Topic 5.

Directing
5.1 Nature and scope of directing
Directing is the heart of management function. All other functions of management such as
planning, organizing, and staffing have no importance without directing. Leadership,
motivation, supervision, and communication are various aspects of directing.
Characteristics
1. Initiates Action
A directing function is performed by the managers along with planning, staffing, organizing and
controlling in order to discharge their duties in the organization. While other functions prepare a
platform for action, directing initiates action.
Browse more Topics under Directing
• Elements of Direction
• Incentives
• Leadership
• Communications
2. Pervasive Function
Directing takes place at every level of the organization. Wherever there is a superior-subordinate
relationship, directing exists as every manager provides guidance and inspiration to his
subordinates.
4. Continuous Activity
It is a continuous function as it continues throughout the life of organization irrespective of the
changes in the managers or employees.
5. Descending Order of Hierarchy
Directing flows from a top level of management to the bottom level. Every manager exercises this
function on his immediate subordinate.
6. Human Factor
Since all employees are different and behave differently in different situations, it becomes
important for the managers to tackle the situations appropriately. Thus, directing is a significant
function that gets the work done by the employees and increases the growth of the organization.

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Principles
Principles of Directing
1. Maximum Individual Contribution
One of the main principles of directing is the contribution of individuals. Management should
adopt such directing policies that motivate the employees to contribute their maximum potential
for the attainment of organizational goals.
2. Harmony of Objectives
Sometimes there is a conflict between the organizational objectives and individual objectives. For
example, the organization wants profits to increase and to retain its major share, whereas, the
employees may perceive that they should get a major share as a bonus as they have worked really
hard for it.
Here, directing has an important role to play in establishing harmony and coordination between
the objectives of both the parties.
3. Unity of Command
This principle states that a subordinate should receive instructions from only one superior at a
time. If he receives instructions from more than one superiors at the same time, it will create
confusion, conflict, and disorder in the organization and also he will not be able to prioritize his
work.
4. Appropriate Direction Technique
Among the principles of directing, this one states that appropriate direction techniques should be
used to supervise, lead, communicate and motivate the employees based on their needs,
capabilities, attitudes and other situational variables.
5. Managerial Communication
According to this principle, it should be seen that the instructions are clearly conveyed to the
employees and it should be ensured that they have understood the same meaning as was intended
to be communicated.
6. Use of Informal Organization
Within every formal organization, there exists an informal group or organization. The manager
should identify those groups and use them to communicate information. There should be a free
flow of information among the seniors and the subordinates as an effective exchange of
information are really important for the growth of an organization.
7. Leadership
Managers should possess a good leadership quality to influence the subordinates and make them
work according to their wish. It is one of the important principles of directing.
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8. Follow Through
As per this principle, managers are required to monitor the extent to which the policies,
procedures, and instructions are followed by the subordinates. If there is any problem in
implementation, then the suitable modifications can be made.

Techniques
Techniques of Direction
Managers use several techniques to direct their subordinates. They are as follows:
1. Delegation: Assigning the work to the correct person and giving him authority to perform
the task. It is the process of assigning duties and power.
2. Supervision: Overseeing the assigned task performed without deviating from the original
plan. It is performed with the view to ensure that the subordinates work effectively and
efficiently to attain the organisational goal.
3. Communication: Communication helps the employer to communicate his views, opinion,
orders to employees . It helps to attain the goal.
4. Motivation: Providing rewards to best performing employees and punishment for poor
performing employees.
5. Leadership: Encouraging the team to proceed with the right direction.

5.2 Delegation as means of Directing

Delegating: Authority Skills, Tasks and Effective Delegation
Delegation is an important management skill.
These rules and techniques will provide you with valuable insights into effective delegation
methods. They will also help you when your manager is delegating a new task or responsibility
to you - delegation is a two-way process.
Why is Delegation a Critical Skill?
Good delegation saves time, develops people, grooms a successor, and motivates.
On the other hand, poor delegation will cause you frustration, demotivates and confuses the
other person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself.
Delegation is a management skill that's worth improving.
Here are some simple steps to follow if you want to get it right, with different levels of
delegation freedom that you can offer.

