Chapter 11: Directing

A business may have a completed plan, a settled structure and competent people appointed to every post, and still produce nothing. A plan commits nothing to action, an organisation chart moves no goods, and an appointment letter does no work. Production begins only when someone issues the day’s instructions, shows how the work is to be done, gives the workers a reason to do it well, and keeps information moving in both directions between the shop floor and the office. A garment unit holding an export order illustrates the point. The work has been divided between cutting, stitching and packing, and operators have been hired for each stage. Until the supervisor issues the day’s schedule, corrects the operator working to a wrong measurement, settles a grievance before it halts the line and reports output upward, the order remains on paper and the shipping date is missed. Directing is the function that converts plans into performance, and it is the only function of management that works directly on human behaviour. This chapter sets out the meaning, nature and importance of directing, and examines its four elements — supervision, motivation, leadership and communication.

Figure

Fig. 11.0-1 — A Supervisor Guiding Operators On A Factory Floor Photograph of a supervisor standing beside a row of machine operators in a small Indian factory, explaining the day’s work to one of them.

11.1 Meaning and Nature of Directing

Planning settles what is to be done, organising settles who will do it and with what authority, and staffing puts people into the posts so created. None of these three produces a single unit of output. The decisions taken in them have to be turned into instructions a worker can act upon, and the worker has to be willing to act upon them.

Directing is that part of the management process which instructs, guides, supervises and inspires employees so that they work efficiently and effectively towards objectives already decided. It covers the issue of orders and instructions, overseeing people while they work, creating conditions in which they can perform to the best of their ability, motivating them and providing leadership to them.

Ernest Dale describes the function in plainer terms as telling people what to do and seeing that they do it as well as they can, which includes making assignments, explaining procedures, correcting mistakes and giving instructions on the job. Both descriptions point to the same thing: directing is management in action rather than management on paper.

Directing therefore stands between the preparatory functions and control, as summarised in FC 11.1.

Flowchart

FC 11.1 — Directing In The Management Process Planning → Organising → Staffing → Directing → Performance → Controlling

Definition

Directing Koontz and O’Donnell treat directing as the interpersonal aspect of managing, by which subordinates are led to understand the objectives of the enterprise and to contribute to their attainment effectively and efficiently.

Features Of Directing

Management function — directing is one of the functions every manager performs, and it is through directing that the plan, the structure and the staff are actually set to work. Until it is exercised, the other functions remain preparatory.
Continuing function — a single order does not exhaust it. Work throws up fresh problems, new employees join, methods change, and guidance, supervision and motivation must therefore continue for as long as the organisation lasts.
Result-oriented function — directing converts plans into performance, and its efficiency is judged by the results produced and not by the number of instructions issued.
Pervasive function — it is performed at every level of the organisation, because every superior directs those who report to him. It flows downward, from the chief executive to the supervisor on the floor.
Linking function — planning fixes the target and controlling measures what was actually achieved against it. Directing produces the performance that control measures, and without it control would have nothing to compare with the plan.
Concerned with human behaviour — directing works on people rather than on machines, materials or accounts. The manager has to deal with attitudes, needs and reactions, which is why directing is described as the interpersonal aspect of managing.

Directing At Every Level

Because directing is pervasive, it takes a different form at each level of management. At the top level it appears mainly as leadership and broad guidance on policy; at the middle level as departmental instructions and coordination between sections; at the supervisory level as face-to-face instruction, correction and encouragement of workers on the job.

Business Example

Direction Down A Branch Hierarchy In a bank branch the manager settles the day’s targets and explains them to the officers. Each officer in turn instructs the clerks handling deposits, remittances and loan papers, while the head cashier oversees the counter. The same function is being performed at three levels, in three different forms, on a single working day.

11.2 Importance of Directing

Planning, organising and staffing prepare an enterprise for work; directing puts it to work. Every performance in the organisation is produced under this function, which is why directing is described as the heart of the management process. However carefully a plan is drawn or a structure designed, an enterprise cannot reach its objectives if the direction of its activities is faulty.

Initiates action — plans, charts and appointments only prepare a setting. Work actually begins when a superior issues instructions and guides subordinates through them, so directing is the point at which intention becomes activity.
Improves efficiency — every employee possesses ability that is not drawn upon automatically. Through motivation and leadership a manager persuades subordinates to work to the best of their capacity, so the same staff and the same equipment yield more than they otherwise would.
Ensures coordination — the work of one post depends on the work of another, and individuals differ in their view of how the common objective should be reached. Guidance, counselling and supervision integrate these separate efforts and settle differences before they harden into conflict.
Facilitates change — a business must adjust to changes in its environment, and employees resist change when they fear it will damage their position. Explaining the need for a change and persuading employees of its benefit is a directing task, and it is what allows change to be introduced smoothly.
Balance in the organisation — individuals join an enterprise to satisfy personal goals such as income, promotion and recognition, while the enterprise pursues goals of its own. Directing reconciles the two by making employees see that their personal goals are achieved through the achievement of organisational goals.
Stability and growth — an enterprise can expand only if capable people stay with it and continue to give their best. Sound leadership, motivation and interpersonal communication build the morale and cooperation on which both survival and growth rest.

Case Snippet

Case 11.1 — A Second Shift That Produced Nothing Harit Foods installed additional machinery and recruited operators so that a second shift could be run at its packing unit. The machines were commissioned on time and the operators reported for duty, but for the first three weeks output remained at single-shift levels. No one had been told how the changed work was to be shared, and no supervisor had been placed on the new shift. Q. Name the function of management that the management of Harit Foods neglected, and state one reason why planning, organising and staffing could not make up for its absence.

Why The Other Functions Depend On It

The remaining functions of management are preparatory or evaluative. Planning decides, organising arranges, staffing appoints and controlling measures; none of them creates output. Directing is the only function that acts on people while the work is being done, and it therefore supplies both the performance that control measures and the cooperation on which the whole structure depends.

