Management Philosophy

Management Philosophy

Definition of Management

Management is the administration of a business, an organization, a non-profit organization, or a government body. The management process includes setting the strategies of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees to the accomplishment of set objectives. Management is done through the application of the available resources, finances, human resources, and technology. The term management might also be used to describe those people managing an organization who are the managers. Large organizations have three levels of managers organized as the top-level managers, middle and lower-level managers. The senior managers or the top level are like the chief executive officers, the board of directors, or the organization’s president. They are responsible for the decision making of the organization and setting strategic goals. The senior managers also provide information to the middle management who report to them directly or indirectly. Secondly, the middle-level managers include the branch, regional, and department managers who communicate strategic goals to the top management. Thirdly, the lower-level managers are mainly the supervisors who oversee the employees and provide the work direction.

Management Philosophy

As leaders, people need to be grounded in who they are. This serves as a moral compass of leading and inspiring others. The more consistently a leader applies excellent leadership skills, the more good performance beyond expectations among the employees. It is, therefore, beneficial for managers to have a management philosophy, and the benefits include; it increases the confidence of a management style; it promotes better decisions during hiring, offers team clarity on expectations, high-level performance, and staff retainment.

To create the management Philosophy, it requires one to write down their thoughts. This includes how to conduct yourself as a leader and what management style you should use. The answers to these questions are part of the management philosophy. As a manager you should treat people well and promote professional growth among your team. In this case, I will discuss the Max Weber Philosophy of management and how it is beneficial in day to day life.

Max Weber Theory

Definition

The bureaucratic theory of management emphasizes on the efficient management of organization that has a clear line of rules, regulations and procedures for a business operation to take place . Bureaucracy is where one has control over a group of people through the knowledge , authority and power.

The theory has shown to focus on the order of hierachy in an organization and the procedures, rules and regulations for carrying out businessess.

Kinds of powers in an organization

Max Weber was a German sociologist and a political economist who was very concerned with the issue of bureaucracy in management. He explained the three kinds of powers that is:

Traditional authority where the workers are all considered servants who follow the leader and follow the stated rules and regulations blindly

Charismatic power is where workers perform to their best the tasks allocated to them. In most cases this urge and syke to work fails when the manager dues or resigns.

Legal rational is a type of power where the employees need to follow some set principles.

Weber emphasized on a formal structure in an organization and set some principles for the maintenance of the hierarchy.

Principles of Bureaucratic theory

Authority- this is where there should be a systematic protocol of management defining positions of managers from the top level to the bottom level. With this case, employees should report to managers at their levels who then report to the next until they reach the top management team

Formal rules and reguations- the set principles, rules and procedures in an organization should be done in written gorms to facilitate official communication among teams.

Division of labour- work should be divided into tasks and be assigned to those individuals who are capable of doing them diligently without failure. This does not only improve the efficiency of work but it ensures proper job allocation.

Career orientation- managers should provide jobs security and motivate their employees so as to build a long term engaging contracts with them to increase productivity.

Impersonality- Weber emphasized on the avoidance of impersonation as it leads to nepotism and favourism. He said that rules should not be based on personal relationship with employees but should be based on the rational and practical grounds.

Formal selection process- Weber emphasized on the recruition of workers based on yheir technical skills and experience but not the basis of who came first. Promotions should also be based on the merits and performance and this will lead to employees satisfaction and more growth within the organization.

Advantages if Bureaucracy

Expertise or specialization- work is divided according to the level of skills ,expertise and capabilities leading to the production. Of quality results in the work place.

Recruitment on the basis of skills- employees are recruited according to their skills, expertise and experience ensuring that a person is in the right place at the job area.

Predictability- a systematic hierarchy allows one to follow rules and regulations and hence the reporting of complex tasks becomes easier and more manageable.

Structure- an organization will be systematic due to the rules, regulations and procedures followed in a defined manner.

Proper and appropriate record keeping – this ensures that no information is lost, reference can be traced at any time and also other future workers can get a chance to trace records.

