Bba 102 : Principles Of Management

BBA 102: Principles of Management

Q) “Managers don’t need to plan, organize or review. All they need to do is lead.” Discuss, clearly outlining whether you agree or disagree and why.

Managerial positions are multifaceted, requiring the individual to use different skills and take on different roles, often at the same time. To claim that managers are only required to lead, and not also plan, organise and review, overlooks many other crucial aspects required to be an effective and efficient manager.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the various theories as to the qualities needed by a manager, and to argue how the manager’s position does not exclusively require leadership, whilst also offering how an emphasis on leadership is required within certain situations and by certain managers.

Before it is possible to argue that it is necessary for managers to possess more than leadership qualities, the definition of a manager and of management, must first be identified. The job description of a manager, as well as the definition of management, is difficult to pinpoint. This is because there are different types of managers, working in diverse industries with varying degrees of change involved.

However, a simplified definition of a manager is that they ‘are individuals who direct and oversee the activities of other people in an organisation’ (Coulter, et al., p. 5). As well as this, a simple definition of management is ‘the process of getting things done, effectively and efficiently, with and through other people’ (Coulter, et al., p. 7)

How this is accomplished can be examined through the functions model of management, as proposed by Henri Fayol. According to the contemporary interpretation of his theory, manager...

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...e leading as their dominant function, with communication as an integral part of this. On the other hand, managers in larger firms are more likely to be resource allocators (Paolillo, 1984), who delegate resources and tasks and therefore mean they are more likely to fall under the function of organising.

On a broad scale, it is evident through the approaches proposed by Fayol, Mintzberg and Katz that managers don’t exclusively lead. Despite this, it is apparent that hierarchal positioning and the size of the organisation affect the proportion in which leadership activities are carried out, as well as the skills used and the roles adopted to accomplish these. Ultimately, however, for managers to ensure their organisations are effective and efficient, they need to act with a combination of the four functions of planning, organising, leading and controlling (reviewing).