Management

Man 01.01

Supervisory Management - General

Date: 05/11/00

1. Introduction
Management is a leadership effort to integrate and to use a
variety of resources effectively to accomplish an objective. It
applies to all organizations, commercial and government,
each of which may have different and sometimes quite
individual methods for their planning , organization,
motivation and control.
One essential factor however is delegation. The manager
must know and understand what is expected of his or her
unit, when it is expected, and how to employ his or her
human resources to obtain the desired results. This requires
assigning work to subordinates in a planned, thoughtful way.
A frequent error made by new lower level supervisors is to try
to do all of the work themselves and not to delegate. The
reason for this is that the new supervisor may have been
promoted on the basis of their performance at the tasks they
are now to supervise and think they can complete these
more quickly themselves. As they have previously performed
these technical tasks well, they also continue to get personal
satisfaction from such work. Their middle management
supervisor should observe the performance of the new
supervisor and their team and ensure that delegation and
training of the team members takes place.

2. Management Skills
management skills are of various types which can be
described as Technical, Human and Conceptual skills. These
can be defined as follows,
Definitions
Technical Skills
Human Skills
Conceptual Skills
Ability to use
Ability and
Ability to
knowledge,
judgement in
understand the
methods and
working with
complexities of
equipment to
people, including
the overall
perform specific
an understanding
organization and
tasks : aquired
of motivation and
where ones own
from experience
leadership.
unit fits into the
and training.
total picture.
Typically the lower level supervisors require considerable
technical skill as they are required to train and develop new
employees and technicians. At the other exptreme senior
managers rarely need to know how to perform specific tasks
at the operational level but they should understand how all
the functions are interrelated.
As supervisors move up in management they must learn to
delegate technical work to their subordinates to leave
themselves free to learn the human and conceptual skills
now required of them.

3. Management Process
Management is a process. The definition of management
varies widely between practitioners depending on the
detailed descriptions adopted. However in general
management can be divided into four main functions as
follows:

Planning
Determining objectives and
setting goals; drawing-up
plans that will implement
these goals.
Setting standards and check
points for evaluating work
against these standards.;
sampling the work flow;
collecting feed-back.

Organizing
Assessing
resources
[needed
and
available]
scheduling work distribution;
drawingup flow charts.
Supervising the workers;
Training and developing
them;
giving
orders;
maintaining motivation and a
productive
work
environment.

Controlling
Good delegation is required in all four functions.

Motivating

3.1 Planning
Planning consists of setting goals and objectives then with
preparing the plans and schedules to accomplish them.
Some important elements in planning are,

Interpreting the goals and objectives from more senior

management.

Gathering the ideas of your team as well as your own.

Formulating policies and procedures to accomplish

goals and objectives.

Reviewing alternatives and selecting activities and

programmes to achieve positive results.

Establishing timetables and completion targets to meet

priorities.

Setting standards of performance and how results are to

be measured.

Identify resources [human, time, money & material] and

their availability required to accomplish the task.
3.2 Organizing

This is the bringing together of resources in the most

productive manner to accomplish goal sna dobjectives.
Some of the most important elements of this are ,

Staffing: the right number of people with correct mix of

skills to perform the task.

Delineate responsibilities in the team

Align major functions and structure the component parts

into effective work units and teams.

Prepare/select administrative guides & tools to confirm

how responsibilities are assigned & authority delegated.

Develop a communications system for reporting & coordination between people & organizations.

Prepare methods of problem solving & conflict

resolution.

Determine the facilities & equioment needed for

accomplishing the task.
3.3 Motivating
Motivation is important in determining the level of
performance that is achieved by the team, Some important
elements are as follows,

Bear in mind the needs and desires of the team

members.

Create an environment in which the team can meet its

own need while achieving goals / objectives of the
organization.

Develop means by which team can participate in

decisions.

Recognise the team members contributions.

Ensure communication takes place within the team.

Allow for coaching and training as pert of the project.

Give team members authority to take decisions.

Pay close attention to staff responces when assigned

work.
3.4 Controlling
Control is concerned with results and following-up to
compare results with plans and adjustments where results
differ from expectations. Some important elements are,

Devise means of assessing the if objectives, standards

& goals have been met in a timely and cost-effective
manner.

Formulate measurement & evaluation of use of

resources.

Establish system for feedback at key points to identify,

evaluate & assess any deviations from the plan.

Develop reporting for status of projects.

Reference: Delegating for Results by RBMaddux, published
by Kogan Page [1990] ISBN 0-7494-315-2