Human Side of Management 20 February 2013 Abstract The Human Side of Management concentrates on the benefits of treating your human resources as people versus concentrating on which is better, a Manager or a Leader. It details the benefits gained by treating people with the same respect, courtesy and genuine concern you would want shown to you, your children, or spouse.
Humanizing employees is a simple concept with many benefits that outweigh any negative impacts one person may attempt to create by trying to take advantage of a manager/leader that uses the human side of management. Human Side of Management Management versus leadership has been a point of contention for years but regardless of being a good manager or good leader, you have to focus on the human side of management to be successful. You have good managers and good leaders but only the most fortunate experience a good manager that is also a great leader.To be effective you have to display effective communication skills, a willingness to lead without fear of consequences and the ability to empathize; this starts by showing your human side. As a leader you will lead/manage people of every age and of every walk of life so you have to be an effective listener and communicator, you have to be ready to defend your people’s actions and most importantly you have to show compassion when it comes to the person as a whole.
This does not mean falling for every sob story given or giving the single parent easy hours it means showing concern because the single parent is late every once in a while or being genuinely sympathetic because the Senior Administrator lost a parent and cannot focus on the project in front of them then stepping in to help get the job accomplished. These simple things are the makings of a great leader. By showing sympathy, which is different than being a push over, you begin to build a trust with your staff; a trust that will lead to them doing anything requested, staying a little later or taking a shorter lunch to get things done.The human side of management means people stop calling off the Monday because they stayed up late watching football games, they stop being late which means someone else no longer has to cover their duties until they arrive and most importantly it means less administrative paperwork for the manager because you built an atmosphere of trust and managed your resources (the people) effectively.
As one of my classmates stated: Leaders must have the characteristic to inspire and vision to help… A leader is a visionary, who must have the ability to see the bigger picture of things.This quality will help a good manager build a self driven team. Delegation becomes easy for a manager who has a self driven team (Emmanuel Yaw Osei, Week 4 Conference, Chapters 7 & 8, 2013). With a self-driven team, you as a manager/leader have more freedom to work on the minute details required of being a manager without having to worry about the day-to-day “goings on” and you don’t have to micromanage. You want your employees to be effective and empowered to make decisions without depending on you for every decision.
It is the human side of management that leads to employees making the right decisions; decisions that will not have a negative impact on the agency/organization. It is the empowered employee that finds improved ways of doing their job, better serves customers and is motivated to achieve the organizations goals (Contemporary Business, 2011). With any good there is also a bad side to every idea or concept presented. You always have one person that tries to take advantage of the “system” (i.
. the supervisor and rules put in place) but that should not discourage a manger/leader from taking the “humanistic” approach while supervising. With other employees are empowered and happy you have more time to refocus the employees that try to take advantage or discipline as necessary. As stated throughout this paper, utilizing the Human Side of Management is a concept that not only employees benefit from but the supervisors, managers and customers benefit as well.It is a concept that leads to better morale in the organization, improved productivity, lower absentee rates and potentially increased business rating. All the benefits of this management/ leadership style far out-weigh any potential consequences of a few non-team players.
References Louis E. Boone and David L. Kurtz, Contemporary Business, Empowering Employees, 286, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2011, 14th ed. ) WebTycho. (2013).
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