Essentials of Management

Gortner et al. (1989) are among those who believe that leadership is essential to an understanding of management and that managers are essentially leaders from the middle. According to them, managers need to respond both to the needs of subordinates and to the requirements of higher officials, while maintaining the effective operation of the unit of organization for which they are responsible.

Gortner et al. (1989) discuss the historical development of the concepts of management and leadership, noting that different kinds of theories have been central at different periods of time. Probably the earliest theory of management and leadership was the "Great Man" theory in which the specific traits of the individual were viewed as determining his leadership and management abilities. However, over time, more complex models were developed that saw management as contingent upon many factors, including the manager's traits, attitudes, and values, the organization's environment, the situation, the employee's characteristics and motivations, and the manager's power and i

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tc. On the other hand, the monitor role is much more laborintensive and involves receiving information from a variety of sources in order to keep track of processes and problems within the organization. In addition, Mintzberg (1973) associated four major items which are characteristic to management, although not unique to manager behavior. These he described as an intense work pace, a wide variety of activities, action orientation, and communication media usage. In other words, managers tend to be more involved in action than reflection, engage in considerable communication with all levels of staff, perform a wide variety of activities that generally are of short duration individually, and work long hours without a break, often taking work home with them. Peters and Waterman While the last perspective focused on the roles and characteristics of managers in management, the work of Peters and Waterman focused on excellence in the organization based on several principles or values they felt were essential to good management. These basic principles include (1) a bias for action (similar to Mintzberg's focus on action orientation), (2) staying close to the customer, (3) autonomy and entrepreneurship, (4) productivity through peop
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1446
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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