for

LT & EC

Compiled by:
KOFI KAMASA (PhD)

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION TO PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT
Expected Learning Outcomes
By the end of this chapter, the student will be able to:
a) Explain what management is and distinguish between management and manager
b) Explain the types of managers
c) Understand the nature of managers and their work.

Definition of Management
We’re betting that you already have a lot of experience with organizations, teams, and
leadership. You’ve been through schools, in clubs, participated in social or religious groups,
competed in sports or games, or taken on full- or part-time jobs. Some of your experience was
probably pretty positive, but you were also likely wondering sometimes, “Isn’t there a better
way to do this?”

After participating in this course, we hope that you find the answer to be “Yes!” While
management is both art and science, with our help you can identify and develop the skills
essential to better managing your and others’ behaviours where organizations are concerned.

Before getting ahead of ourselves, just what is management, let alone principles of
management? A manager’s primary challenge is to solve problems creatively, and you should
view management as “the art of getting things done through the efforts of other people.” We
draw this definition from a biography of Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) written by P.
Graham, Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management (Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1995). Follett was an American social worker, consultant, and author of books on
democracy, human relations, and management. She worked as a management and political
theorist, introducing such phrases as “conflict resolution,” “authority and power,” and “the task
of leadership.”

The Principles of management, then, are how you actually manage, that is, get things done
through others—individually, in groups, or in organizations. Formally defined, the principles
of management are the activities that “plan, organize, and control the operations of the basic
elements of [people], materials, machines, methods, money and markets, providing direction
and coordination, and giving leadership to human efforts, so as to achieve the sought objectives
of the enterprise.” The fundamental notion of principles of management was developed by

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French management theorist Henri Fayol (1841–1925). He is credited with the original
planning-organizing-leading-controlling framework (P-O-L-C), which, while undergoing very
important changes in content, remains the dominant management framework in the world. See
H. Fayol, General and Industrial Management (Paris: Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, 1916). For this reason, principles of management are often discussed or learned
using a framework called P-O-L-C, which stands for planning, organizing, leading, and
controlling.

Managers are required in all the activities of organizations: budgeting, designing, selling,
creating, financing, accounting, and artistic presentation; the larger the organization, the more
managers are needed. Everyone employed in an organization is affected by management
principles, processes, policies, and practices as they are either a manager or a subordinate to a
manager, and usually they are both.

Managers do not spend all their time managing. When choreographers are dancing a part, they
are not managing, nor are office managers managing when they personally check out a
customer’s credit. Some employees perform only part of the functions described as
managerial—and to that extent, they are mostly managers in limited areas. For example, those
who are assigned the preparation of plans in an advisory capacity to a manager, to that extent,
are making management decisions by deciding which of several alternatives to present to the
management. However, they have no participation in the functions of organizing, staffing, and
supervising and no control over the implementation of the plan selected from those
recommended. Even independent consultants are managers, since they get most things done
through others—those others just happen to be their clients! Of course, if advisers or
consultants have their own staff of subordinates, they become a manager in the fullest sense of
the definition. They must develop business plans; hire, train, organize, and motivate their staff
members; establish internal policies that will facilitate the work and direct it; and represent the
group and its work to those outside of the firm.

We tend to think about managers based on their position in an organization. This tells us a bit
about their role and the nature of their responsibilities. The following figure summarizes the
historic and contemporary views of organizations concerning managerial roles. S. Ghoshal and
C. Bartlett, T h e Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to
Management (New York: Collins Business, 1999). In contrast to the traditional, hierarchical
relationship among layers of management and managers and employees, in the contemporary

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view, top managers support and serve other managers and employees (through a process called
empowerment), just as the organization ultimately exists to serve its customers and clients.
Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take
action, and control work and decision-making in autonomous ways.

