Management: Meaning, Functions and Principles
Core
Management is a process of getting things done through others to achieve goals. Fayol's functions are planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling; modern textbooks add staffing and treat coordination as the essence. Levels are top (policy), middle (departmental) and supervisory (day-to-day). Management is science (organised knowledge), art (application and skill) and a profession (specialised knowledge and service motive, but not fully restricted by law).
Fayol's 14 principles include division of work, authority and responsibility, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interest, remuneration, centralisation, scalar chain, order, equity, stability of tenure, initiative and esprit de corps. Taylor's principles include science, not rule of thumb; harmony, not discord; cooperation, not individualism; and development of each person. Taylor also proposed functional foremanship, which conflicts with unity of command.
Worked example
A worker receives an instruction from the production supervisor to speed up and from the quality inspector to slow down for inspection. The worker is confused and output falls. Which principle is violated? Unity of command: one subordinate should receive orders from one superior. The remedy is to fix reporting lines or coordinate the two roles through a single supervisor. Reasoning: unity of direction concerns one head and one plan for a group of activities; unity of command concerns one boss per employee.
Traps
Do not interchange unity of command and unity of direction. Fayol's principles are flexible guidelines, not rigid laws. Functional foremanship deliberately violates unity of command. Management is getting things done, not doing all the work yourself. Administration sets objectives; management executes them.