A Critic on the Article: “Delegation as a Leadership Style” Tips for Effective Delegation

By: Susan M. Heathfield

This article gives us an insight as to what managers do in an organization as their style of leadership. For the discussion of this article, let us first have a review on what a manager does or what the managerial functions. Basically, a manager plans, organizes, directs and controls. The functions of management uniquely describe manager’s jobs. The most commonly cited functions of management are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, although some identify additional functions. The functions of management define the process of management as distinct from accounting, finance, marketing, and other business functions. According to Henri Fayol, the first person to identify elements or functions of management in his classic 1916 book ”Administration Industrielle et Generale.” Fayol defined five functions, or elements of management: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Fayol argued that these functions were universal, in the sense that all managers performed them in the course of their jobs, whether the managers worked in business, military, government, religious, or philanthropic undertakings. Fayol defined planning in terms of forecasting future conditions, setting objectives, and developing means to attain objectives. He recognized that effective planning must also take into account unexpected contingencies that might arise and did not advocate rigid and inflexible plans. He further defined, organizing as making provision for structuring of activities and relationships within the firm and also the recruiting, evaluation, and training of personnel.

According to Fayol, commanding as managerial functions concerned the personal supervision of subordinates and involved inspiring them to put forth unified effort