Functions of Management
In current business practices is often ignored the importance of having a good leader. The writer, having served in the U.S. Marine Corps, was introduced into a way of leading man into combat scenarios. While serving in the military, the writer began like everyone else, as a follower. With the day-to-day challenges, the leadership portrayed by the higher-ranking individuals had become an example to live by. Marine Non-Commission Officers (NCO's) are feared throughout the world because of their devotion for their unit, country, and Core. The writer has seen the difference between leadership styles in and out of the military.
The writer will briefly describe the Four Functions of Management and describe how it relates to the way that business are conducted within his organization that he works for.
The Four Functions of Management
The four functions of management are: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (Bateman, 2007). Planning, according to Bateman, is specifying the goals to achieve and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve a goal. In the Marines, the writer witnessed how meetings were usually held in confidential areas and only certain individuals were allowed to attend and find out what the plan of execution would be. Marines were usually told of any plans, however, there were things that simple individuals were not told until the leader would give up the order of execution.
Public Storage
The writer of this paper works Public Storage. In the current employment the planning stage is taken seriously and everyone is taken into account. The District manager sets up a timeframe with tasks that need to be followed in order to complete the main objective, which is to rent storage spaces. The district manager, plans for weeks in advance and the manager is told in advance of the tasks that needs to be completed by a certain time frame.
Organizing is the assembling and coordination of human, financial, physical informational, and other resources to achieve goal (Bateman, 2007). Organizing is considered of being very important for the positive production of the company. In the Organizing stage, is the manager makes sure that his or her employees are ready to work and therefore, not wasting any valuable time. A good manager needs to have good organizational skills or he or she would not be around more often.
...at it means to be an NCO. These are our new instruments of war as we face this new, and often intangible enemy. However, it is important that we do not pick and choose which to heed. In our modern Marine Corps we, too often, become impersonal when dealing with those under our charge. We write on our standardized counseling sheets once a month, and are ever ready to serve up a negative counseling or a charge sheet. While these things have their place, we must make sure they do not replace the idea that we, as NCOs, are here to serve those Marines under our charge. No matter what the battlefield. No matter what the fight. NCOs will continue to be the backbone of the Marine Corps. As we press forward, let us never forget the leadership traits that guide us. And let us never forget the NCOs that came before us that taught us what being an NCO is truly all about.
Part 1, The Basics of Leadership, Chapter 1 covers Fundamentals of Leadership while Roles and Relationships are covered in Chapter 2. This section describes and depicts levels of Leadership. We as a military are set apart from other non-military professions in that Soldiers must be prepared to use deadly force and have the courage required to close with and destroy the enemy. All leaders, from non-commissioned officers and warrant officers, to commissioned officers, inherently possess a great responsibility. The repercussions of decisions and actions impact the lives of Soldiers and their families. Additionally, these decisions affect the battlefield environment including enemy and non-combatants, both military and
Staff Sergeant (SSGT) Louis Moeller shaped me into the Recon Marine I wanted to be and the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) that I am now. By embodying the Recon Creed and always setting the example, he made me want to be an NCO that my troops would look up to and want to follow. Even when not in charge he was constantly the one peers and junior Marines alike, turned to for guidance and inspiration. To this day, I still find myself asking “What would Louis do?” when confronted with a leadership dilemma.
As a Marine, it is imperative to have leadership skills along with being capable of working with others. This book was written to enhance the reader’s mentality of how the Marines operate. It informs those who are looking into the service, and provides an in depth look into the trials and tribulations it has been through—as well as conquered. This book substantially explains the vigorous training platoon 3086 went through in order to earn the title of being a Marine.
As our forefathers before us stated, ‘‘No one is more professional than I. I am a Noncommissioned Officer, a leader of soldiers. As a Noncommissioned Officer, I realize that I am a member of a time honored corps, which is known as “The Backbone of the Army (“The NCO Creed writing by SFC Earle Brigham and Jimmie Jakes Sr”). These words to Noncommissioned Officer should inspire us to the fullest with pride, honor, and integrity. The NCO creed should mean much more than just words whenever we attend a NCO’s school. For most of us this is what our creed has become because we learn to narrate or recite. The military from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard has an overabundance of NCOs who fall under their pay grade of E-5, E-6 and etc. Yet somehow there still not enough leaders. I believe that the largest problem afflicting the military today is our lack of competent leaders, ineffective leader development, and how we influence our subordinates under us who are becoming leaders.
In the United States Army, there are two categories of rank structure, the enlisted corps and the commissioned corps. The enlisted corps within itself contains leaders, who are referred to as Noncommissioned Officers, or NCOs. These individuals, whose ranks range from Sergeant to Sergeant Major, are responsible implementing the guidance and command policies provided by the Commissioned Officers and commanders in their units. NCOs are also responsible for the welfare and training of junior personnel. The US Army provides regulations and manuals with step by step guidance for the most trivial of tasks, but it fails to spell out specific and concrete information on how to be an NCO. There are publications, such as “The Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer” and regulations on leadership, but they lack specificity and objective instruction for how to accomplish the aforementioned responsibilities of an NCO. The knowledge and skills of an NCO are instead acquired through training and experience, the products of which are NCOs of varying quality. A good NCO is one who knows and fulfills the written laws and regulations of Army doctrine, has the character of a good soldier and leader, and is able to strike a balance between written law and doing what is right even if the two seem to contradict one another.
Organization is the function of assembling and coordinating human, financial, physical, informational and other resources needed to achieve goals. Without this function, my business would have folded in the first week. I have midlevel managers to gather together my employees, and discuss the plans for the week. Specific shoe styles must be displayed and organized in a certain order. Information must be disseminated to our marketing team so they know who we are targeting and what steps to take to increase our visibility and productivity. Organizing is not something just one person can do alone. For this function to work, it will take the entire team to pull together for us to triumphant.
Non-Commissioned Officers are deficient in vital areas of leadership due to a lack of training. This leads to inexperienced Soldiers becoming inexperienced leaders. The NCO corps needs to develop and enforce comprehensive interactive training that will challenge the next generation to achieve a functional level of communication skills before advancing to leadership positions. This will generate leaders who can write effectively, speak meritoriously and teach adaptively while training others to do the same.
Managers have five major functions to perform, namely planning, staffing, organizing, controlling, and coordinating. These roles or functions of the management separate management from other roles such as marketing and accounting among others. The lessons that I have currently learned will help me in becoming a manager who will be capable of making various decisions that will have an impact on the whole firm. Additionally, the area where I have much interest in is the function of controlling in management.
“Organizing: is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 17).
In order to achieve the goals of the organisation, managers have to set goals and developed a workable plan to complete the goals. Organising is one of the processes to organise people, activities and other resource in a logical way (Davidson 2009). Through the organising
Planning and organizing is another vital quality needed for managers. If manager can do effective planning he can really contribute in the long term progress and development of his organization. Proper planning helps in useful and efficient use of the existing resources of the organization. After planning if you are not able to organize the things, this can really worsen your planning.
For a company to be successful it is important that it has very good organization. Organization can be defined in many different ways. Bateman and Snell define organizing as assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational,
Over recent years companies have become less dependent on paper and more dependent on technology. Take American Honda Motors for example; the Davenport Parts facility recently converted computer systems to more efficiently manage its inventory. Prior to its new system months of preparation was needed in order to ensure a smooth change over. Without the four basic functions of management all working together success would not have been possible.
The four functions of management include: planning, management, leading and controlling. Internal factors impacted the PLOC in many different ways. Everything internal and external for this company deals with planning, organizing, leading and controlling, as it is the foundation for any management team.