¶ … Functions of Management Management is defined as the process of getting work done through others in a manner that succeeds in achieving organizational and business goals. This simple definition has led to the outline of four broad management functions: planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Harris, 1993, p. 372). It is also important to note that the management process involves taking into consideration a firm's resources. As such, this implies that managers at all levels in an organization must execute the four functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling since they are responsible for the people and factors of production that are under their charge (Faille & O'Connor, 2000, p. 203). It is the objective of this paper to describe the four functions of management and their importance to an organization.

The planning function involves the defining of goals as well as development of strategies or plans that are designed to achieve the set goals and other objectives. Thus, the planning function includes goal definitions, business plans, strategy development, resource planning, and design of operational methods (McNamara, 1999, para 4). Of course, the extent to which an individual manager is involved in the planning function will depend on her or his seniority and responsibility level within an organization. Thus, only senior management and departmental...

However, once these are set, all other managers will have to integrate the plans for their individual functions and areas of responsibility with the organizational objectives and plans. In addition, all other functions of management will also need to be designed to meet planning goals (Faille & O'Connor, 2000, p. 203).
The organizing function, for instance, calls for a great deal of managerial ability in arranging and coordinating production, tasks, processes and information so that organizational, departmental and functional goals are met. Therefore, the organizing function involves clearly stating employee job responsibilities as well as work flow processes in order to enable efficient utilization of available resources (Faille & O'Connor, 2000, p. 203).

Although this sounds fairly simple, in point of fact the organizing function calls for a lot of managerial skill since it involves working with scarce resources and may even be full of paradoxes. This implies that managers must be able to clearly define and skillfully manage organizational work flows and job definitions. For instance, strategic ambiguity between organizational goals and controls allows for multiple interpretations by individuals in an organization to the overriding culture. Take, for example, a case where…