Business Example

Explaining A Change Before Making It A distribution firm replacing handwritten delivery books with handheld devices met open resistance from its drivers, who feared being blamed for every delay the device recorded. Delivery staff accepted the system only after the branch manager explained why it was being introduced and what it would save them. The equipment had been ready for weeks; the direction was what was missing.

11.3 Elements of Directing

Directing is not a single act. Getting work done through people requires the manager to watch the work as it proceeds, to make employees willing to do it well, to secure their confidence, and to keep information passing between himself and them. These four requirements give directing its four elements, set out in FC 11.2.

Flowchart

FC 11.2 — Elements Of Directing Directing → Supervision, Motivation, Leadership, Communication

Supervision is the overseeing of subordinates at work by a superior to see that they perform in the desired manner. Instructions issued once are not enough, because mistakes appear only when the work is actually being done; supervision catches them at the point where they can still be corrected cheaply.

Motivation is the process of stimulating people to act in the desired way by arousing and satisfying their needs. An employee may know precisely what is required and still not care to do it well. Willingness cannot be ordered into existence, and motivation is the means by which it is created.

Leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour of others so that they strive willingly for common goals. Authority attached to a post can compel obedience, but it cannot compel enthusiasm; that comes only where subordinates have confidence in the person directing them.

Communication is the exchange of facts, ideas, opinions and feelings between two or more persons to create a common understanding. None of the other three elements is possible without it, since an instruction, a word of encouragement and a report of difficulty all travel as messages.

Table

The Elements Work Together

The four elements are not four separate activities performed one after another. A single working instruction may carry all of them at once: it is communicated, it is backed by the confidence subordinates place in the person issuing it, it is made attractive by what the employee stands to gain, and it is followed up by overseeing the work until it is complete.

Business Example

All Four In One Kitchen In a busy restaurant kitchen the head cook calls out each order as the slips arrive, checks every dish before it leaves the pass, sets the pace the rest of the staff follow, and notes publicly which station cleared the evening rush fastest. Communication, supervision, leadership and motivation are all being exercised in the same hour of work.

11.4 Supervision: Meaning and Functions

The word supervision is made up of two parts, ‘super’, meaning over and above, and ‘vision’, meaning seeing. Taken together they mean overseeing people at work from above. In management the term means overseeing employees while they work, so as to be satisfied that they are working in the manner desired and at the pace required.

Supervision involves face-to-face contact between a superior and his subordinates. This is what separates it from an instruction sent by circular: the person supervising is present where the work is going on, sees the mistake as it is made, and can correct it before defective work accumulates.

Definition

Supervision George R. Terry treats supervision as the achieving of desired results through the intelligent use of human talent and of the resources that support it, in a manner that offers that talent the greatest challenge and interest.

The person who performs this work is the supervisor. He is the lowest-ranking member of the management team and the only one in continuous personal contact with the operating workforce, which is why the same post carries different names in different trades.

Business Example

One Post, Many Names The person who oversees operating staff is called a foreman in an engineering workshop, an overseer on a construction site, a superintendent or section officer in an office, and a gang chief in railway and maintenance work. The designation changes with the trade; the work of overseeing does not.

Functions Of A Supervisor

Scheduling the work — the supervisor lays down which activity is taken up at what time and the period within which it is to be finished, because an even flow of work is impossible if each worker settles his own order of tasks.
Issuing orders and instructions — an order initiates, modifies or halts an activity, while an instruction tells the worker how the work is to be done. Newly appointed workers cannot begin at all until this is provided.
Guiding subordinates — he explains the plans and policies of management to workers and helps them with difficulties of technique, materials, tools and working conditions. This is his primary function, since no other manager is close enough to the work to do it.
Motivating workers — output depends on willingness as much as on skill, so the supervisor builds enthusiasm and team spirit by appreciation, recognition of good work and such incentives as he is able to recommend.
Maintaining discipline — rules and working procedures are worth nothing unless they are observed at the place where the work is done. The supervisor secures observance and reports persistent breach to higher authority.
Handling grievances — a complaint left unattended spreads through the group and hardens into resentment. The supervisor hears grievances, removes those within his own authority and carries the rest upward.
Monitoring performance — he records actual output at regular intervals and compares it with the schedule, so that a shortfall in quantity or in quality is detected while it can still be made good.
Ensuring safety — he sees that safety devices are used, that machinery is in proper condition and that hazards are removed, since an accident both halts production and injures the workforce he directs.
Reporting and feedback — he supplies management with records of output, attendance and cost, and carries back to workers what management thinks of their performance. Paperwork is therefore a real part of his job.
Serving as a linking pin — he conveys the decisions and policies of management downward and the suggestions, difficulties and complaints of workers upward, and so keeps the two sides from misunderstanding each other.

Case Snippet

Case 11.2 — The Complaint That Reached The Line Operators in the winding section of Meghna Textiles found that a revised duty roster left them without a relief break, and within a fortnight their output had fallen. The section in-charge heard them out, arranged an interim break within his own authority and placed the roster itself before the works manager the same week. Q. Name the two functions of a supervisor being performed here and state one reason why leaving the complaint unattended would have been costly to the firm.

Supervision And Directing Distinguished

Supervision and directing are close enough to be confused, since both initiate action, both involve issuing instructions and both work on the behaviour of subordinates. They are not the same thing. Directing is the wider term and supervision is one element within it, as Table 11.2 sets out.

Table

11.5 Span of Control

Supervision rests on personal contact, and personal contact takes time. A superior who has to schedule work, answer questions, correct mistakes and hear grievances can do so properly only for a limited number of people. Beyond that number the contact becomes nominal and the supervision ceases to be real.

Span of control is the number of subordinates that a superior can supervise directly and effectively. It is also described as the span of supervision or the span of management, and it is settled for each post rather than for the organisation as a whole.

Definition

Span Of Control Span of control is the number of subordinates placed under one superior, whose work that superior can direct and supervise effectively at a given level of the organisation.