Types of Managers
In both the traditional and contemporary views of management, however, there remains the
need for different types of managers. Top managers are responsible for developing the
organization’s strategy and being a steward for its vision and mission. A second set of managers
includes functional, team, and general managers. Functional managers are responsible for the
efficiency and effectiveness of an area, such as accounting or marketing. Supervisory or team
managers are responsible for coordinating a subgroup of a particular function or a team
composed of members from different parts of the organization. Sometimes you will hear
distinctions made between line and staff managers.

A Line Manager leads a function that contributes directly to the products or services the
organization creates. For example, a line manager (often called a product, or service manager)
at Procter & Gamble (P&G) is responsible for the production, marketing, and profitability of
the Tide detergent product line. A staff manager, in contrast, leads a function that creates
indirect inputs. For example, finance and accounting are critical organizational functions but
do not typically provide an input into the final product or service a customer buys, such as a
box of Tide detergent. Instead, they serve a supporting role.

A Project Manager has the responsibility for the planning, execution, and closing of any
project. Project managers are often found in construction, architecture, consulting, computer
networking, telecommunications, or software development

A General Manager is someone who is responsible for managing a clearly identifiable

revenue- producing unit, such as a store, business unit, or product line. General managers
typically must make decisions across different functions and have rewards tied to the
performance of the entire unit (i.e., store, business unit, product line, etc.). General managers
take direction from their top executives. They must first understand the executives’ overall
plan for the company. Then they set specific goals for their own departments to fit in with the
plan. The general manager of production, for example, might have to increase certain product

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lines and phase out others. General managers must describe their goals clearly to their support
staff. The supervisory managers see that the goals are met.

The Nature of Managerial Work

Managers are responsible for the processes of getting activities completed efficiently with and
through other people and setting and achieving the firm’s goals through the execution of four
basic management functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Both sets of
processes utilize human, financial, and material resources.

Of course, some managers are better than others at accomplishing this! There have been a
number of studies on what managers actually do, the most famous of those conducted by
Professor Henry Mintzberg in the early 1970s. H. Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work
(New York: Harper & Row, 1973). One explanation for Mintzberg’s enduring influence is
perhaps that the nature of managerial work has changed very little since that time, aside from
the shift to an empowered relationship between top managers and other managers and
employees, and obvious changes in technology, and the exponential increase in information
overload.

After following managers around for several weeks, Mintzberg concluded that, to meet the
many demands of performing their functions, managers assume multiple roles. A role is an
organized set of behaviours, and Mintzberg identified ten roles common to the work of all
managers. As summarized in the following figure, the ten roles are divided into three groups:
interpersonal, informational, and decisional. The informational roles link all managerial work

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together. The interpersonal roles ensure that information is provided. The decisional roles
make significant use of the information. The performance of managerial roles and the
requirements of these roles can be played at different times by the same manager and to
different degrees, depending on the level and function of management. The ten roles are
described individually, but they form an integrated whole.

The three interpersonal roles are primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships. In the
figurehead role, the manager represents the organization in all matters of formality. The top-
level manager represents the company legally and socially to those outside of the organization.
The supervisor represents the work group to higher management and higher management to
the workgroup. In the liaison role, the manager interacts with peers and people outside the
organization. The top-level manager uses the liaison role to gain favours and information, while
the supervisor uses it to maintain the routine flow of work. The leader role defines the
relationships between the manager and employees.

Fig. Ten Managerial roles

The direct relationships with people in the interpersonal roles place the manager in a unique
position to get information. Thus, the three informational roles are primarily concerned with
the information aspects of managerial work. In the monitor role, the manager receives and
collects information. In the role of disseminator, the manager transmits special information into
the organization. The top-level manager receives and transmits more information from people

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outside the organization than the supervisor. In the role of spokesperson, the manager
disseminates the organization’s information into its environment. Thus, the top-level manager
is seen as an industry expert, while the supervisor is seen as a unit or departmental expert.

