Defining Management

Management? It’s not what you think ! Essay

“What is Management?” Provide an answer to this question in reference to the book “Management? It’s Not What You Think”.(Mintzberg,H,. Ahlstrand,B., and Lampel, J., Management? It’s Not What You Think! (Prentice Hall, Financial Times,2010)) Your essay should contain 5 direct quotes from the book and should be four pages(double-spaced) in length.

The concept of management for the past few decades has been an issue of concern to various schools of thoughts, organisations, and individuals all around the world. They all offer their thoughts on how they suppose to define management. They tag management various titles and at times develop misconception regarding what a manager should do. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel gave their insight on some of these misconceptions that people do possess about management. This outline will offer a linkage between the realities of the concept management to some of the views that people possess, yet they are far from offering the definition of the concept. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel book will form the main subset of this outline it will look at some of the things that management is not; while it advises on what really is management. However, other authors will offer their thoughts on what they suppose to be the management.

According to Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2010), most people concentrate on differentiation between the concept of management to the concept of leadership. Although there may be no major differences between the two concepts, most people still insist on offering their opinion on some on things that managers should perform. Instead of focusing on the differences between these two concepts, it is essential to focus on how these two concepts can be interlinked such as the “managers being leaders, while the leaders are successful managers.” Plenert (2002) advises that even though the terms are different, some of the roles that accrue to these two terms are almost similar since the variables are the similar. Just a leader is involved with managing people, so is the role of a leader in setting the pace for an organisation. Such roles are almost similar which means, by differentiating the titles we offer a different misconception on some of the things that managers should do (Lovelace & Schlumberger, 2014).

Individuals on position of management do much more than interlinking the subordinates and superiors in an organisation. They understand the events that are involved in their life hence assisting them to be productive in the organisations, and maintain a balance of their life. Crawford (2014) also offers advice on some roles that accrue to departments such as human resource and notes that even though it is part their role to determine how the workforce of an organisation are doing, it is up to them to find a way of assisting such individuals actualize the best of themselves. Such a role will involve co-opting some skill from leadership. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel adds that in as far as managers may not be proactive, they are fervent in overlooking all the issues such as managing projects, and relentlessly try to make things workable to the best of their knowledge.

Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2010) explain that although most people tend to view Managers as official in comparison to the leaders, they also have a fair share of informality in overlooking issues that are under the scope of their lives. Most managers tend to have control with schedule, and they determine the roles that they are to perform based on their position. Contrary to being very formal, managers make use of informal sources but they do so sparingly. Managers also do realise the importance of internet, but never do they spend a lot of their time on one aspect. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2010) notes “managers never spend too much time, and never too little on a single aspect. Managers know how to plan for their time in such a way they maintain a balance of the various tasks they are to perform.”