Certificate 4 Frontline Management The Three Pillars of Management

Management Consultancy International Management Whitepaper

The Three Pillars of Management

Forget the MBA - here’s what you need to know about management to lead your team in just three words!

Management consists of three essential pillars:

1. Responsibility

2. Authority

3. Accountability

Tasks in organisations cannot be effectively managed unless these three concepts exist. Let’s investigate each of these concepts.

Responsibility is about an ensuring an emotional connection in the individual with the task or goal in question. Managers and academics often use the terms ‘buy-in’, ‘ownership’ and ‘commitment’ to describe such an emotional connection.

Authority is the ability to make a decision, allocate resources, influence individuals and exercise discretionary judgement.

Accountability is ensuring that outcomes are checked, performance is measured and evaluated and actions taken if outcomes are sub-optimal. This step is critical.

Management constitutes of ensuring these three pillars are present for all tasks that they delegate and are delegated. Let’s look at a few scenarios:

Scenario 1: Responsibility, Accountability but no AUTHORITY

Sales manager James knows that his department is underperforming. James’ sales team’s performance is measured and checked regularly using a sophisticated software package. His manager Gary has explained to him clearly that it is critical for the business’ ongoing success that new sales are achieved in order to replace natural attrition of existing clientele as they work in an industry with a high customer churn rate. James has been struggling in his role for some time now, and he is upset because his manager will not give him the ability to allocate any funds towards new advertising initiatives or to change the five-year old script which his sales team use to conduct cold-calling.

This is a classic example of a manager understanding the importance of a goal, being held accountable for his performance but not having a sufficient level of authority to make changes.

Scenario 2: Responsibility and Authority, but no ACCOUNTABILITY

Software engineer Ben feels quite lucky that his manager has a poor memory. A few weeks ago his manager told him about the importance of ensuring that he fills out his TPS reports on a weekly basis. He knows that he really should be doing this as it helps his colleagues track the group’s progress. He the time and ability to complete the report, but as times get busy, particularly toward the end of each week, he finds himself more and more consumed by the other tasks which his managers have given him. Ben knows that no-one will check in whether he has completed the TPS report so he usually doesn’t bother doing it.

This is an example of a team member understanding the importance of a goal, having enough authority to perform (time and ability) but not being held accountable for its completion.

Scenario 3 - Authority, Accountability but no RESPONSIBILITY

Office manager Jan is unhappy. She has been in her role for only six months and yet is already considering leaving her organisation. She feels as though she does not have the support of her colleagues and team. Her manager has very poor communication skills and to make matters worse, is based in another city. She receives a list each morning of tasks to perform and little other instruction unless she makes an error or does not finish her work in time. She feels disaffected and does not have an emotional connection with any of the tasks she is delegated. She does not know how her work affects other team members and so she does not give her work her best efforts, instead merely doing enough to satisfy her manager.

This is an example of a team member having enough authority to perform (time and ability), being held accountable, but having no sense of responsibility. Responsibility in this instance is an emotional connection to the work. Jan does not have any reason to do her work with passion!

Conclusion: Make sure you keep juggling all three of these!

We like to think of these three concepts as the “three pillars of management”. A useful analogy for managers to use is that these three pillars must be upheld just like a juggler must keep their juggling balls in the air. Just as a juggler has to exert effort in order to keep the juggling balls moving, a manager must also exert effort to ensure that all three of these pillars are in place. When a juggler drops a ball they are no longer juggling. So too, if a manager does not ensure all three pillars are upheld, the goal or task will fall apart.
About the Author

MCI is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) providing Certificate iv in Frontline Management courses, certificate iv frontline management, front line management, frontline business management, frontline management courses, leadership management courses, leadership skills training courses, certificate 4 frontline management

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