BBA 2010 Unit III Assessment Essay Question 1

Unit III Assessment Essay Question 1:

The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are all essential in effectively leading a business or organization. While each function is different and each serves its own purpose, each function must be performed effectively in order to achieve an organizations goals.

The planning function of management can be seen as one of, if not the most important function of management. It is the function that involves establishing an organizations objectives and goals and determining a course of action to take in order to achieve these goals. The planning function is where businesses must think about the future and requires that managers be cognizant of environmental conditions surrounding their particular organization and be able to forecast future circumstances. Planning must occur constantly to account for changes in the business environment or any changes that a business may encounter along the way.

Organizing is the management function that entails establishing an organizations structure and allocating resources to ensure that objectives and goals are able to be met. It can be viewed as the function that draws out the route to achieving success within an organization. Organizing sets and assigns who does what job, when they do it, and whom they will report to. This is where decisions are made on the duties and responsibilities of individual jobs as well as the “how to,” or how each job duty is to be carried out. While it is the duty of each individual to understand how to perform their specific job, it is the duty of managers to understand how every individual is to carry out their specific duties and to ensure individuals are working together in order to achieve success.

Motivating personnel and employees to perform their specific jobs is maybe the most difficult function to perform, but is extremely vital to success within an organization. Leading is the management function in which managers are required to ensure employees are motivated to perform their jobs and accomplish their specific tasks so that the organization may reach its planned goals. Leading involves multiple sources of influence that a manager can use to inspire high levels of performance by individuals. If a manager is an effective leader, subordinates are more likely to be enthusiastic about their work and may feel more inclined to exert a higher level of effort to attain organizational goals.

The management function of controlling involves ensuring that established performance standards are met. Controlling consists of key sub steps that include establishing performance standards, measuring and comparing actual performance against the established standards, and taking corrective action against sub-standard performance levels when necessary. Standards established within the controlling function will help to ensure that any negative behaviors or low levels of performance are corrected and not repeated in the future.

All of these management functions of business work together in assisting managers in ensuring that organizational goals and objectives are met. These functions provide the framework necessary for managers to use in order to plan for the future by setting goals, establishing organizational structure, motivating employees to perform at their best, and establishing, measuring, and comparing performance of the organization and its employees. Managers may then use these metrics to correct any performance deficiencies or negative trends that arise.