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This delegation skills guide deals with the general principles and processes, which apply
to individuals and teams, or to specially formed groups of people for individual
projects (including 'virtual teams').

The Importance of Effective Delegation

• Delegation is a very helpful aid for succession planning, personal development and
seeking and encouraging promotion. It's how we grow in the job. Being appointed more
tasks enables us to gain experience to take on higher responsibilities.
• Delegation is vital for effective leadership. See the Leadership Tips and Leadership
Theories web pages for guidance and explanation of how delegation enables and
increases leadership effectiveness.
• Effective delegation is crucial for management and leadership succession. For the
successor as well as the manager or leader too: the main task of a manager in a growing,
thriving organisation is ultimately to develop a successor. This plays a crucial role in
the succession and progression of an organisation.
9 Steps of Successful Delegation
1. Define the task
o Confirm in your mind that the task is suitable to be delegated.
o Does it meet the criteria for delegating?
2. Select the individual or team
o What are your reasons for delegating to this person or team?
o What are they going to get out of it?
o What are you going to get out of it?
3. Assess ability and training needs
o Is the other person or team of people capable of doing the task?
o Do they understand what needs to be done? If not, you can't delegate.
4. Explain the reasons
o You must explain why the job or responsibility is being appointed to someone.
Why is the task being delegated specifically to that person/this group of people?
o What are its importance and relevance?
o Where does it fit in the overall scheme of things?
5. State required results
o What must be achieved? Clarify understanding by getting feedback from the
other person.
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 o How will the task be measured? Make sure they know how you intend to decide
that the job is being successfully done.
6. Consider the resources required
o Discuss and agree on what is required to get the job done.
o Consider people, location, premises, equipment, money, materials, other related
activities and services.
7. Agree on deadlines
o When must the job be finished? Or if it is an ongoing duty, when are the review
dates?
o When are the reports due?
o If the task is complex and has parts or stages, what are the priorities?
Important: At this point you may need to confirm understanding with the other person of the
previous points, getting ideas and interpretation. As well as showing you that the job can be
done, this helps to reinforce commitment. Methods of checking and controlling must be agreed
with the other person. Failing to agree on this in advance will cause this monitoring to seem
like interference or lack of trust.
8. Support and communicate
• Think about who else on the team needs to know what's going on, and inform them. Do
not leave the person to inform other managers of their new responsibility.
• If you have been delegated an important, potentially urgent task, inform your immediate
supervisor that you will focus on this task for the time being.
9. Feedback on results
o It is essential to let the person know how they are doing, and whether they have
achieved their aims.
o If the aim has not been achieved, it is beneficial to review why things did not
go to plan and deal with the problems together.

5.3 Supervision
Supervision means when senior employees of the organization guiding, commanding and
regulating the efforts of employees towards the goals.it direct involves personal contact with
the employees. Supervision is most important for the execution of plans.

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Help to Improve Leadership
Supervision helps the organization to improve the leadership quality of the employees because
when a manager or senior employees got a task they do everything to achieve the goal. which
makes the organization productive?
Help to Be Motivated
When employees work in a single line it helps the employees to be motivated because the
manager or senior employees provide works in a continuous manner which helps the employees
to get motivated.
Improve Communication
Supervision improves communication between the low employees and management
employees because when employees work under the supervision they provide information
regularly. which creates a bond between low and high-level employees. So, supervision
improves communication.
Supervision Improve Group Unity
Supervision improves and maintains the group unity among the employees because the
supervisor regularly removes grievance among the employees and sort out internal differences
and maintain decorum among the workers.
Training of Workers
A skilled and experienced supervisor trained his employees and make them more professional
under his supervision and build.

Qualities/Responsibilities of Supervisor
Knowledge of Technical Competence
A good supervisor should have knowledge of technical stuff because, for supervisor, he has to
manage many workers under him so for their solutions technical knowledge is necessary.

