Directing Class 12 Notes

Directing is the function of the management that decides the objective, the policy, the plans and the standards, and then it sees to it that the work is carried out by the subordinates in the desired way. It is the first function that acts, because the other functions only decide.

• It is a function that decides the objective, the policy, the plan and the standard, and so it has to be performed by the management at every level, and it is not confined to the top.
• It is the function of directing the subordinates, and it goes from the top to the bottom, and the flow of the authority is always downward while the flow of the communication is in both directions.
• It is the function of getting the work done by the subordinates, and the subordinates are the persons to whom the work is assigned, and they need to be told what to do and how to do it.
• It is the first function to be performed, because the planning, the organising and the staffing only decide, and nothing happens on the ground until the directing starts the action, so it is the function that initiates the action.
• It is the function that continues all the way through, and it is present at every stage and at every level, and it does not stop once the orders are given.
• It is a pervasive function, and it is performed at every level and in every organisation, whether it is a small shop or a large company, and the difference is only in the number of the subordinates and the style of the direction.

The elements are the parts that the directing is made of, and they are asked as a list more often than as an explanation, so the names and the order should be known exactly.

• Supervision is the process of watching the work while it is being done, and it is the observation and the guidance of the subordinates, and it goes from the immediate superior to the immediate subordinate, and it is the first and the narrowest element.
• Leadership is the art of influencing the subordinates to work willingly and to be a team, and it is the personal attribute of the person and not the post, and it is what turns the subordinates into a willing team.
• Motivation is the process of stimulating the people to act in the desired way, and it is the internal drive, and the money is only one of the many motivators, and the chapter warns that the financial and the non-financial motivators are both needed.
• Communication is the exchange of the information, the message, the feedback and the ideas, and it is described in detail because the number of the elements of the communication is the number of the types, and the number of the barriers is the number of the reasons why it fails.
• Rewards and remuneration is the compensation paid to the subordinates, and it is of two kinds, the extrinsic rewards that come from outside the person such as the wages, the promotion, the praise and the recognition, and the intrinsic rewards that come from inside the person such as the achievement, the recognition of the work and the satisfaction of doing it well.
• Punishment is the penalty for the non-performance, and it is used only after the rewards have failed, and it should be applied after an enquiry, and the punishment should be known in advance and it should be impartial.
• Conflict management is the identification and the resolution of the conflict among the subordinates and between the departments, and the sources of the conflict are classified into the structural, the personal and the organisational, and the strategies are the avoidance, the accommodation, the competition, the compromise and the collaboration.
• Consultation and participation of the subordinates, which is the practice of taking the subordinates into the decision, and the chapter distinguishes the consultation, the participation in the decision, the participation in the implementation, the participation in the evaluation and the participation in the development of the subordinates.
• The last element is the decision-making, which is the process of choosing the best course of action from the available alternatives, and the decision is taken at all levels and it is a function of every manager.

Communication is the element that the chapter treats at the greatest length, and the parts of it, the elements of the process, the formal and the informal types, the directions of the flow, the barriers and the ways of overcoming them, are all examinable.

• Communication is the exchange of the information, the message, the feedback and the ideas between two or more persons, and the two essential elements are the sharing and the feedback, so a communication without a feedback is only a message and not a communication.
• The elements of the process are seven, the sender, the encoding, the message, the decoding, the receiver, the feedback and the noise, and the noise is any disturbance that interferes with the message, and the channel is the medium through which the message travels.
• The downward communication goes from the top to the subordinates, and it carries the orders, the instructions and the directives, and it is effective but it may be distorted if it passes through too many levels.
• The upward communication goes from the subordinates to the top, and it carries the feedback, the grievances and the reports, and it is generally weak, and it should be encouraged by an open-door policy and by a suggestion box and by the grievance redressal.
• The horizontal communication goes between the persons of the same level, and the vertical is between the levels, and the diagonal is between the persons of the different levels without any direct line, and the horizontal is the most used inside a department and the diagonal cuts the chain.
• The communication is formal when it follows the chain of the command, and it is informal when it goes outside the chain, and the grapevine is the unofficial network of the information and it is fast and it is often distorted.

Leadership is a quality of the individual and the style is the pattern of the behaviour that the leader habitually uses, and the syllabus names three styles, the authoritative, the democratic and the laissez-faire.

• Leadership is the influence of the personality of the leader on the behaviour of the subordinates, and it is what makes them work willingly rather than only because they must, and a leader is not the same thing as a manager, because the authority of the manager comes from the post while the influence of the leader comes from the person.
• The authoritative or the autocratic style is one in which the leader decides everything himself, gives the orders and expects obedience, and the subordinates have no say in the decision, so the decisions are quick and the control is complete, but the subordinates are afraid to speak, the initiative is killed and the morale falls, and the style is used in a crisis, in a routine task, and where only the leader has the information or the skill.
• The democratic or the participative style is one in which the leader consults the subordinates and takes them into the decision, so the decisions are slower and the consultative process costs time, but the people carry the decision with them, the morale and the involvement rise, and the style is used when the subordinates are competent, when the time is available, and when the leader needs the information of the people who do the work.
• The laissez-faire or the free style is one in which the leader defines the objective and the limits and then leaves the subordinates to decide and to act in their own way, so nothing is decided at the top, the responsibility passes down, and the style works when the subordinates are experts and are highly motivated and it fails when they are inexperienced, because they need the guidance.
• The three styles are not three different kinds of leader but three behaviours that any leader may use on different occasions, and the style that is chosen should be decided by the situation, and the quality and the motivation of the subordinate is the first thing to be considered.

The last part of the leadership discussion asks when each style is the right one, and it is where the application questions are set because the choice is a decision and a decision can be applied to a given situation.

• The choice is decided by the situation and not by the personality of the leader alone, and the three things that decide it are the quality and the motivation of the subordinate, the nature of the task, and the strength of the leader's own position, and the style that suits a trained team is not the style that suits a new recruit.
• The authoritative style suits the situation in which the time is short, the decision is routine, the leader is the only person who has the information, and the subordinates are inexperienced and need clear instructions rather than a discussion.
• The democratic style suits the situation in which the subordinates know the work as well as the leader, in which the commitment of the people matters more than the speed, and in which the leader is building a team rather than issuing orders.
• The laissez-faire style suits the situation in which the subordinates are experts and are self-motivated, in which the work of the leader is genuinely to set the objective and to monitor, and it does not suit the situation in which the subordinates need to be trained.
• The comparison of the American and the Japanese styles turns on the same point, since the American manager is task oriented and time oriented and separates the person from the work, while the Japanese manager integrates the person with the work and values the group and the consensus, and both are effective in their own context.
• The leadership is a quality and the directing is a function, and this is the distinction that the questions on the two words test, and the best manager is the one who is also a leader.

The chapter closes with what goes wrong, and the barriers are the reasons a message fails to reach the receiver as it was sent, and each barrier is a separate line in the answer.

• Semantic problems: the words used in the message may carry a different meaning for the receiver, or the same words may carry a different meaning for different people, and the same word may mean two things in two departments, so the defect lies in the language itself.
• Organisational problems: the structure may be too tall, so the message must pass through too many levels and it is distorted on the way, and the rules and the regulations may force the message to be altered, and the reluctance of the subordinate to speak upward is an organisational barrier.
• Personal problems: the fear of a punishment, the lack of trust in the superior, the emotional disturbance and the prejudice of the person all distort what he hears, and a person who is upset reads a different meaning into the same order.
• The communication can also fail because of the technology, since a poor network or a broken telephone line loses the message, and because of the time, since a message that arrives late is a message that arrives after the action was possible.