Span And The Shape Of The Structure

The span fixed for each post decides how many levels of management the enterprise will have. If each superior supervises only a few subordinates, more superiors are needed and more levels appear between the chief executive and the worker. If each supervises many, fewer levels are required. The consequence is set out in FC 11.3.

Flowchart

FC 11.3 — Span Of Control And The Shape Of The Structure Narrow span → few subordinates under each superior → more levels of management → tall structure; Wide span → many subordinates under each superior → fewer levels of management → flat structure

Table

Factors Determining The Span

Nature of the work — repetitive work done to a settled method needs little explanation, so one superior can oversee many workers. Varied or non-routine work raises a fresh question in every case and permits only a few.
Ability of the superior — a superior who plans his day, delegates freely and decides quickly can attend to more subordinates than one who must handle every difficulty personally.
Competence of the subordinates — trained and experienced workers settle most matters themselves and refer little upward. Newly recruited workers need constant guidance, and their presence narrows the span.
Clarity of plans and procedures — where standing procedures and rules already answer the routine questions, the subordinate consults his superior less often and a wider span becomes workable.
Extent of delegation of authority — a superior who has delegated authority to decide is not approached for every approval. Where authority is withheld, every decision travels back to him and the span must be kept narrow.
Location of subordinates — people working in one shed or one office can be overseen together, while subordinates spread over separate sites, shifts or branches consume far more of the superior’s time.
Assistance and information available — a superior supported by an assistant, and served by prompt and reliable reporting, can supervise a larger number than one who has to gather every fact himself.

The Cost Of Getting It Wrong

A span that is too wide leaves the superior unable to give attention to each subordinate. Supervision becomes a formality, mistakes are noticed late, decisions wait for the superior’s time and discipline loosens. A span that is too narrow is expensive, since more supervisors have to be employed, and it lengthens the chain through which instructions and reports must travel, so that messages are delayed and distorted. Very close supervision of a small group may also be resented as interference and discourage initiative.

There is no figure that is correct for every situation. Early writers on management proposed a fixed number, commonly five or six subordinates at the higher levels, but present practice settles the span post by post, using the factors above. It is generally narrower at the top, where the work is varied and unstructured, and wider at the operating level, where the work is standardised.

Business Example

Two Sections, Two Spans In the data-entry section of a service firm one supervisor can oversee twenty operators, because every operator is keying the same form to the same rules. In the design section of the same firm a manager handles six people, since each drawing raises a question that has not arisen before.

11.6 Motivation: Meaning, Nature and Process

A worker can be instructed and supervised into doing what is required of him. He cannot be ordered to care about doing it well. The difference between the minimum a person will do to keep his job and the best he is capable of doing is not commanded out of him; it is drawn out. Creating that willingness is the work of motivation.

The word comes from motive, meaning the urge to do or not to do something. A motive is the force within a person that moves him to act in a particular way, and motives arise out of needs — the need for food, for security, for the good opinion of others. Motivation is accordingly the process of stimulating people to act in a desired manner by arousing these needs and offering the means of satisfying them.

Definition

Motivation William Scott describes motivation as the process of stimulating people to action so that a desired goal is accomplished.

What a manager actually offers is an incentive — a reward or a condition of work capable of satisfying a need the employee feels. Motivation is therefore the outcome of an interaction between the needs an employee brings to work and the incentives the enterprise is able to place before him. An incentive that answers no need the employee actually feels produces no motivation, whatever it costs the firm.

Nature Of Motivation

Psychological and internal — motivation arises inside a person, out of his own needs and wants. A manager cannot install it; he can only create conditions in which it comes into being.
Continuous — human wants are unlimited while the means of satisfying them are limited, and the satisfaction of one need is followed at once by another. Motivating is therefore never a finished task.
Complex — individuals differ in what they want, and the same individual wants different things at different times, so no single incentive works on everybody or works for ever.
Goal-directed — motivated behaviour is aimed at something. A motivated employee does not merely work harder; he works towards a result he expects to gain by it.
Integrated — a person is motivated or he is not, since his needs are interrelated and act upon him together. He cannot be motivated in one part of his work and indifferent in the rest of it.
Positive or negative — positive motivation offers something the employee wants, such as pay, promotion or recognition; negative motivation works through the fear of punishment. Both alter behaviour, but only the first sustains it.
A managerial function — every manager is answerable for the motivation of those under him. It is an element of directing and not the business of a separate department.
System-oriented — motivation is produced by forces within the individual, by forces within the organisation such as its structure, technology and the nature of the job, and by forces outside it such as culture and social custom.

Motivation, Job Satisfaction And Morale

The three terms are often used as though they meant the same thing. Motivation is what makes an employee willing to work and therefore comes before the work; job satisfaction is the contentment he feels after doing it; morale is the attitude of the group rather than of any one member. Table 11.4 sets out the differences.

Table

The Process Of Motivation

Motivation follows a settled sequence, summarised in FC 11.4.

Flowchart

FC 11.4 — Process Of Motivation Felt need or deficiency → tension → search for a way of removing it → effort and performance → satisfaction of the need → reduction of tension → a fresh need arises

The sequence begins with a need the person becomes aware of, which creates tension in him. To remove that tension he looks for a course of action and adopts the one that appears likely to succeed. A worker who finds his earnings inadequate may look for a better-paid post elsewhere, or may work harder in the hope of a raise. If the extra effort brings the raise, the need is satisfied, the tension falls and he continues to work at that level. If it does not, the need remains and he tries a different course. Once a need is satisfied it ceases to move him, a fresh need takes its place, and the process begins again.

Business Example

Recognition Costs Nothing A small engineering workshop began posting each month the name of the fitter whose work had come back for correction least often. No money was attached to it. Within a few months the other fitters had begun checking their own work before handing it over, because the notice board had made careful work visible to everyone in the shed.

11.7 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Motivation works by satisfying needs, so a manager who wishes to motivate must know which need an employee is presently trying to satisfy. An increase in pay does little for a worker whose earnings already meet his household requirements and who wants to be treated as somebody in the department. Abraham H. Maslow, an American psychologist, set out a classification of human needs that helps a manager make this judgement.