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Managerial Skill
A supervisor is a person who manages the people and gives their tasks to the right people at
the right time and helps the worker to remove their conflict and problems.
Leadership Qualities
A supervisor should have the ability to lead to grow his team and make the worker get
motivated because supervisor implements the plan to achieve the goal. So a good supervisor
should have the ability to lead.
Initiative Ability
A supervisor should have the ability to take initiative and explore a new world of opportunity
because it is necessary for the supervisor to provide new ideas and new to explore the
opportunity to his employees.
Sense of Responsibility
A supervisor should have a sense of responsibility because the supervisor is the main worker
who pushes the low staff to achieve the goal of the organization.

Role of Supervisor
Scientific Management Roles
These roles include the role of a technician, analyst and controller. First of all , in order to
supervise, he must be fully equipped with enough technical knowledge of the machines being
operated by the workers. Only then it becomes possible for the supervisor to give technical
advice to the employees.
Secondly, the supervisor should be an analyst or researcher. The supervisor is expected to
design the new and scientific job procedure and methods to achieve efficiency in work
operations.
Thirdly, the supervisor should be a controller. He should ensure that actual performance is
compared to that of pre – established standards and reward the better performance and punish
when there are negative deviations.

Human Relations Roles

According to human relations school of management, the supervisor should be sensitive to the
needs and desires of employees for effective integration of individual goals with the
organisational objectives. Here, the supervisor should act as a counselor by rendering the
advice to the employees concerning work – related problems so that productivity at work does
not suffer.
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Further, a supervisor should act as a linking pin between management and employees. A
supervisor is a man – in – the – middle because he carries the voice of top management to the
workers and at the same time, he represents the workers’ demands and wishes to the top
management.
Functional Roles
The functional roles of a supervisor include planning organizing, leading and controlling. Here,
supervisor acts as a planner, organiser, leader, and controller. He carries out the important
managerial functions at the operational level. As a planner, the supervisor has the major
responsibility for identifying and determining what exactly is to be done by the workers and
communicate these goals to the workers. In the role of organising, supervisor is compared to a
conductor of a symphony Orchestra To who brings into play each of the instruments at right
moment to produce to melodious music.
Finally, a supervisor is entrusted with the responsibility of controlling the operations within his
purview. The supervisor is entrusted with the task of controlling the operations in the
department or the factory. If the supervisor tries to control everything that comes in his way,
he ultimately ends up controlling nothing.

Function
• To issue orders and explain the whole management plans to workers
• To establish the decorum make sure rule and regulations.
• To maintain discipline and decorum among the workers.
• To supply of latest data to administrations
• To provide tools, machines, etc.
• To recommend pay increases, promotions, transfers, etc.

5.4 Fundamental of effective supervision

Effective supervision in a variety of settings
The foundations of effective supervision practice: Managing performance and
challenging practice
The practice evidence suggests that supervisees value supervisors who can address difficult
issues in an open and honest way rather than focusing on blame and criticism. Challenging
practice and creating an environment where it is possible to learn from mistakes are essential
elements in any supervisory relationship.

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What knowledge, skills and values might a supervisor need in order to be able to tackle
performance issues in a positive way? Here are some examples:
self-awareness – recognising their own impact on others
a positive expectations approach – i.e. starting from the basis that staff generally want to do a
good job
knowledge of the factors that might affect performance, including where the supervisor may
be a contributory factor
an understanding of the factors affecting motivation to change
skills in listening, giving constructive feedback and motivating others.
The use of authority will be fundamental to the process. Hughes and Pengelly [25] refer to
authority within supervision as having three aspects:
role authority
personal authority
professional authority.
All three are important in establishing an effective relationship which promotes development
and allows constructive challenges. Supervisees who feel secure with their supervisor and
respect their integrity are most likely to be honest about their learning needs and able to learn
from both successes and mistakes. Supervisors who feel confident in their own knowledge,
skill base and professional authority are also more likely to facilitate discussions which
challenge and stretch their supervisees. Additionally, the capacity of supervisors to feel
confident enough in their role to admit the limits of their knowledge, including when to secure
additional input for the supervisee, is crucial. This may be through arranging a one-off
consultation or additional clinical supervision, particularly if the supervisor and supervisee are
from different professional backgrounds.
Achieving a balance is also likely to prevent the misuse of authority or an overemphasis on
task completion, which may occur where role authority is emphasised at the expense of
personal or professional authority.
You may wish to ask yourself how, if your supervisees had 100 points to allocate across the
three types of authority, they would distribute them in reference to your own supervisory style.
If the balance is towards role authority you may wish to consider whether this is resulting in a
style of supervision which is focused on tasks and performance management at the expense of
professional expertise and the positive use of the relationship to reflect on practice.

