What Is Management? Understanding Objectives, Functions, and Characteristics

Whether you agree or disagree, management is the backbone of every successful organization. It helps guide it through the challenges emerging in today’s ever-evolving and dynamic business world. Management indeed plays a crucial role in ensuring that resources are used efficiently and goals are met effectively. But do you know what management is and what should be the objectives in management?

One thing is for sure, by understanding the key characteristics, functions, and importance of management, we can implement it not only to influence our day-to-day operations but also to take our organisation in a strategic direction. So, come let us together discover the intricacies of management, starting with what is management, its objectives, functions, and characteristics.

What is Management?

Anything done with proper planning, organization, leadership, and control is called management in a layman's language. Talking about the same in terms of business; management involves proper decision-making, resource allocation, and leading the team towards the main objectives of the company. In short, helping a team achieve something great by working together smartly is what is meant by management.

Importance of Management

The importance of management lies in its ability to harness and optimize an organization’s resources to achieve the set goals. Effective management makes way for the best utilization of resources, provides direction and guides employees towards a unified mission for the benefit of the company. It is possible only with proper management to solve problems, make decisions that are appreciated later on and sustain an organization’s growth for long-term success.

Main Objectives of Management

By now you already know that management is a procedure to manage and execute organizational resources and set them to achieve organizational goals. Here are the main objectives of management to help you further understand the importance of management:

1. Ensuring Goal Achievement: The prime fundamental objective of management is setting clear and achievable goals. This is done by creating strategic plans and developing effective action steps to reach these set goals. For this, Managers are expected to guide, allocate resources, and monitor progress regularly.
2. Optimizing Resources: Making full use of resources available is one of the main objectives of management. Be it the finances, human resources, materials, or technology;  making the best use of these resources by proper planning and controlling is management.
3. Maintaining Discipline: The third main objective of management is to maintain discipline by fostering a positive work environment. It is done by motivating and engaging the employees. It means setting clear expectations in front of the employees and promoting a culture of respect and hard work.
4. Ensuring Regular Workflow: A not much-talked-about objective of management is to ensure regular workflow. This is achieved by coordinating tasks and streamlining the processes so that neither the resources nor the time gets wasted.
5. Ensuring Business Growth: Another main objective of management is to ensure business development and growth. It means to make the human resources secure working in an organization by motivating them to deliver their best for overall business growth.

Primary Functions of Management

After acquainting you with the main objectives of management, we will now proceed to enlighten you with the primary functions of management:

1. Planning: Management starts with proper planning. It means chalking out a full course of action and deciding in advance how and what things are to be done to achieve the organizational goals.
2. Organizing: The bringing together of physical, financial, and human resources to develop achievable goals is the second function of management. It means to organize a business in terms of raw materials, capital, tools, and human resources.
3. Staffing: The third primary function of management is to hire the right people for the right job so that both the organization and those people grow together. It involves recruitment, training, remuneration, and appraisal procedures.
4. Leading: Call it leading or directing; it is another main function of management, where the work of subordinates is checked by the Managers. In short, it is an act of watching and directing work and workers to come to a fruitful result for an organization.
5. Controlling: The last primary function conducted by management in an organization is controlling. It means ensuring that everything is under control within the set standards to achieve the set goals for the company.

Main Characteristics of Management

Management in itself is a continuous process that has the following characteristics:

1. Management is Multidimensional: First of all, remember that management means coordinating people, work, and operations. So, management is multidimensional and involves more than one activity.
2. Management is a Social Process: To get things done by people as a Manager means establishing interpersonal relations. It is a social process where one has to understand the behavior of the team to manage them and administer the company’s procedures.
3. Management is Goal Oriented: Management helps organizations fulfil their goals by utilizing limited resources in the best optimum manner to meet the set goals. Hence, management is goal-oriented.
4. Management is Dynamic: Management is not a static but a dynamic activity that adapts itself to the changes in the environment. It is actually all about dealing with the actual directing of human efforts.
5. Management is Intangible: One can not see management with eyes, it is measured only by its results such as increased productivity, high productivity, and overall business growth.

Wrapping Up

We are pretty sure that you learned enough about the main objectives in management and what are its functions for an organization. Management indeed is the cornerstone of organizational success fostering coordination, progress, and achievement of defined goals. For those aspiring to excel in this pivotal field as successful managers, enrolling in an online MBA degree from Amity Online University offers a transformative opportunity. With a curriculum designed to blend theoretical knowledge with practical application, Amity’s online MBA empowers you with cutting-edge insights and global perspectives.

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