Management strategies examples (with definition and purpose)

Updated 28 August 2023

An efficient manager is one that implements the best business management practices for their ventures and motivates their team to achieve the set goals. Through good management, employees can improve their productivity using the resources and least effort. With effective strategies, your team is likely to thrive. In this article, we discuss management strategies examples, explain the strategic management process and outline top management strategies to help you be a better manager.

What are management strategies?

Management strategies are techniques used in business control and direction to achieve the set goals. Examples include strategies for leadership, goal-setting, operational activities and business administration. These strategies make it possible for organisations to achieve top performance. An excellent management strategy paves the way for success by:

determining an organisation's objectives and goals
putting in place the timeline for achieving both the long- and short-term goals
establishing the resources for achieving the set goals
providing the company and those in its employment with a clear sense of direction

Business management strategies examples

Here are examples of some of the most effective management strategies used by top managers:

Employee engagement

Satisfied employees care about doing their work as expected and may not think about their own interests or prioritise their paycheck. As a manager, make sure your employees are continuously engaged. Employee engagement is the employee's emotional commitment to a company and its goals. This commitment enables employees to care about the organisation and the work they do to achieve the set goals. Engaged employees don't just work for the money or to get a promotion, but do so to attain the organisation's goals.

Good managers ensure employee engagement by assigning appropriate roles, training employees, regularly checking in on them and holding discussions on engagement. They ensure that those working under them fully understand the company's expectations. Managers may also ensure the company avails the resources and have a conducive work environment.

Rewarding outstanding performance

Rewarding outstanding employee performance is another top management strategy. Successful managers know that rewarding their employees improve their productivity, which maximises profits. They may come up with reward systems for employees to reward their commitment and efforts. A good employee reward system primarily addresses four areas:

recognition
appreciation
compensation
benefits

Every employee enjoys being appreciated for their work and efforts, as it makes them feel valued. Once you realise how effective rewarding your employees are, you're likely to gain a competitive edge and keep your company at the top. Some ways managers use to reward employees include:

giving them small gifts
offering time off
covering commuting costs
giving handwritten notes
expressing thanks publicly
introducing awards such as ‘Employee of the Month/Year'
featuring top employees on company newsletters or blogs
holding office parties

Being accessible

Another strategy that good managers use is being accessible to both customers and employees. Besides helping address customer concerns, accessibility plays an integral role in the employees' performance and productivity. If employees and customers know their manager is always available to listen to their issues and solve them, they may feel that their manager cares for them and is good at their job.

Successful managers alter their busy schedules to ensure they're available to their employees and customers. For instance, they could develop several channels through which their customers and employees can reach them. This could mean giving out their phone number for them to reach you by calling. Another way to ensure you're accessible is by regularly checking your emails to be aware of your staff's concerns and address them.

Staying committed

Although the attributes of top managers may differ, they all have one thing in common: they remark, honour and make commitments. Managerial commitments can take different forms, including hiring decisions, capital investments and public statements. These commitments influence an organisation. A leader's commitment shapes the business identity.

By being committed, managers encourage their employees to exercise devotion to their work, as employees always emulate what their leaders do. Successful managers commit to their work and ensure they meet the company's expectations. Commitment is an invaluable management strategy that can have a tremendous impact on sales and productivity.

Seeking clarity

Successful managers always seek clarity to work towards achieving the best for the company. They ensure their work aligns with the company's core principles by asking themselves these questions:

Why does the company exist?
What shall we do?
How are we supposed to behave?
What do we do to ensure we succeed?
What is the priority right now?
Who shall do what?

It's easier for businesses to succeed if managers develop and share a clear vision, business goals and values. With this clarity, a business has a sense of direction and purpose, which results in success. Successful executives always achieve clarity and smoothly run their businesses by addressing issues immediately as they come up.

Facilitating training

Managers often facilitate training and ensure their success. Successful managers engage direct reports, set objectives for the training and get resources necessary for the training. They identify development opportunities for employees and help them see the benefits that accrue from improving their abilities. Effective managers understand that positive learning cultures emanate from the top and have everything to do with their attitudes towards training. This trickles down to managers in the lower levels and eventually to the other employees.

Training may cover a variety of topics, including project management, process efficiency, effective communication and customer service. Managers play a huge role in transferring knowledge and skills to practical tasks. This could take different phases, namely pre-training, actual training and post-training. The role of managers during the pre-training period is to set learning goals and expected outcomes. Also, after completion of the training, managers follow up with the employees to ensure they apply whatever they have learnt.

Holding regular meetings

To establish effective management, regular meetings are critical. Meetings are an excellent forum for seeking clarification, planning, solving problems and establishing the alignment of activities to strategic goals. They present employees with a chance to realign principles and offer directives on business practices. Holding regular meetings may help you plan effectively and make a positive impact on your area of speciality. Top managers attain their success by:

holding separate meetings for tactical and strategic business planning
ensuring they allocate adequate time for debating, resolving and seeking clarification on major business issues
meeting employees at least quarterly outside the company setting to assess market and industry trends

How to perform the strategic management process

The strategic management process comprises five steps:

1. Clarify your vision

One thing that clarifies your vision for your company is setting well-defined goals. This first step involves three major tasks, for instance, identifying your objectives (both short- and long-term), determining the process you can use to accomplish your goals and customising this process for your organisation. It's important to ensure your objectives are realistic, detailed and align with the company values.

2. Gather and analyse information

This is an essential stage, as the information you gather may affect the next steps. In this stage, you may gather as much information as you can to attain your vision. At the analysis stage, focus on the needs of your company for self-sustainment, its direction and initiatives that can help it grow.

3. Develop a strategy

When devising a plan, your first step is to review the information collected during the analysis stage. You can then identify the resources in your company that can help you achieve your objectives. You might also want to know if you'll need any external resources. Also, list all the challenges affecting the organisation. You can then develop your strategy by considering all the listed aspects.

4. Execute your strategy

Strategy execution is the action phase of the strategic management process. Every member of the organisation may clearly understand what the organisation expects of them and how they can contribute towards its overall goal. Also, you may ensure all the resources and funds necessary for your project are available.

5. Evaluate and control

For you to carry out evaluation and control of your strategic management plan's effectiveness, it's necessary that you create and use performance measurements. You can also do a review of internal and external factors and take remedial action if need be. The first step in successful strategy evaluation is deciding on the parameters to measure and ensuring they reflect the goals outlined in the initial stage. You can perform progress evaluations by doing a comparison of your plan and the actual results.

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