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Managing performance where there are concerns about practice can be one of the most
challenging aspects of supervision. Managing performance within supervision does not exist
in isolation. Morrison [1] has identified that, in order to be effective, supervisors need:
• a performance management framework
• written agreements
• opportunities to observe practice and record quality of performance
• a good knowledge of the individual worker
• time and energy to supervise
• managerial and human resources advice
• emotional support.
SCIE’s people management resource contains a section on performance management. It
looks at how to avoid setting people up to fail and explores how performance concerns can be
positively managed.
Challenging and evaluating practice in supervision
All of social work and social care practice is underpinned by the values of equality and human
rights. This applies in this context to supervisees, supervisors and everyone else. Practitioners
will be aware of the law relating to equality, human rights and capacity as it is part of their core
training. Applying it in practice will at times be challenging and supervision may be an
appropriate place to reflect on this.
Challenging practice may include identifying with the worker any bias and assumptions they
may be carrying, or practices and behaviours they exhibit as a result of interacting with specific
people who use services. Both supervisors and supervisees will have to consider their own
practice and their own challenges in order to ensure that their thinking and actions are not
discriminatory. This may put them in an uncomfortable place and this, in turn, will have to be
worked through.
If there is dissatisfaction at any point in the supervisory relationship with any matter, it should
be challenged and dealt with because failure to do so may lead to a worsening situation and
dysfunctional management and practice.
The balanced supervisor
The general picture of an effective supervisor from both research and practice knowledge is
one who is able to provide the emotional and practical support that their supervisees need while
at the same time keeping a firm eye on the standard of care being received by people who use
services. Underpinning this is their own clinical knowledge and confidence in knowing what

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is likely to support good outcomes. Balancing responsiveness to the needs of supervisees while
demanding high standards of practice based on their own clinical expertise distinguishes the
authoritative supervisor from either the authoritarian supervisor (demanding but unresponsive)
or the passive supervisor (responsive but undemanding). The following model, adapted from
Wonnacott’s ‘Mastering social work supervision’ [13] may help you to better understand your
own approach to supervision.
The passive supervisor:
• will feel comfortable discussing with supervisees their feelings and emotional
responses to the work
• will be described by their supervisees as ‘supportive’
• finds it hard to be specific about the skills and capabilities of their supervisees
• results in supervisees saying they do not feel stretched or challenged by supervision.
• The authoritarian supervisor:
• will be able to clearly describe their supervisees' strengths and weaknesses
• will feel comfortable addressing performance concerns
• will avoid discussing feelings and emotional responses to the work
• results in supervisees reporting feeling an increase in stress levels after supervision and
a fear of being blamed if they admit weakness.
• The authoritative supervisor:
• will feel comfortable discussing with supervisees their feelings and emotional response
to the work
• will be described by their supervisees as supportive but also challenging them to think
differently about their practice
• will be able to clearly describe their supervisees' strengths and weaknesses
• will feel comfortable addressing performance concerns.

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References
➢ https://www.toppr.com/guides/business-studies/directing/introduction-meaning-
importance-and-principles-of-directing/
➢ https://www.toppr.com/guides/business-studies/directing/introduction-meaning-
importance-and-principles-of-directing/
➢ https://www.brainkart.com/article/Techniques-of-Direction_37696/
➢ https://www.businessballs.com/team-management/delegation/
➢ https://commercemates.com/what-is-supervision-in-management/
➢ https://commercemates.com/what-is-supervision-in-management/
➢ https://commercemates.com/what-is-supervision-in-management/
➢ https://commercemates.com/what-is-supervision-in-management/
➢ https://www.scie.org.uk/publications/guides/guide50/foundationsofeffectivesupervisio
n/managingperformance.asp

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