employees decide to start their own businesses or work for other firms. Downsizing is the process that involves reducing the number of employees in a firm by eliminating some jobs. This cuts the overhead costs and can result in mergers. This may also influence the morale of employees negatively.

Out sourcing is the practice of giving out work previously performed by company’s employees to other companies. The impact of this practice helps the firm to concentrate on the tasks they are specialized in and transfer the task they are not good at to other more experienced companies.

The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is the theory of the hierarchy of the human needs. This theory states that the human demands are like a pyramid. There are those that require being satisfied in the first place. They include: physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. The employer can hire employees by considering the employee’s needs and satisfying them.

A labor union is a group of people who have joined together to make sure that the welfare of employees is ensured. Labor union helps to protect employees from the employer who may underpay them (Ulrich, 1996).

Collective bargaining is the process that involves negotiation between management and union representatives. It helps in arriving at mutually acceptable wages and working conditions for employees.

Methods for settling labor management disputes may include grievance. It is a complaint addressed to the management to criticize about some issues that employees do not like. Mediation is the use of a third party to solve a dispute. Arbitration involves the use of the law to solve a problem by going to a court.