The unique access to information places the manager at the centre of organizational decision-
making. There are four decisional roles managers play. In the entrepreneur role, the manager
initiates change. In the disturbance handler role, the manager deals with threats to the
organization. In the resource allocator role, the manager chooses where the organization will
expend its efforts. In the negotiator role, the manager negotiates on behalf of the organization.
The top-level manager makes the decisions about the organization as a whole, while the
supervisor makes decisions about his or her particular work unit.

The supervisor performs these managerial roles but with different emphasis than higher
managers. Supervisory management is more focused and short-term in outlook. Thus, the
figurehead role becomes less significant and the disturbance handler and negotiator roles
increase in importance for the supervisor. Since leadership permeates all activities, the leader
role is among the most important of all roles at all levels of management.

So what do Mintzberg’s conclusions about the nature of managerial work mean for you? On
the one hand, managerial work is the lifeblood of most organizations because it serves to
choreograph and motivate individuals to do amazing things. Managerial work is exciting, and
it is hard to imagine that there will ever be a shortage of demand for capable, energetic
managers. On the other hand, managerial work is necessarily fast-paced and fragmented, where
managers at all levels express the opinion that they must process much more information and
make more decisions than they could have ever possibly imagined. So, just as the most
successful organizations seem to have well-formed and well-executed strategies, there is also
a strong need for managers to have good strategies about the way they will approach their work.
This is exactly what you will learn through the principles of management.

Management: An Art or Science?

Management like all other practices, medicine, music composition, engineering etc. is an Art.
It is doing a thing in the light of the realities of the situation. Yet, managers can work better by
using organized knowledge about management. It is this knowledge that constitutes a science.
Thus, Management as a practice is an art and the organized knowledge about management is

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referred to as science. In this context science and art are not mutually exclusive, they are
complimentary.

Management: A Science
Science has been defined as a body of systematized knowledge, which establishes a
relationship between cause and effect. Such systematized knowledge contains concepts,
hypotheses, theories, experimentation and principles. Mere knowledge or collection of facts is
not science. The knowledge so gathered should be verifiable. A subject to be recognized as
science should have the following features:
i. It should have a systematic body of knowledge.
ii. It should have a scientific method for observation.
iii. Its principles should have been evolved on the basis of continued observation.
iv. Its principles should have universal applicability.
v. Its principles should be verifiable.
vi. Its principles should establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
Now, Management has been given the shape of an organized body of knowledge. Its study
helps in gaining a rational approach to the development of means for accomplishing certain
goals. That is why Management is called a science. Although Management has been recognized
as a science, it is not exactly like the biological and physical sciences. It falls in the area of
‘Social Science’ as it is a social process and deals with complex human beings. The theories
and principles of Management abound. It may produce different results in different situations.
That is why Ernest Dale has called management a ‘Soft Science’.

Management: An Art
Art may be defined as “the technique of applying the principles to actual practice to achieve
the desired results with efficiency.” It is concerned with the application of knowledge and
skills. If science is learnt, an art is practised. Thus, an art has the following features:
1. It demotes personal skills.
2. It signifies practical knowledge.
3. It helps in achieving concrete results.
4. It is creative in nature.
The principles and techniques of Management when applied in the organization to achieve its
objects become ‘Art’. In this manner, management is also an art on account of the following
reasons:
i. It uses know-how and skills.

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 i. Its direction is towards the accomplishment of concrete results.
ii. It creates new situations needed for further improvement.
iii. It is personalized because the success of a management task is related to the personality
of the manager.
From the above discussion, it is clear that management is both a science and an art. It is
considered a science because it has an organized body of knowledge. It is called an art because
managing requires certain skills. Science teaches one ‘to know’ and an art ‘to do’ hence science
and art are complementary. A manager is a scientist as well as an artist. As a scientist, he relies
heavily on the existing knowledge and develops new knowledge and principles. As an artist,
he sometimes solely depends on his intuition, guesswork and judgment. Just as a doctor uses
his knowledge to cure is patients; a manager should use his knowledge to solve the problems
in managing men, materials, machines, methods, and money.