Explain the nature of management functions and their importance at different levels of management.

Management can be described as a process encompassing several core functions of management. The list of functions that constitutes total management prepared by different authors and experts may differ to some extent from each other, but the basic the overall nature of management implicit in these different lists remains the same. The most common classification of management function includes the following four functions.

1.       Planning

2.      Organizing

3.      Leading

4.      Controlling

Planning covers the process of objectives and deciding on actions to be taken to achieve these objectives. Organizing is the process of designing and developing structure of relationships between members of the team or group assigned to carry out the planned tasks, and filling and keeping filled the positions in the organization. Leading refers to motivating, directing and guiding people in the organization It involves ensuring that the people in the organization are willing and capable of performing the required tasks. Controlling involves  ascertaining the actual results and situation of the organization and taking corrective action when significant deviations from expectations occur.

These management functions are common to all the managers irrespective of the business activity managed by them – for example, procurement, manufacturing, marketing, finance, human resources management, and so on, or their  level in organizational. However, the total time and effort devoted by individual managers to each of the management function as well as the total effort spent on all the management function in proportion to other non-managerial, technical and operational, tasks depends on many factors such as nature of business and organizations structure.

A manager’s level within the organizational hierarchy has major influence on the proportion of efforts spent on managerial and non-managerial activities, and the proportion of different functions within managerial activities.

Depending on size and structure, an organization may have half a dozen or more levels in the management hierarchy. However, for ease of understanding these are often grouped in three levels.

1.      Top-management: This refers to the top one or two  hierarchical levels in the organization structure. Managers at these levels have responsibilities for the total organizational performance covering multiple business activities.

2.      Middle-management: These are the managers between the top- and first-level management. They generally do not have the responsibility for more than one type of business activity, and even within that may be responsible for only a segment of the total work in the organization.

3.      First-level-management: They are at the lowest one or two levels of management hierarchy. They are the people responsible for directly supervising the work of operational staff, and form a link between them and the management.

As we move from top to the first-level managers, the total proportion of effort on management work tends to decrease. Within management work, the effort spent on planning and controlling functions tends to decrease, and on leading function tends to increase, as we move down the organizational hierarchy. There is a drop in amount of organizing effort requirement also with decreasing level of organization hierarchy, but much less pronounced drop in comparison to that for planning and leading.