Management: The process of effectively getting things done through the effort of other people?

During the last two minutes of a very close basketball game the coach will normally call a timeout  to carefully diagram a number of winning plays to ensure his team would win the game. 

He will tell his players to follow the designed plays to the letter. Once the plays are followed it would ensure their triumph. In that process the coach got things done through the efforts of his players.

But it is not actually easy to get things done through other people because leaders/mamagers need to do thier own homework too. As Managers/Leaders they need to show to thier subordinate that they know every aspect of the things that they want them to do.

For example, if a leader/manager's objective is to increase his organization's sales for the second-half of a calendar year. It’s therefore incumbent upon the leader/manager to masterfully study the marketing strategy that he/she will be using.

Before he/she cascade it to his/her subordinates in that process when workshop time comes on how to operationalize the marketing strategy the leader/manager will now be able to answer every question that they will be thrown at him.

Let us always remember that before we can get things done through our subordinates we need to know every detail of the things that we want them to do. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

The crucial role of positive employee attitude

The attitudes of employees are catalyst to organizational success and failure. If employees have a positive attitude towards their work, it will make the achievement of organizational goals a lot easier for management.

But are there sure-fire methods to ensure that employees will have a positive attitude towards their work? Yes there are here are three:

1. Equitably treat your employees. For example on the aspect of salary, give them what is rightfully due to them. If your organization is earning it is just right that you plough back some of the earning to your employees’ salary and non-salary benefits. But the reality is some organizations are very selfish for the reason that they don’t want to give what is rightfully due to their employees.

2. Respect their dignity by way of providing them habitable and humane working conditions. If workers are not provided humane working conditions their productivity is always affected. How could they meet their goals if their working condition is not suitable?

 3. Lead by example: If you say that you want them to render overtime work because there is a sudden increase of the demand of your products. It is proper that you also render overtime work even if it is an unpaid overtime.  Be there with your subordinates your presence is essential to their motivation.

In this age of cutting-edge technology your human resources or employees are still the most vital component of your organization. Treat them well because their positive work attitude is vital to your organization’s success. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

Learn to share you authority

One aspect of leadership is it deals with authority that emanates from the leader. This authority cascades down to the lowest level in the organization. As such there are some leaders/managers who exploit this authority to the hilt. They become too autocratic that they centralize every organizational decisions and power.

But is centralization of authority and power correct? A good leader is someone who knows when and how to share his authority. He must learn to trust his subordinates by sharing some of his authority with them. In return the leader is enhancing his subordinates’ commitment   and dedication to his job and to their organization as a whole.

We must remember that a leader doesn’t exist for oneself alone; he deals with his people and he motivates them to work hard. Therefore it is a must for leaders to know how to share their authority with their subordinates.

Being the one who directly know their abilities the leader should calibrate the authority that he will be sharing with his subordinate. He must also ensure that there is a responsibility and accountability attached for every degree of authority that is shared.

Think about sharing some of your authority, it will be good for you, for your subordinates and for your organization. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

Maximizing your subordinates’ full potential

There are many ways how to fully maximize the usefulness of your subordinates without incurring additional cost to your organization. Maybe, you could think of closely monitoring their job performance. You could also think of reassigning them to a department where you know that they are most qualified and competent.

For example if you have an accounting graduate who is working in the production department. If there's an opportunity it is best therefore to transfer him/her to the accounting department. where the organization could make full use of his/her  knowledge in accounting.

Another method is not to limit your subordinates’ job to their assigned task only. We could think of using job rotation every now and then. This is for the reason that there are subordinates who truly desire to know more than what they presently know. And job rotation is the perfect management tool to address this desire.

When you use job rotation you also maximize your subordinates’ full potential and you expand their job knowledge. When you do this you are actually enhancing their job motivation because you’re addressing their psychological need to learn more skills.  - Marino J. Dasmarinas

The Coaching function of a Leader/Manager

Once in a while a leader/manager must harness his coaching skills most especially when he observes that a subordinate is performing below of what is expected of him.  For example, a car salesman’s output that is always on the rise suddenly drops to an alarming level.  A production worker who previously exceeds his work output is unexpectedly not anymore able to meet his production targets.

The coaching skill of a leader/manager is very useful during this kind of situation. To do this the Leader/Manager should talk to the person concerned so that he could discover the problem and eventually find a solution. After discovering what bothers the concerned person he must once again motivate the concerned person.

Therefore the leader/manager must know how to empathize and listen to his subordinate. After empathizing and listening it is incumbent upon the leader to inject life and motivation to the subject subordinate and this is done thru effective coaching.    

Because it requires personal interaction coaching is ideally done on a one-on-one basis. This is to facilitate effective transfer of ideas, motivation and inspirations. - Marino J. Dasmarinas 

The significance of empowerment

Empowerment is an organizational technique that is used by leaders and managers to fully harness the effectiveness of an organization and the human resource inside it. By using empowerment managers and leaders are able to free themselves of unnecessary work pressure. 

Thereby enabling them to focus more attention on other important responsibilities. When you use empowerment you are actually multiplying your authority. You create an extension of yourself through your subordinates.     

But before using empowerment as a means to efficiently manage your human resource and organization. You should see to it first that they (HR) are mature and competent enough to understand the responsibilities attached with empowerment. Otherwise if they are not mature and competent, empowerment then becomes an exercise in futility.

Among many other attributes, empowerment provides autonomy with accountability it frees the organization unnecessary centralization of power and resources. It helps develop competence, motivation and leadership on your human resource.

The end result of empowerment is you create an effective organization that can immediately respond to any organizational contingencies. Your subordinates are immediately able to decide and solve organizational issues based on the authority that you’ve empowered to them. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

Is your leadership influence diminishing?

If there is a leadership influence arrow, the direction of the leadership influence arrow must always be upward never downward. The moment the direction of the leadership arrow goes downward it simply means that the leader is losing grip of his leadership.

But is it possible for leaders to lose their leadership influence? Of course it’s very possible for leaders to slowly lose their leadership influence. This could happen when leaders become complacent that they would think that they are already indispensable in their possession of authority.    

Therefore the leader stops motivating himself and his people; he will not anymore lead by example. He instead will just be satisfied with the status quo and assume that his subordinates are not anymore in need of his leadership. Instead of leading by example he would be content on delegating his functions and so forth.

What would be the net result of this kind of diminishing and complacent leadership? Targets will not be met, the leader will not be anymore respected, and there will be breakdown of discipline just to name a few. 

So what must a leader do to re-assert his diminishing influence? Very simple actually! He must once again have the fire in his belly to inspire and motivate his subordinates by means of walking his talk, by reinforcing his competence and by leading by example once again. - Marino J. Dasmarinas