The management role and style has undergone frequent changes with time. Accordingly, the challenges being faced by the management also change. Successful managers adapt themselves to the change. Let us see what are the biggest challenges being faced by the management today:

1.      Corporate Culture: Corporate culture flows from the top to bottom. Corporate culture is a mix of written and unwritten rules and policies, the philosophy of the management and the management style of operation. One of the critical elements of the culture is how the employees perceive the management behavior. If a culture directly or indirectly rewards a certain type of attitude or behavior, you are, by your actions or inactions, reaffirming that these are acceptable. Hence, if you want to change behavior, reward the behavior you want and discourage unacceptable behavior.

2.      Decision Making: Most managers would like to make the decisions which they would expect others to implement and which would also be affecting the employees. Research has proved that the outcome of such decisions is less than desired or expected. It is always better to involve all the stake holders directly or indirectly and make them a party to the decision to make the outcome successful. 

3.      Organization Direction: One of the biggest challenge faced by the management is to effectively communicate the corporate direction with clarity and consistency to all the employees who have a right to know. Most organizations do a poor job on this count. One way to find out what your employees believe is to conduct anonymous surveys of attitudes, perceptions and opinions.

4.      Communication: Communication is through various ways – emails, meetings, individual counseling, rumors, hearsays and newsletter. If the communication is only top-down, then it is assured that the management is not in touch with the realities of the organization, marketplace, customers and suppliers. The communication channel should be both ways and employees should be encouraged to air their views. Management should provide ample opportunities to obtain employee feedback.

5.      Performance Feedback:  Employees want to know how they are performing – what their strengths and weakness are and how they need to improve. Most of the time, the feedback is given at the time of annual appraisal. Since the appraisal is linked to rewards, the employee perceives the appraisal feedback as a method of justification of the reward. The feedback should be given on a regular basis and the should not be only limited to annual appraisal.  

6.  Trust: Trust is an important elemant of a harmonious, synergistic and efficient work envioronment. Trust starts from the top since trustfullness and trustworthiness can exist only if management can set an example. It is very difficult to build trust but very easy to break it.