Rationality- through record of operations, one can easily frame laws, procedures, rules and regulations as based on their experiences.

Disadvantages of Bureaucracy

There is one way communication- employees can only take orders , take and rules from the top level managers without expressing their feedback to the top management

Exploitation of power- managers are the overall in charges and atimes can take interests and misuses their subordinates.

Waste of time, money and efforts- records of all the transcations done will require time, materials and personnel

Slow decision making – this is because the top managers are the ones making decisions and hence the other managers have to wait even in emergencies

Lack of innovation and creativity- employees have no to for interaction, collaboration and discussions and hence cannot be able to be creative at work.

Inflexibility and rigidity- the management system does not encourage any change or opmion from the other parties making it rigid and inflexible

In conclusion, bureaucracy is the use of power and authority to control something hence seen as negative among people. It inititiates the proper distribution if power in an organization and allows businesses to follow rules and regulations.

Decision making

Currently, most managers rely on their team in decision making process, they collect ideas from all the employees to facilitate a given idea. Todays managers are also very flexible with changes of mind when they get new opinions or ideas. They are likely to take their to in most activities before implementing them. They are also slow in operations and collect a lot of information about a given idea before executing it.

Besides, according to Max Weber theory, decisions should only be made by the authority this ensures that they set rules and regulations that are intended to meet the objectives of the organization. The authority are responsible for setting goals and targets for the organization. After making decisions, the top managers send them to the others so as to pass decisions made regarding operations. For example the issue of time management, the authority will set time required for operations to begin and the working hours required for an individual. After setting the time, they will initiate rules and regulations and communicate them to the employees. The employees are supposed to adhere to these rules and regulations on time management.

If any issue with time management arise the lower level managers who are the supervisors will report to the middle level managers who will eventually report to the top level managers to enable them initiate response on how to handle that issue. It is therefore appropriate for the application of bureacracy in decision making as it saves time, removes bias and facilitates decisions from the top levels that are legit and facilitates organization running in a desired direction.

Real life experiences

There is a way in which bureacracy operates during the daily life activities. This can be clearly explained but the normal activities carried out within a normal day which is prepared in order just like the bureacractic system. For many , a normal day starts at around five o’clock in the morning where people do exercises and then take a walking path. It is then followed by preparation of breakfast where they use fuel or electricity for cooking. At around seven o’clock people start to prepare to go to colleges, work and prepare children for school. At around eight o’clock, lectures begin in many institutions followed by a tea break and then lunch break respectively. In other days, lectures are not there, and people indulge in Co curricula activities such as games and sports. Evenings are for dinner preparation and other days from catching up with friends in restaurants.

Through all these activities listed, bureaucracy has to be applied in limiting the daily expenditure on various issues, and hence people are required to work extra hard to meet their required essesntials. The other activity of daily living applying bureacracy where health sectors regulate the release of drugs where they advice individuals to exercise and limit their most times to contact with the doctor and reduce the cost of medications. In addition, bureacracy is seen in activities such as social regulations where the politicians influence issues such as marriage and abortions. The authority also ensures safe learning environment s but providing students with less costs of studying, clean environment and being comfortable for achievement in academics. Besides, this issue of bureacracy has assisted governments in the process of hiring jobs and hence provision of jobs to the unemployed youth who have the best skills and qualities but are not having jobs.

Besides, it is clear that students activities can be affected by bureacracy just like a normal citizen. This is because students occupy spaces controlled by the government . Among these areas, the government set rules that affect citizens in various ways. To ensure a quality working environment, workers are given good working conditions by the authority and they have no reason Tor present poorly done work.

Finally, Let’s take for example the Kenyan government, they have some non elected members in the various positions on power. In organizations there are workers such as clerks and others who directs one or make them wait as the boss handling another issues . This is more of bureaucracy and how the hierachical authority is followed. Other examples are universities , colleges and schools where they derive authority from the state and lay down the necessary rules to be followed and the presents how bureaucracy it is. In military organizations protocols of bureaucracy is also followed

The other example of Bureaucratic theory is in the United States, this is where one who apply for a job disappears until the the end of a process where they emerge again.