Maslow grouped human needs into five categories and arranged them in order of priority, the most pressing at the bottom. This arrangement is known as the hierarchy of needs, and the order in which the categories become active is shown in FC 11.5.

Flowchart

FC 11.5 — Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Physiological needs → Safety and security needs → Social needs → Esteem needs → Self-actualisation needs

Definition

Hierarchy Of Needs Abraham H. Maslow’s classification arranges human needs in five categories in order of their priority, holding that a higher need becomes active only after the need below it has been substantially satisfied.

The Five Categories Of Needs

Physiological needs — the needs for food, water, clothing, shelter and rest. They are the most basic, because life itself depends on them, and they must be met before any other need is felt. They also recur, since a person who has eaten today is hungry again tomorrow. An enterprise meets them through an adequate basic wage and tolerable working conditions.
Safety and security needs — protection against physical danger such as accident, fire or ill health, and against economic insecurity such as loss of employment, illness and old age. They are answered by security of service, safe working conditions, provident fund, gratuity, pension and group insurance.
Social needs — man is social by nature and wants affection, acceptance, friendship and a sense of belonging. Once he is fed and secure, isolation at work becomes intolerable to him. Team working, stable work groups and opportunities to mix with colleagues answer these needs.
Esteem needs — these are of two kinds. Self-esteem is the need to think well of oneself, for self-respect, confidence and a sense of competence; esteem of others is the need for recognition, status, prestige and respect. Recognition of good work, a designation that carries standing, promotion and being consulted before a decision all satisfy them.
Self-actualisation needs — the desire to become everything one is capable of becoming. These needs are never fully satisfied, because there is no limit to what a person may still make of himself; each achievement raises the level of the next. Challenging assignments, freedom to decide, opportunity to learn and permission to take a reasonable risk are what an organisation can offer here.

The Assumptions Behind The Theory

Human behaviour is based on needs, and the satisfaction of a need influences behaviour.
Needs stand in an order, running from the basic physical needs to the higher psychological ones.
A satisfied need ceases to motivate, because a want already met exerts no further pull on behaviour.
A person moves to the next level only when the need below it has been substantially satisfied.

Case Snippet

Case 11.3 — A Promotion Without A Raise Devansh Sharma has worked as a technician at Ridge Instruments for eleven years. He has now been offered the post of section leader, which carries no immediate increase in pay but gives him the authority to pass finished work and to train new recruits. He accepted the offer the same day. Q. Name the level of need in Maslow’s hierarchy that this offer satisfies, and state which need lies immediately above it.

What The Theory Offers, And Where It Falls Short

The value of the hierarchy to a manager is practical. It tells him that an incentive works only if it answers a need the employee currently feels, and that the incentive which moved a new recruit will not move the same person ten years later. It also explains why a rise in wages, offered again and again, eventually stops producing any improvement in performance.

The theory has nevertheless been criticised on several grounds. Human needs do not fall into watertight categories, and the same need may be classified in more than one of them. Needs do not always follow the stated order: a person may pursue self-actualisation while his lower needs remain unfulfilled, as artists, writers and researchers often do, and most people are seeking to satisfy several needs at the same time rather than one. There is also no fixed relation between a need and the behaviour it produces, since the same conduct may spring from different needs — one employee seeks a bonus for security, another for the standing it gives him. Finally, the order of priority itself varies with culture, upbringing and personality, so what counts as a basic need in one setting may be a higher-level need in another.

Business Example

The Same Pay, Two Different Needs Two clerks in one office draw identical salaries. One is anxious about the security of his post because his family depends entirely on it; the other, whose household is comfortable, is far more interested in being sent to represent the branch at a district meeting. An incentive that satisfies the first would leave the second unmoved.

11.8 Leadership: Meaning and Qualities

Every manager holds authority to issue orders and to enforce obedience to them. Authority of that kind can secure compliance, and compliance is the least a subordinate can give. Whether the instruction is carried out willingly, and whether the manager’s advice is sought before a difficulty becomes a loss, depends on something the post itself does not confer. That something is leadership.

Leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour and performance of others so that they strive willingly towards the achievement of common goals in a given situation. The person who exercises this influence is the leader, and those who accept his influence are his followers. He does not drive them towards the goal; he induces them to move towards it of their own accord.

Definition

Leadership Koontz and O’Donnell describe leadership as the ability of a manager to induce subordinates to work with confidence and zeal towards the objectives of the enterprise.

Features Of Leadership

Interpersonal relations — leadership exists in the relation between a leader and his followers and cannot be exercised by a person working alone. It requires at least two people.
Existence of followers — a leader derives his position from those who accept him. Where nobody accepts, there is no leader, whatever the designation on the office door.
Common goals — leadership is exercised to reach goals shared by the leader and the group. A person who moves others towards purposes of his own alone is exploiting them, not leading them.
A personal quality — the ability to influence rests on the leader’s knowledge, conduct and character, and not only on the authority attached to his post.
Continuous process — influence has to be renewed. It is maintained by constant contact and communication with the group, and it lapses when that contact stops.
Situational — the approach that succeeds with one group, or in a crisis, may fail with another group or in ordinary times. Leadership is always related to the situation in which it is exercised.
An influence process — the test of leadership is a change in the behaviour and performance of the followers. Being liked is not the same as being followed.
Reciprocal and dynamic — the followers influence the leader as much as he influences them, and he must alter his approach as conditions and the composition of the group change.

