Whether you are an active or aspiring manager of others or just trying to manage your own career and life, being aware of and actively practicing the four functions of management is a foundation for your success (Kinicki & Williams, 2016).
Questions
Scenario 2: Management Levels
As an MBA student in the School of Business, you are developing or honing your skills to lead for business excellence. An important point about leadership is that we influence others even if we are not in a leadership position (Kinicki & Williams, 2016). For example, at work, Sarah is not in a management position, but she often finds that she needs to manage her relationship with her boss and colleagues. Managing her boss requires a degree of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to effectively establish her goals and complete her activities.
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Scenario 3: Managerial Skills
To be good managers, Kinicki and Williams (2016) say that we need to develop strong technical, conceptual, and human skills.
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Scenario 4: Managerial Roles
Managers fulfill three important roles: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.
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References
Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2016). Management: A practical introduction (7 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.
Instructions
Do not start a new thread. Select one of the following scenarios, develop a response, and then post the response as a reply to this discussion starter. Limit your response to 150 to 300 words, demonstrate understanding of and cite the required readings or other credible sources that you apply, and look for opportunities to engage with and learn from others.
Scenarios
Scenario 1: What’s your theory?
Various theories of management have evolved over the years, most of which we can recognize are applied in our workplaces today (Kinicki & Williams, 2016). While it’s not likely appropriate to say that one theory is best, applying the right theory or combination of theories to certain situations might offer better results. By studying various theories, we can expand our perspectives and develop different approaches to handling dramatically different and dynamically changing problems (Duncan, 2013).
Discussion: For this scenario, consider the management theory or theories that best describe(s) management practices at your organization (or an organization with which you are familiar).
Scenario 2: Learning Organization
A key to organizational success is to continually adjust to, adapt with, and influence the environment. In other words, the organization and its people must continuously learn to survive, and apply that learning to thrive (Duncan, 2016; Kinicki & Williams, 2016).
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Scenario 3: Systems Viewpoint
Because business people tend to have mechanistic perspectives that focus on quantifiable behaviors and outputs, their eyes tend to glaze over when they hear about complexity theory, contingency theory, game theory, and other aspects of the system viewpoint introduced by Kinicki and Williams (2016) in Management, Ch. 2. The reality is that much of what makes people work and organizations succeed is not easily quantifiable, and may even be invisible to those who are limited by mechanistic myopia.
Developing a system perspective can help managers take a more holistic approach that illuminates patterns and associations that influence human behaviors and environmental factors that contribute to performance (Kinicki & Williams, 2016). A fundamental ingredient of becoming an effective manager is moving beyond a mechanistically myopic perspective to a system view that allows you to recognize the associations among seemingly separate factors that drive human and organizational performance (Duncan, 2017).
Questions
References
Duncan, B. A. (2013). Synthesizing disparate perspectives to improve leadership effectiveness.Retrieved from http://donnach.com/index.php/en/explorations/leade…
Duncan, B. A. (2016, June 06). Exploring the definition and controversy of organizational learning. Retrieved from http://donnach.com/index.php/en/explorations/organ…
Duncan, B. A. (2017). System perspective illuminates stress as an essential force for wellness.Retrieved from http://donnach.com/index.php/en/explorations/psych…
Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2016). Management: A practical introduction (7 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.