by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on October 31, 2024

Directing falls under the leading component of the PLOC framework of management. In this management function, a manager or supervisor is focused on guiding, inspiring, and leading employees towards achieving both their individual goals and organizational goals. 

Directing bridges the planning and execution phases. It ensures that all strategies are transformed into concrete actions through continuous guidance, feedback, and combined efforts in motivation and inspiration. 

The lack of it as a component in managing processes will lead to plans remaining flat on paper and needing fulfillment in results.  

Importance of Directing

Directing is essential for several reasons, including: 

Implements The Vision

Directing provides more concrete steps to the vision. When the founders and/or management team have set the organization’s vision and mission, directing helps break down plans into manageable actions. Vision, therefore, becomes a reality for the organization. 

Enhances Motivation and Morale

When team morale is high, it inspires employees to achieve peak performance in their work, increasing productivity and organizational growth. Conversely, when team morale is low, the drive to perform at its best is not visible. 

Through their directing functions, managers establish clear communication channels by increasing the frequency of communication and ensuring that information flows freely between different levels of the organization. 

Ensures Coordination

Directing brings together the efforts of all employees, aligning their individual objections with the company’s overall goals. This type of alignment ensures a smooth transition and operations for projects to be completed by teams. 

directing in management

Key Elements in Directing

Directing may seem like a sole component, but it has various parts underneath. Let’s review some of the key elements of directing. 

Supervision

Supervisors are called such because they are responsible for maintaining accountability. This involves closely monitoring employee performance and guiding them through their tasks.

Adequate supervision enables employees to remain on track and align their current actions with the organizational goals. 

Supervisors must provide clarity and support to ensure tasks are understood, well-planned, and executed correctly. Feedback giving becomes an essential element for team training, as it helps employees improve their individual 

Supervision also covers accountability, as it maintains oversight by giving leaders a bigger picture of what’s happening on their teams. Leaders must know how to foster a disciplined yet healthy work environment that addresses pressing issues and challenges their subordinates face. 

Identifying areas where employees need to grow is part of the core of supervision. Leaders here become mentors as they help their direct reports meet their daily job demands. Continuous use of appropriate learning and intervention, such as corporate training programs and leadership development, unleashes the mentorship potential of managers and supervisors.

All these we teach in our basic supervisory training. 

Motivation

Motivation is pivotal in driving employee performance and aligning with management’s direction. Motivating one of the five pillars of management (5 M’s of Management)—manpower—lays the foundation for sound business operations.

People aren’t just the best assets – they are the inputs for every other Ms of management – money, machines, materials, and methods, putting all these together in 

Motivation involves looking at both intrinsic and extrinsic “motivators” of people in giving their best efforts for the company. Here are the top science-based motivational techniques:

  • Recognitions and rewards – whether through monetary incentives or verbal acknowledgment of efforts, can significantly boost morale and productivity.
  • Determining One’s Personality Styles – in our DISC personality training, we let our participants assess themselves based on the four unique personalities: Dominant, Influential, Steady, and Corrective. All these have significant strengths and weaknesses that every professional manifests at work. Knowing the personality styles of your direct reports can help you motivate them based on what makes them tick. 
  • Creating a Positive Work Environment—This may involve promoting psychological safety among your teams, where you empower others to share their pressing concerns, ideas, and challenges so you can address them as a leader. A consultative leader who asks questions is more likely to become proactive in solving problems within their scope of influence.
  • Aligning Personal Goals with Organizational Goals—Employees become effective when they clearly see a connection between work and their personal aspirations. As more organizations are leading towards holistic growth for their employees, tapping this motivator or alignment of work with their personal life elevates their performance and how they bring value to the organization.
  • Leadership 

The leadership component within directing is about influencing, guiding, and inspiring employees to achieve organizational objectives. It may be similar to motivation, but it deals with influencing others through various methods. 

In our leadership training, we teach the three Hs of Leadership: Heart, Hand, and Head. Every manager or supervisor must develop and grow in these three areas of leadership. They must grow in their head—intellect, knowledge, and know-how of their people. They should acquire skills (“Hands”) and master them as they lead their people. Lastly, they must lead from the Heart—integrity. 

All these encompass a strong, characterized, competent leader any direct report would want to follow their ways. 

Here are more useful resources I’ve written in the past to help you grow in leadership:

To dig deeper, let me share with you actionable tips to grow in your leadership based on my over a decade of experience leading people and organizations:

  • Know your vision. Vision brings you into places you never thought possible as you take action to make it a reality. Communicate this vision to your teams so you can achieve objectives.
  • Adjust your leadership style based on your people’s motivation and behaviors. 
  • Recognize your emotions and develop your emotional intelligence. Increase awareness of your feelings and emotions, as well as be sensitive to others’ emotions—all these will guide you in interactions. 

Communication  

Effective communication is central to directing. Every workday, you communicate messages and tasks to your colleagues and direct reports, so developing strong communication skills ensures you’re bringing your team to the vision. 

Here are some useful tips to improve communication: 

  • Be true to yourself to enhance intrapersonal communication. Authenticity unleashes the power and truth in yourself, helping build more trust with your team members.
  • Communicate clearly and transparently. Clear communication helps prevent misunderstandings and ensures your direct reports know precisely what is expected.
  • Foster an environment where employees feel comfortable providing feedback and concerns, as I mentioned earlier about psychological safety. 
  • Be consistent in your messaging. This will help align your team members’ efforts toward one goal: expecting the ideal output. 
  • Increase the frequency of meetings and one-on-one sessions with your direct reports, especially for virtual teams, as you need to emphasize as a leader the key messages and goals of the company. 

Coordination  

Coordination refers to aligning and integrating the efforts of individuals and departments to achieve common organizational goals. This is where the need to allocate resources effectively for smoother operations. 

Here are some valuable tips to better coordinate with your team members:

  • Avoid redundancies in processes. Determine minor details that overlap in tasks and roles so you can ensure resources are used efficiently and promptly.
  • Integrate the efforts of different departments by conducting regular, sequential meetings to align all action plans set during strategic planning and goal-setting activities. 
  • Facilitate smooth interactions and transitions when changes are happening in the organization. 
  • Learn to manage change internally from top management down to frontline employees. See every possible result of change and communicate them across your teams. 

The Essential Role of Directing in Organizational Success

Directing is a core management function that bridges the gap between planning and execution. 

By integrating supervision, leadership, motivation, communication, and coordination, managers and supervisors can ensure that organizational goals are translated into vacation plans.

If you want to conduct training programs in your organization on management, succession planning, business development, communication, and culture building, contact us, and we’ll schedule a training needs analysis session with your learning and development team.