Qualities Of A Good Leader

Sound health — leading calls for long hours and sustained energy. A leader who tires easily cannot set the pace he expects others to keep.
Knowledge and intelligence — only a person who understands the work can instruct and guide correctly. He must be able to see a problem in perspective and weigh the consequences of what he proposes.
Initiative — the group waits for someone to move first. A leader has to seize an opportunity for the enterprise instead of waiting for one to present itself.
Integrity — subordinates follow willingly only a person they trust. Honesty in dealings, and consistency between what is said and what is done, are what make a leader a model to others.
Decisiveness — nothing can proceed until somebody decides. The leader must form his judgement on facts, state it firmly and not reverse it from one day to the next.
Emotional stability — a leader who loses his temper, or shows alarm when things go wrong, passes both on to the group. A cool temperament is what keeps others steady.
Self-confidence and will power — a person who doubts his own ability cannot create confidence in others, and difficulties are surmounted only where there is the will to persist through them.
Communication skill — goals, methods and reasons have to be conveyed clearly and objections heard patiently. A leader who cannot explain cannot persuade.
Vision and foresight — guidance is worth having only if it is timely, so the leader must anticipate what lies ahead and prepare the group for it before it arrives.
Sense of responsibility — he must be willing to answer for the results of what he has set in motion instead of passing the blame downward, since subordinates depend on him only so far as he can be depended upon.
Social skills — he has to understand and respect the feelings and aspirations of his subordinates, and to build friendly relations with them, because influence grows out of such relations and not out of orders.

Leadership And Management

Leadership and management are not the same thing. Leadership is one element of the directing function, which is itself one of the functions of management; management is therefore the wider term and includes leadership within it. At the same time leadership can exist where management does not, since an informal group has leaders but no managers. Every manager is expected to be a leader of his workgroup, but not every leader is a manager. The differences are set out in Table 11.5.

Table

Business Example

The Man The Gang Actually Asks On a construction site the person consulted when a difficult concrete pour goes wrong is often not the engineer in charge but the senior mason, who has handled the same difficulty on twenty sites before. He holds no managerial post and can impose no penalty, yet the gang does what he suggests.

11.9 Styles of Leadership

Leaders do not all lead in the same way. Some keep every decision in their own hands, some place decisions before the group, some leave the group to decide for itself, and some go by the rule book. The pattern of behaviour a leader habitually adopts in influencing and directing his subordinates, and particularly in the way decisions are taken, is called his leadership style. The four styles named in the syllabus are set out in FC 11.6.

Flowchart

FC 11.6 — Styles Of Leadership Styles of leadership → Autocratic, Democratic, Laissez-faire, Bureaucratic

Definition

Leadership Style Leadership style means the pattern of behaviour a leader adopts in influencing and directing his subordinates, shown chiefly in the extent to which he keeps decision-making to himself or shares it with the group.

Autocratic leadership — all decision-making power lies in the hands of the leader. He takes the decisions himself, passes them down as instructions and expects them to be followed without question, and no suggestions are invited from the team.
Democratic leadership — the leader encourages subordinates to take part in the decisions of the enterprise. He invites the members of his team to contribute ideas and suggestions and arrives at the decision in consultation with them.
Laissez-faire leadership — the leader keeps his own role in decision-making to a minimum. He indicates what is to be achieved and leaves the members of the team free to work independently, to decide how the work will be done and to settle matters among themselves.
Bureaucratic leadership — the leader insists on strict adherence to established organisational rules and procedures and operates within a clearly defined hierarchy, seeing that the team follows the prescribed process in every case.

Since leadership is situational, the style a leader actually adopts is settled by the nature of the work, the competence of the group and the circumstances of the moment, and the same person may lead differently in different parts of his own department.

Case Snippet

Case 11.4 — Two Sections, Two Approaches At Suryan Polymers the head of the tool room fixes the week’s schedule only after hearing the operators at a Monday meeting and taking their suggestions into account. In the despatch section the head prepares the schedule himself and issues it on Monday morning, expecting it to be followed exactly as written. Q. Name the style of leadership being followed in each of the two sections.

Business Example

Two Styles Under One Roof In a design firm the partner in charge gives the team the client’s brief and the delivery date and leaves the approach entirely to them. In the same firm’s accounts section the same partner examines and signs every voucher personally. One set of work is led with a free rein, the other from the front.

11.10 Communication: Meaning and Objectives

Everything a manager does in directing has to travel to someone else before it can take effect. An instruction is of no use in the manager’s head, a word of encouragement is of no use unheard, and a difficulty on the shop floor is of no use to the office unless it is reported. Communication is what carries all of them.

The word is derived from the Latin communis, meaning common, and the derivation states the purpose exactly: communication is the exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or feelings between two or more persons in order to create a common ground of understanding. It is not the mere sending of a message. Until the receiver has understood what the sender meant, nothing has been communicated.

Definition

Communication Keith Davis describes communication as the process of passing information and understanding from one person to another. Both elements are required: the information must reach the receiver, and it must be understood as the sender intended.

Characteristics Of Communication

At least two persons — there must be a sender and a receiver. A notice that reaches nobody, and a report nobody reads, are not communication at all.
A two-way process — it involves information and understanding together, and is complete only when the receiver has grasped the message and his reaction is known to the sender.
Continuous — an organisation is held together by a steady flow of instructions, reports and responses, and that flow cannot be interrupted while work is going on.
Pervasive — it is required at every level and in every department, since no manager can plan, organise, staff, direct or control without it.
Circular — the response is itself a message travelling back to the sender, so the process closes a circle instead of ending where the message was received.
Flows in every direction — downward from superior to subordinate, upward from subordinate to superior, and horizontally between people of similar rank in different departments.
Uses several media and channels — the spoken word, the written word, gesture and expression; and it passes both through formal channels laid down by the structure and through informal channels that grow up among employees.
Aims at influencing behaviour — communication is a means and not an end. Its purpose is to obtain the response the sender requires, and not merely to have passed the information on.

Figure

Fig. 11.10-1 — A Workplace Notice Board Photograph of a notice board in an office or factory carrying circulars, duty rosters and safety instructions, with two employees reading it.