Application of theory in today’s businesses

Max Weber Theory of management was called the bureaucratic theory. He emphasized on the strict following of rules and distribution of power firmly. According to todays world, most managers are open to ideas and very flexible at work which was greatly opposed by Max Weber. He only emphasized on speed, precision, uncomplexity, continuity , strict subordination, and unity. In this theory, Max Weber prioritizes efficiency but this is not the best practice for leaders to apply. He discourages creativity and collaboration among team members in the workplace and so much against being flexible and taking risks. They are also slow in operations and collect a lot of information about a given idea before executing it. Today’s managers work with their team members in various activities without subordination of staff.

Furthermore, Weber Theory has key elements that emphasized on the: the clear definition of jobs where he saw that jobs should be delegated as per skills and abilities. He did not want the idea of flexibility but rather people should stick to what they are responsible of doing. The fragementationof roles was seen to disrupt the authroity. Besides, the aspect did not promote collaboration , team work and creativity. As for today’s management systems, people are encouraged to work together as a team, they should exchange ideas and boost their innovative skills but also , this habit wastes time and the delegation according to abilities results in the productions of quality results due to areas of specializations. Respect is also enhanced with the delegation of duties as employees do their roles and duties without failing.

Secondly, Weber emphasized on the importance of record keeping in any position, occurrence and concerns that comes up. In most cases today, managers should be very responsible in keeping records this is to avoid misunderstandings that may come along in cases where an employee is sick to ensure the Gap is filled at the moment. Record keeping also assist members in keeping track of their time and progress at work. Time management is key as managers should always check how the employees use time effectively.

The other thing that managers should apply from Max Weber is hiring of staff based on qualifications. This mainly facilitates the production of quality results in a particular field. Managers should not hire people based on how they look at the but rather expertise and experiences in areas of specializations.

On the issue of work relationship, Weber does not encourage this. He terms that work is not a social place for people to talk and make storeies. He emphasizes on small talks, little collaboration and sharing of ideas. Regarding this, today’s managers can save time and encourage independence and allowing minimal interaction time among employees so as to achieve quality based on areas of specializations and avoid mixing up of ideas in the company.

Additionally, for a business owner, this theory provides some potentials insights and some downfalls. Although this form of theory is mainly identified in large companies, the smalls companies may have hierarchy which is Bureaucratic in nature . A business may have separation of duties, and common set policies or rules to guide it’s team mebersm . In most cases, the common issues such as the ownership of property, job qualifications and many other issues in a business stems from a Bureaucratic model.

Finally, in today’s businesses bureacracies us found everywhere. The health organizations, the motor vehicles departments, finance lending organizations and insurance company have people deal with situations in a Bureaucratic way. The leaders enforce rules and regulations they need the others to work efficiently and in most cases the ideal bureacracy enables people to work based on the clearly defined rules and are never influenced by any interspersonal relationships. In most cases this issue of bureacracy most often fails because of the chain of command principle where the leaders set definite rules to be followed by the subordinates.

References

Fayol, H. (2016). General and industrial management. Ravenio Books.

Mullins, W., & Schoar, A. (2016). How do CEOs see their roles? Management philosophies and styles in family and non-family firms. Journal of Financial Economics, 119(1), 24-43.

Khorasani, S. T., & Almasifard, M. (2017). Evolution of management theory within 20 century: A systemic overview of paradigm shifts in management. International Review of Management and Marketing, 7(3), 134-137.

Kanter, R. M. (2019). The future of bureaucracy and hierarchy in organizational theory: a report from the field. In Social theory for a changing society (pp. 63-93). Routledge.

Bauer, M. W., & Ege, J. (2016). Bureaucratic autonomy of international organizations’ secretariats. Journal of European Public Policy, 23(7), 1019-1037.

Swedberg, R. (2018). Max Weber and the idea of economic sociology. Princeton University Press.

Jamaluddin, H. A. (2018). Modern Bureautration Models. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6(10), 25-33.