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What does it take to be a successful manager in modern business?
Management in the 21st Century
As the world moves through the 21st Century, business is becoming more dependent upon
professional managers, who can bring success to an organization. Issues such as
globalization and decentralization adds to the need for organizations to hire flexible
managers capable of leading. A 21st century manager should possess three traits and utilize
them to lead organizations: the ability to stimulate change, excellent planning capabilities,
and ethics.
What a manager does and how it is done can be categorized by Henri Fayols four functions
of management: Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. Through these functions
managers can be catalysts for change or by definition change agents - "People who act as
catalysts and manage the change process." (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2000,
p.438) Whether performing the role of the change agent or not, change is an integral part
of a managers job. Change is "An alteration in people, structure or technology." (Robbins
et al., 2000, p.437) Change occurs within and around organizations today at an
unprecedented speed and complexity. Change poses threats and creates opportunities. The
fact that change creates opportunities is reason why managers need to encourage change.
What a manager can change falls distinctively into the three categories stated in the
definition of change: people, structure, and technology. The manager can make alterations
in these areas in an attempt to adapt to or facilitate change. The change of people involves
changing attitudes, expectations, perceptions and behavior. These changes are used to help
people within organizations to work together more effectively. Changing structure relates
to job design, job specialization, hierarchy, formalization and all other organizational
structural variables. These changes are ones that need to be flexible and not static to be
adaptable to change. Technological change entails modification of work processes and
methods and the introduction of new equipment. Changes in this area have been enormous
especially in the areas of computing and communications.
An organizations environment has both specific and general components, or micro and
macro environments. The organization also has its own personality or culture. This
environment and culture can be the generator of forces for change. Needs from within the
organization can stimulate change; these are internal forces for change. "Of course, the
distinction between external and internal forces is blurred because an internally induced
change may be prompted by the perception of an external event." (Barney, 1992, p.755)
