Why Management Is Needed

Management is needed whenever people work together in an organization and to reach organizational objectives. The objective of most firms and companies is to provide services for people and to make a profit for the owners. If the firm stops giving service, people will no longer patronize it. If there are no profits, the company will soon be unable to perform the needed service.

To achieve objectives, managers need to maintain the balance among the conflicting demands of the stakeholders of an organization. Stakeholders are all those, who have a stake in an organizational success, including employees, owners, customers, creditors and others. Owners seek a satisfactory return on their investment; employees want good pay and comfortable working conditions; management must also please its customers, for without them the company will have little purpose; creditors, suppliers, trade associations should also be considered. So, management must balance the interests of different groups.

Management is also needed to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is ability to get things done correctly. An efficient manager is the one, who gets higher output relative to the inputs (labour, materials, money, machines and time). Effectiveness is the ability to choose the most suitable goals and proper steps to achieve them. That is, effective managers select the right things to do and the right methods for getting them done.

Management is the process of managing people. Any manager has some functions. He performs planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Planning is choosing an organizational mission, and then determining the courses of actions (programs, projects, methods, systems, strategies) to achieve them. All other functions depend on this one, for they can't succeed without sound, thorough planning and decision making.

Organizing is determining what resources and activities are required and delegating the authorities to employees, who are to carry out managers' instructions.

Plans and organization are useless without the function of leading. Leading is getting employees to do the things the manger wants them to do. Therefore, leader's qualities, style and power are very important. This function can be performed in the face-to-face manner, or through written orders and job descriptions.

For effective control there must first be planning, organizing and leading.