Concept of Management Development
Management development is the process by which managers learn and improve their management skills. Only training cannot provide the requirement of knowledge, personality, attitude, behaviorism etc. Training focuses on the development of specific skills, especially for middle and lower level employees. Management development is implemented for the development of managerial potentials. It is the overall concepts that describe the many ways in which organizations help employees develop their personal and organizational skills, either as managers in a management job or with an eventual management job in mind.
Some of the reasons behind the management development programs are:
- It is managements’ responsibility for ensuring the success of the organization.
- It is the management who deal with people of different background, culture, language, etc.
- Mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, etc. are all under management’s control.
- It is managements’ responsibility to ensure that the employees obtain the required KSAs to perform the tasks.
- It is managements’ responsibility to ensure that right
Management development is a process through which potential managers develop their managerial skills on handling situations, people, and problems. It largely depends on imparting knowledge rather than skills; hence, it is a long education process of developing future managers. In other words, it is a process consisting of all activities by which potential managers or executives learn required skills and knowledge to improve their behavior and performance. Management development is a continuous process of developing managerial potential by enhancing conceptual, interpersonal and decision-making skills.
Some main objectives of the management development ore as under:
- To develop managers/executives for better performance on their present job or assignment
- To provide a steady source of competent persons at different levels so as to meet the future requirements of the organization.
- To enable the managers to understand the problems of the business organization in so far as they arise out of its policies and system of control.
- To create conditions and a climate which contribute to the growth process.
- To replace elderly executives, who have risen from low ranks, by highly competent and academically qualified professionals.
- To increase the morale of the managers.
- To acquire knowledge about the problems of human relations.
This process generally includes the development of cognitive (thinking, idea generation, and decision making), behavioral (choosing appropriate attitudes and values), and environmental (suiting management style to the situation) skills. More specifically, management development can be defined as an attempt of improving managerial performance by imparting knowledge, changing attitude, or increasing skills thereby enhancing the future performance of the company. It is very important due to ever-changing environmental forces accompanied by the effect of globalization and breakthrough in physical science. It is concerned with skill development activity provided to the higher level managers which attempt to instill sound reasoning process. It helps to understand cause and effect relationship, synthesize for experience, visualize relationship, or think logically.
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