Objectives Of Communication

To educate and train — employees have to be told what their work is and how it is to be done, and customers have to be told what a product does and how to use it. Neither can be assumed.
To motivate employees — telling an employee where his work fits, what is expected of him and how well he has done it creates interest in the job and a sense of pride in it.
To implement decisions quickly — a decision produces nothing until the people who must act on it know of it. Communication carries the decision down and brings back word that it has been acted upon.
To promote managerial efficiency — managers convey goals, issue instructions, guide subordinates and appraise performance through communication, so the quality of every managerial act depends on it.
To facilitate leadership — a leader influences people by explaining and persuading, and it is personal communication that maintains the relations on which that influence rests.
To carry out change — free discussion of a proposed change, and a clear statement of why it is needed, reduce the resistance that new methods and new equipment always meet.
To create coordination and teamwork — separate individuals work as a team only when each knows what the others are doing, so communication is the binding force between departments and groups.
To secure feedback — the suggestions and complaints of employees and customers reach management only if they are invited, and they are one of the cheapest sources of improvement in work methods available to a firm.

Business Example

Said Once, Then Written Down A wholesale chemist’s firm telephones every price revision to its travelling salesmen and repeats it in the written price list circulated the same week. A figure heard over a bad line and remembered wrongly becomes a wrong invoice, an argument with the retailer and, in the end, a lost customer.

11.11 Process of Communication

An idea in one person’s mind cannot pass into another’s directly. It has to be put into words or signs, carried by some medium, received, and turned back into an idea by the person at the other end — and the sender learns whether any of this has worked only when a response comes back to him. Communication therefore runs through a fixed sequence of steps, summarised in FC 11.7.

Flowchart

FC 11.7 — Process Of Communication Sender → message → encoding → channel → receiver → decoding → feedback to the sender

Sender — the person who has an idea to convey and who begins the process. He is the source of the communication, and everything that follows depends on how clearly he has settled in his own mind what he wishes to say.
Message — the subject matter conveyed: the facts, ideas, opinions, instructions or feelings that the sender wants the receiver to know or to act upon.
Encoding — putting the idea into words, figures, symbols, pictures or gestures. The language and symbols chosen must be common to both parties, since a message encoded in terms the receiver does not share cannot survive the journey.
Channel — the route or medium through which the encoded message travels: face-to-face talk, telephone, letter, circular, notice board or electronic mail. The channel decides the speed of the message, its cost, and whether any record of it survives.
Receiver — the person or group for whom the message is meant, whether as listener, reader or observer.
Decoding — the receiver turning the words and symbols back into meaning. Meaning is not carried in the words themselves; it is supplied by the receiver out of his own knowledge and experience, which is why identical words are sometimes understood quite differently.
Feedback — the reaction of the receiver travelling back to the sender. It is the only proof the sender has that his message arrived and was understood as he intended, and it completes the process.

Definition

Feedback Feedback is the response or reaction of the receiver, returned to the sender, which shows whether the message has been received and understood in the sense in which it was meant.

The sequence is not a one-way line. Once feedback is sent, the receiver has become the sender and the original sender the receiver, so the two exchange roles for as long as the exchange continues. A communication that produces no feedback is incomplete, however carefully the message was drafted.

Case Snippet

Case 11.5 — The Delivery That Was Assumed The purchase officer of Ashwin Furnishings wrote to a supplier asking that a consignment be advanced by one week, as the showroom was being opened earlier than planned. The supplier’s office read the letter but sent no reply. The purchase officer took the silence for agreement and arranged the opening accordingly; the goods arrived on the original date. Q. Name the element of the communication process that was missing here, and state one reason why the process cannot be treated as complete without it.

Business Example

Choosing The Channel A bank branch informs its own staff of a change in deposit rates by written circular, so that a record exists and can be referred to at the counter. The same change goes to customers by text message, because there it matters more that the news arrives at once than that it is preserved.

11.12 Barriers to Communication

Communication seldom works as neatly as its process suggests. Something can go wrong at every step: the idea may be poorly expressed, the line may be noisy, the receiver may attach a different meaning to the words, or he may not be listening at all. The obstructions that prevent a message from arriving, or from being understood as it was meant, are called barriers to communication. Their main types are classified in FC 11.8.

Flowchart

FC 11.8 — Barriers To Communication Barriers to communication → Physical barriers, Semantic barriers, Personal barriers, Organisational barriers

Definition

Barriers To Communication Barriers to communication are the obstructions arising at any step of the process which prevent a message from reaching the receiver, or from being understood by him in the sense the sender intended.

Physical Barriers

Distance — where sender and receiver are far apart, the message has to pass through intermediaries or over a line, and each stage is an opportunity for it to be delayed or altered.
Noise and disturbance — the noise of machinery in a shed, or a disturbance on a telephone line, blots out part of what is said, and the receiver reconstructs the missing part from guesswork.
Defective equipment — a faulty instrument, a blurred copy or a failure of the network stops the message altogether or delivers it incomplete.

Semantic Or Language Barriers

Badly expressed message — wrong words, poor vocabulary and the omission of necessary words leave the receiver unable to recover the meaning that was intended.
Words with more than one meaning — the same word may mean one thing in the production department and something else in the sales department, and communication fails whenever sender and receiver attach different meanings to it.
Technical jargon — specialists use terms peculiar to their own field, which an ordinary receiver does not follow and is often reluctant to admit he has not followed.
Faulty translation — a message drafted in one language and rendered into another by a person not proficient in both changes its sense in the passage.
Unclarified assumptions — the sender leaves unsaid what seems obvious to him, the receiver assumes something different, and each believes the matter settled.

Personal Or Psychological Barriers

Differences of judgement and values — personal attitudes, prejudices and a sense of superiority or inferiority colour the way a message is read, so the same words reach two people as two different messages.
Lack of mutual trust — where the receiver doubts the sender, the message is discounted before it is examined. Inconsistency between what a person says and what he does destroys trust faster than anything else.
Inattention — the receiver’s mind is elsewhere, either from pressure of work or because the message runs against what he expects to hear, and poor retention completes the loss.
Premature evaluation — some people form a judgement before hearing or reading the whole of a message, and everything after the point of judgement is disregarded.
Resistance to change — a person anxious to keep things as they are overlooks messages that carry new ideas, since attending to them would oblige him to act.

