Stephen P Robbins and Mary Coulter defines management as “The process of getting activities completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people.” The process deals with the functions carried out by management which are: planning, organizing, controlling and leading.
One of the earliest management theorist’s Henri Feyol (1949) introduced the principles of management in the early 1900s. The main purpose for developing these principles, were to improve efficiency within organizations and certainly this was truly achieved. These fourteen principles are: Division of work, authority, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interest to the general interest, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain (line of authority), order, equity, stability of tenure of personnel, initiative and esprit de corps.
Author Peter Drucker (1909-2005) later introduced what we call today the ‘new’ principles of management which were similar to that of Henri Feyol. Although there are only five (5) principles set out by Drucker, they are still very quite beneficial in organizations today. These principles of management are: to set objectives, organizing, motivating and communicating, establishing measurements of performance and developing people. We shall focus on these five principles in the first half of this paper.
Druker’s first principle states that before any plan can be executed, managers needed to set objectives. In Setting objectives and then measuring whether they are achieved or not helps the Public Sector managers to track the progress of their departments. Management should be capable of deciding what their goals and objectives are. Public sector organizations usually set out objectives from strategic plans which are geared towards performance targets that result in what the organization wants to achieve.
Drucker’s second