Functions of Management

Functions of Management
Carolina Silva
MGT/330
January 10, 2011
Kathryn Hayman

Functions of Management
Presently, as we go on through the day we find ourselves in a highly developed and competitive world. And the most competitive of all is business. To be successful in business, you have to be willing to learn good management skills. The four functions of management are: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
To begin, we can define management as “the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals” (Bateman and Snell, 2009). Real estate is one of the few kinds of organizations that can be mistakenly described as successful without necessarily being the direct result of good management. “Many people are attracted to real estate because of the stories they hear about the fabulous returns. They are prone to credit returns to capital without giving adequate consideration to management. Ignorance and inexperience in management can lead to serious investment errors.” (Irving F. Davis, 1973) Several sales persons have become brokers and have opened their own brokerage firm based on their success and have found themselves that when their momentum has run out their income has diminished and then they realize that they will need other sales persons working for them if they want to keep a steady income. Overlooking what a good manager should be doing they will end up working by only doing and not by what they should think about what they are doing. Managing a brokerage firm by instincts won’t take the firm to become profitable and earn high revenues. Only the ones that realize how imperative it is to recognize the importance of the four functions of management will be the ones who achieve their goal and highest expectations.
The four functions of management are: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Let’s briefly begin to define each one. Planning is taking a step back to look at all of the options at hand and...