Organisational Barriers

Complex structure — where there are many levels, a message passes through several filtering points. Each level abridges it, so information is delayed and distorted, most of all when it is travelling upward.
Status difference — a superior may pass on only selected information in order to preserve his standing, and subordinates tend to report only what they believe will be well received. Status filters the flow in both directions.
Organisational policy — where policy does not favour the free flow of information, communication is hampered. In a highly centralised firm subordinates hesitate to approach their superiors at all.
Rigid rules and procedures — insistence that everything travel through prescribed channels, and cumbersome procedure at each of them, delays messages and discourages people from sending them.
Lack of facilities — without suggestion boxes, complaint boxes, regular meetings and reasonably open dealings, upward communication has no route by which to move.

Besides these, pressure of work leaves managers no time to explain, an unsuitable medium is sometimes chosen for an important message, and an employee flooded with circulars and reports beyond what he can absorb ends by reading none of them carefully.

Case Snippet

Case 11.6 — Ready By The End Of The Month The production head of Nalanda Prints wrote to the sales office that a school’s order would be ready by the end of the month. The sales office promised delivery on the thirtieth. The production head had meant that printing would be finished by then, with binding still to follow. Q. Identify the barrier to communication at work here, state the category to which it belongs, and name one step that would have prevented it.

Business Example

A Complaint That Climbed Four Floors An operator reported an unusual vibration in a machine to his supervisor, who mentioned it to the shift in-charge, who included it in a weekly note to the works manager. By the time the maintenance department was told, a bearing had seized. Nothing was suppressed; the message simply took four levels to travel.

11.13 Overcoming Barriers to Communication

Barriers cannot be abolished, because they arise from distance, from language and from human nature itself. They can, however, be reduced, and reducing them is part of the manager’s ordinary work rather than a separate exercise. The measures below act on the points at which messages are most often lost.

Clarify the idea before communicating — the sender should settle in his own mind exactly what he wants the receiver to know or to do, and say enough for the receiver to act without guessing. A message confused at its source does not become clear on the way.
Know the receiver and use proper language — words and symbols should match the education, experience and vocabulary of the person addressed. Simple language and short sentences remove most semantic barriers before they arise.
Choose the channel to suit the purpose — a matter that must be capable of proof goes in writing, one needing immediate action goes by telephone or in person, and one requiring persuasion is best handled face to face.
Communicate both ways — the receiver must be able to question, object and reply. Where the flow runs only downward, communication becomes a series of announcements and the sender never discovers what has been understood.
Keep the structure sound — a short chain of command, clearly fixed authority and responsibility for every post, and a regulated flow of information reduce both distortion and overload. Every level a message must cross is a level at which it can be cut.
Maintain consistency between words and action — a message carries conviction only where it agrees with the declared policy of the enterprise and with the manager’s own conduct. Contradiction between the two destroys the value of everything he says afterwards.
Listen with patience — the superior should hear the other person out and hold his own reactions in check while doing so, since half-listening loses precisely the information that upward communication was meant to bring.
Consider the receiver’s interest — a message related to the needs and interests of the receiver secures attention, so an instruction is better received when the reason for it, and what it saves the receiver, are stated with it.
Watch tone and gesture — the tone of voice, the expression and the gesture must agree with the words used, because where the two conflict the receiver believes the manner and not the message.
Use the grapevine intelligently — informal channels move faster than formal ones and cannot be suppressed. A manager who keeps them supplied with correct information prevents rumour from occupying the space that official silence leaves.
Secure feedback and follow up — the receiver should be encouraged to state his reaction, and every instruction should be followed up to see whether it was understood and acted upon. An open door and regular personal contact are what make this possible.

Definition

Grapevine The grapevine is the informal channel of communication that grows up among employees outside the official structure and carries information by personal contact rather than through prescribed channels.

The test of all these measures is a practical one. Communication has succeeded not when the circular has been issued or the meeting held, but when the person at the other end has done what was required of him, and has been able to tell the sender what stood in the way of doing it.

Business Example

Silence Fills Itself A factory decided in January to change its shift timings from April, and announced nothing until the circular was ready in March. By then three versions of the change were current in the canteen, two of them wrong, and the union had objected to a proposal management had never made.

11.14 Summary

Directing is that part of the management process which instructs, guides, supervises and inspires employees so that plans are converted into performance. It is management in action rather than management on paper.
Directing is a management function; it is continuing, result-oriented and pervasive at every level, it links planning with controlling, and it is concerned throughout with human behaviour.
Directing is important because it:

Initiates action, since plans, charts and appointments only prepare a setting for work.
Improves efficiency by drawing out ability that is not used automatically.
Ensures coordination between interrelated jobs and settles differences before they become conflict.
Facilitates change by explaining its need and reducing resistance to it.
Balances personal goals of employees against the goals of the enterprise.
Supports stability and growth by building morale and cooperation.

The elements of directing are supervision, motivation, leadership and communication, which operate together rather than one after another.
Supervision is the overseeing of subordinates at work, resting on face-to-face contact and forming the primary function of the supervisor, the lowest-ranking member of the management team.
The functions of a supervisor are scheduling the work, issuing orders and instructions, guiding subordinates, motivating workers, maintaining discipline, handling grievances, monitoring performance, ensuring safety, reporting to management, and serving as a linking pin between management and workers.
Span of control is the number of subordinates a superior can supervise effectively. A narrow span produces more levels and a tall structure with close supervision; a wide span produces fewer levels and a flat structure with greater freedom.
The span depends on the nature of the work, the ability of the superior, the competence of subordinates, the clarity of plans and procedures, the extent of delegation, the location of subordinates and the assistance available. No single number is correct for every post.
Motivation is the process of stimulating people to act in a desired manner by arousing and satisfying their needs. Motives arise out of needs, and incentives are the means by which needs are answered.
Motivation is psychological and internal, continuous, complex, goal-directed, integrated, positive or negative, a duty of every manager, and system-oriented. It differs from job satisfaction, which follows the work, and from morale, which belongs to the group.
The process of motivation runs from a felt need, through tension and the search for a way of removing it, to effort, satisfaction of the need, reduction of tension and the appearance of a fresh need.
Maslow arranged human needs in a hierarchy of five categories:

Physiological needs — food, water, clothing, shelter and rest.
Safety and security needs — protection against physical danger and economic insecurity.
Social needs — affection, acceptance, friendship and belonging.
Esteem needs — self-respect and confidence, and recognition and status in the eyes of others.
Self-actualisation needs — the desire to become all that one is capable of becoming.

