The Four Functions of Management
Patrice Davis
University of Phoenix
December 28, 2008
MANAGEMENT: THEORY, PRACTICE, APPLICATION 330
Instructor: Derek Osborn
Most people have management skills whether they know it or not. Over the course of ones
life or career one will have to deal with management directly or indirectly. You may be a
manager, work with or under a manager, or inquire a problem as a customer and have to
speak to a manager. You can use your management skills anywhere, not just at work. You
can manage an auxiliary at your church. You may even be a manager at home over your
family and finances.
Management is not just about being a manager, but about how you go about finishing
everyday tasks. Its also about motivating a group of people whether its your family,
employees or company as a whole to be the very best. If you have to put together activities
daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly its probably a lot like what you do at your own
office. The difference is on what scale are the management skills applied and who or what
do they effect. The most similar is the process of achieving the desired goal.
Per our readings we find that management is the process of working with people and
resources to accomplish organizational goals (Bateman and Snell, 2007, p.26). Another
common view is that “management” is getting things done through others. Yet another
view, quite apart from the traditional view, assets that the job of management is to support
employees efforts to be fully productive members of the organizations and citizens of the
community (McNamara, 2007). The four functions of management planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling are what this paper will discuss and define. I will also try to relate
this to my everyday life.
Planning is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate
actions needed to achieve those goals (Bateman and Snell, 2007, p.26). When planning
you must define exactly what the end goal is. In order to figure out what the goal is and
how to achieve ityou must put a plan of action together. In doing so you may need to
analyze the situations at hand. Try to hypothesize what may happen in the future that may
deter you from achieving your goal, and try to have a plan of action to offset that from
happening. Determine what the whole point of the project is. What is the objective? Decide
