As a business owner or a manager, one must be careful while making his/her decisions, since the future of the business relies heavily on such decisions. Managers have to acknowledge the importance of their roles in running businesses, especially when dealing with new ventures. Due to the stiff competition amongst businesses, any deviation from the managerial roles may result in huge losses in terms of financial and customer loss.
Therefore, managers and owners of small businesses should adopt a sound management policy. A manager should act competently and be aware of his or her roles in an organization (Kim & Bewley, 2007). There are four major roles that a manager ought to execute in his/her position, which includes planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
In an organization, planning is an important managerial role. It involves setting up a destination, assessing the possible courses of action, and developing the necessary strategies for its achievement (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). In formulating this plan, the employees’ inputs should be thoroughly evaluated and include the merited ideas in the plan. A vision is not complete if it is not communicated to all stakeholders involved in its implementation.
The vision should thus be communicated to all employees through the right channels. In the course of its execution, the manager ought to make regular appraisals to determine if the strategies are well utilized towards the achievement of the set goals. At this point, amendments may be done if deviations are evident. Jobs should be assigned based on experience, specialty, and clear targets, which are set in advance in a bid to asses each employee against the set specifications.
Control is also another vital area that managers ought to execute. The control function broadly implies the application of the necessary management skills to influence the results of other subunits in an organization (Kim & Bewley, 2007). It also involves influencing the employees’ behaviors and attitudes to help in raising their morale. The controlling function is a major managerial function, and if a business is well controlled, everything else will fall in place.
When properly coordinated, the performance of a business will improve since the organization is in a position to implement its strategies efficiently. The control function involves four major steps, viz. setting out the standards, measuring performance, comparison of performance and the standards, and taking the appropriate action.
The action taken can be in the form of altering the performance standards, either by setting them higher or lower. Regular assessments and feedback on the progress of the business are recommended as deviations from the firm’s set objectives are noted and controlled in time.
Leadership is the other key managerial function. A business owner should adopt the best leadership style that will fit the needs of the organization and lead to the achievement of the set goals. In this leadership role, managers should demonstrate competence and honesty and act as role models to their subordinates.
The leadership styles available include the autocratic style of leadership, servant leadership, and the transformational style (Baechle & Earle, 2008). Amongst the three, I would recommend the transformational style of leadership since it allows employees to contribute to the decision-making process, thus increasing their morale since they work on policies and strategies set based on their contributions.
The organization function of managers involves the identification and classification of jobs into groups before assigning them to employees. It involves the delegation of power and authority to persons below the manager in the leadership hierarchy. Delegation of power and authority is a top-down process where a top officer bestows power upon a junior worker (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). However, all employees to whom power is given should remain answerable to the top manager.
The organizing role incorporates a division of labor and assigning duties to various employees based on their expertise and experience in a particular task. Similar jobs are merged, and thus, they can be executed concurrently. Linking various departments in an organization is also a key area in the organizing role. All departments should be harmonized to work together towards achieving the set business objectives.
Human resource capital is an important factor of production in an accounting firm. A notable amount of effort should be directed towards motivating workers and encouraging them to perform the allocated tasks to the expected standards. In this accounting firm, little or no efforts have been made to achieve this objective. In light of this realization, I would recommend teamwork in executing different tasks. A gain-sharing scheme should be introduced in the firm based on teamwork and not individual’s work (Baechle & Earle, 2008).
Gainsharing is a plan whereby the employer surrenders some amount of profits resulting from workers’ hard work to be shared by employees. The portion of the profits received by employees depends on their efforts against the plan. It involves setting a goal for employees, and if they achieve it, a portion of the total profits made in a financial year is set aside for the employees.
This plan is effective as it improves the workers’ morale and encourages them to monitor each other’s behavior since for them to achieve the set target, everyone must be engaged actively and responsibly. Alternatively, the employee’s pay should be on a quantum merit basis whereby they are paid according to their efforts.
Employees will feel motivated to work diligently to earn some extra money. This plan should go hand in hand with a bonus scheme to reward the best performing employees. In this case, employees who meet all customer requirements should be awarded a bonus on top of their salaries.
On the recruitment of staff, I recommend that you conduct the exercise yourself instead of delegating the same to some other people. Only people with the requisite knowledge and skills should be considered for the position. Interviews should seek to determine the best candidate, and thus, you should seek to identify the candidate’s preferences and compare them with the organization’s culture.
In the interview, you may start by asking the prospective candidates on their work history and then dig deep into their background information concerning the position under offer. Also, dwell on the situational interview (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). The situational interview focuses on the employees’ experience in the field of accounting. The best candidate to fill the position must have excellent working records in his/her previous job and must have worked in a similar position.
The selected employee should be given a good salary, which may be determined by evaluating the salaries of workers in other firms working in similar positions. Therefore, it should not be less than what other firms pay their employees.
Employees need to be empowered in their respective jobs to handle new challenges arising in the course of executing their duties. A permanent training scheme manned by experts should be put in place within the human resources department to offer continuous training to both incoming employees as well as those who are already in the firm.
Although the four roles mentioned above of managers are equally important, the control function is the key role that fits in all the other functions. For the other three functions to be effective, control must be executed on them. The organizing function involves assigning different roles to different employees in the firm, but on the other hand, control must be exercised on the employees’ activities. Moreover, in executing the leadership function, control must be incorporated since, as a leader, one has control of all activities in a firm.
Control and planning functions go hand in hand since for an organization to achieve the set goals; control measures have to be put in place to avoid any deviation from the set objectives. Planning only paints a picture of what is to be done, but it cannot work well without proper monitoring and control (Kim & Bewley, 2007).
Proper and timely information is very necessary for an organization as it helps in detecting the problems early enough before the origination’s reputation is tarnished. Feedback on the progress of the events in a company is also important as it helps business owners or managers in determining if they are in the right direction in their efforts to achieve the set organizational objectives.
References
Baechle, R., & Earle, R. (2008). Essentials of strength training and conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human kinetics.
Kim, J., & Bewley, T. (2007). A linear systems approach to flow control. Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 39(1), 383-417.
Koontz, H., & Weihrich, H. (2006). Essentials of management. New Delhi, India: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.