Maslow’s theory holds that a satisfied need ceases to motivate and that a person moves upward only when the need below is substantially satisfied. It is criticised because needs are not watertight categories, are not always pursued in that order, and are commonly pursued several at a time.
Leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour of others so that they strive willingly towards common goals. It rests on acceptance by followers, is a personal quality rather than a gift of the post, and is continuous, situational and reciprocal.
A good leader requires sound health, knowledge and intelligence, initiative, integrity, decisiveness, emotional stability, self-confidence, communication skill, vision and foresight, a sense of responsibility and social skills.
Management is the wider term and includes leadership within directing. Every manager is expected to be a leader of his group, but a leader need not hold a managerial post.
The four styles of leadership are autocratic, where the leader decides alone; democratic, where decisions are taken in consultation with the team; laissez-faire, where the team is left to decide for itself; and bureaucratic, where established rules and procedures govern every action.
Communication is the exchange of facts, ideas, opinions and feelings between two or more persons to create a common understanding. It is a two-way, circular and continuous process, flows in every direction, and is complete only when the receiver has understood and responded.
Communication is used to educate and train, to motivate employees, to implement decisions quickly, to promote managerial efficiency, to facilitate leadership, to carry out change, to create coordination and teamwork, and to secure feedback.
The process of communication consists of the sender, the message, encoding, the channel, the receiver, decoding and feedback, the last of which completes the process.
Barriers to communication are of four main kinds — physical, such as distance and noise; semantic, such as badly expressed messages, words with several meanings and jargon; personal, such as prejudice, distrust, inattention and premature evaluation; and organisational, such as too many levels, status differences, restrictive policy and rigid procedure.
Barriers are reduced by clarifying the idea before communicating, using language suited to the receiver, choosing the right channel, communicating both ways, keeping the structure sound, matching action to words, listening patiently, considering the receiver’s interest, matching tone and gesture to the message, using the grapevine intelligently, and securing feedback and following it up.

Flowchart

FC 11.9 — Directing At A Glance Plans → Directing → Supervision, Motivation, Leadership, Communication → Performance → Controlling

11.15 Points to Ponder

Directing is described as the heart of the management process, yet a manager who directs superbly can still fail if the plan he is executing was wrong. Where does the greater share of a manager’s time belong — in settling what is to be done, or in directing the people who must do it?
Negative motivation secures compliance quickly, while positive motivation takes longer and lasts longer. Are there situations in a business in which a manager is justified in relying on the fear of penalty, and what does he give up each time he does so?
Maslow’s theory holds that a satisfied need ceases to motivate. If that is so, what is left to an employer who already pays well, offers security and is respected by his employees, and what does this suggest about the limits of money as an incentive?
A wide span of control saves the cost of supervisors; a narrow one makes supervision real. For a firm that is growing quickly, which of the two mistakes is the safer one to make, and what would warn the management that the span had been set wrongly?
Informal channels carry news through an organisation faster than official ones ever will. Should a manager deliberately use the grapevine to prepare people for a decision, or does doing so weaken the formal system he is responsible for maintaining?
Leadership can be exercised by a person holding no managerial post at all. What should an enterprise do when the person its workers actually follow is not the person it has appointed to lead them?

11.16 Objective Questions

A manager must go on guiding, supervising and inspiring his subordinates for as long as the enterprise exists. Which feature of directing does this statement bring out? [1]

Pervasive function
Continuing function
Linking function
Result-oriented function

In a section where every worker performs the same repetitive operation to a settled method, one superior is able to supervise a large number of subordinates. Which factor determining the span of control does this illustrate? [1]

Ability of the superior
Nature of the work
Extent of delegation of authority
Location of the subordinates

Assertion (A): A need that has been satisfied no longer motivates an employee. Reason (R): Maslow arranged human needs in a hierarchy running from the physiological needs to the need for self-actualisation. [1]

Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
1. is true but (R) is false.
1. is false but (R) is true.

Fill in the blank: The number of subordinates whom a superior can supervise directly and effectively is called his ______. [1]
State whether the following statement is true or false: Communication is complete as soon as the sender has despatched the message. [1]

11.17 Check Your Concepts

Define supervision and state one reason why it depends on face-to-face contact. [2]
Distinguish between motivation and morale on any three bases. [3]
State any three factors that would justify fixing a narrow span of control for a manager. [3]
Explain, with one example of each, any four barriers to communication that arise from the language used or from the way a message is expressed. [4]
‘A satisfied need is no longer a motivator.’ Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the light of this statement, and state any two grounds on which the theory has been criticised. [6]

11.18 Case-Based Questions

Vaidehi Rao heads the packaging department of Trikon Foods. She fixes the week’s targets only after hearing her team at a Monday meeting and taking their suggestions into account, and operators bring a doubtful machine setting to her even though the department has a separate shift in-charge. Last month she declined a transfer to a larger unit at the same pay, saying that the team she had built up here was her own.

Name the style of leadership Vaidehi Rao follows, and state one feature of leadership shown by the fact that operators approach her rather than the shift in-charge. [2]
Identify the level of need in Maslow’s hierarchy that her refusal of the transfer suggests she is seeking to satisfy, and state one way in which the enterprise could satisfy the need immediately above it. [2]