General Management

Various factors discussed above are, no doubt, important but they cannot work well without the support of suitable leadership and various management practices. These are the integrating force of an organization. Therefore, strategists should analyze these factors to identify strengths and weak- nesses. Following factors are relevant in this category:

Leadership: Leadership is the process of winning enthusiastic support of personnel in an organization. It is one of the major determinants of organizational success. Most of the organizations which have achieved high success are characterized by good leadership, and they place emphasis on transformational leadership as against transactional leadership. A transformational leader inspires his followers through high vision and energy. A transactional leader determines what subordinates need to do to achieve objectives, classifies those requirements, and helps the subordinates become confident that they can reach objectives.

Top Management Constitution and Philosophy: Top management contributes the lifeblood for the total organisation. Its constitution and philosophy are strong determinants of organisational success. Organisation characterized by age-old and traditional management is less likely to succeed in the environment of growing competition. Enterprising approach of top management is also an important factor determining the growth of the organisation. Thus, future oriented top management having enterprising professional approach is strength of the organisation.

Organizational Image and Prestige: Organizational image and prestige affect the organisational working by providing it various facilities and constraints better image and prestige providing facilities and low image and prestige providing constraints. The measurement of corporate image and prestige, however, is quite difficult because of the absence of any quantitative criteria. For this purpose, various indicators can be taken into account, such as appraisal of organisational working by third parties, willingness of financial institutions to advance loans, customers’ loyalty towards the products offered by the company, level of satisfaction to suppliers and creditors of the company, importance attached to the statements by the company, etc. A favorable reaction on these factors is an indicator of better company image and prestige which is strength for the company.

Organisational Climate: Organisational climate is the internal set of attributes specific to an organisation that may be induced from the way the organisation deals with its members. Thus, organisation member’s relationship is built upon the basis of how the former treats the latter. Organisational climate can be measured by taking into account how its members react to various actions, how willingly they cooperate with it in achieving its objectives, and how satisfied they are with the organisation. A sound organisational climate based on mutual trust and confidence and human consideration is strength for the organisation.

Management Practices: The extent to which the organisation follows various management practices affects its success. High scores on managerial practices in respect to strategic planning, objective control and evaluation system, management information system, and manpower planning and succession plan are strengths of the organisation.

Organisation Structure: Organisation structure is network of internal relationship through which individuals interact among themselves in the context of organisational matters. A suitable organisation structure is strength for the organisation. The suitability of organisation structure is not universal phenomenon but is determined by the organization’s environment, technology, size, and people. Thus, a suitable organisation structure is one, which meets the demands of all these factors.

Organisational External Relationships: As discussed earlier, the organisation has to work in environment where large number of factors exists. These factors affect the organisational operations by offering facilities and constraints to it. The extent to which the organisation builds relationships with the factors offering such facilities and constraints, including government and other regulatory bodies, its success or failure is determined. If its relationship with the various external forces is good, it stands to affect these forces favorably making use of most facilities and avoiding constraints, hence strength for the organisation.

Based on the above discussion, major strengths and weaknesses in the area of general management can be summarized as given in Table below:

Strengths and weaknesses in general management
Strengths	Weaknesses
Transformational leadership	Transactional leadership
Future-oriented top management	Present-oriented top management
High organisational image and prestige	Low organisational image and prestige
Sound organizational climate based on mutual trust and respect	Low organisational climate   based on authoritarian culture and mutual suspicion
Sound and suitable management practices	Ineffective management practices
Suitable organisation structure consistent with external and internal demands	Lack of well-defined or ill-defined organisation structure
Well-maintained external relationships	Lack of external relationships