The Daily Art of Management: A Hands-On Guide to Effective Leadership and Communication

Effective managers matter to an organization. After all, they translate strategy into action and motivate the people they lead. But managers are sometimes less than effective, ending up in positions of authority and responsibility due to technical competence, company growth, or serendipity. Unprepared, they often lack key skills. Or, like so many managers promoted due to stellar job performance, they may have trouble understanding and motivating other people. Managers thrust into roles of authority need grounding in the fundamentals of management. And that’s exactly what management experts Peg Thoms and Jim Fairbank deliver: The Daily Art of Management is the mentor at a manager’s shoulder, full of excellent advice and encouragement.

Most advice to managers consists of general prescriptions: Be inspiring, Drive innovation, or Beat the competition through crisp execution. Great, but how? It’s not easy doing any of these things. This book, which draws on the experience of Thoms and Fairbank as well as their research on management behavior, closes the gap between the idealized leader and reality--the gap between book learning and street smarts. It shows managers and aspiring leaders at all levels of the organization how to master ten key roles and practice them on a daily basis. Examples and practical guidelines reinforce the concepts and serve as a handy resource for anyone interested in the art and science of effective management. In this book, managers will learn how to: -Set goals -Create an ethical environment -Create a vision -Select and motivate followers -Manage change -Handle competitors . . . and other critical skills effective managers employ to get the job done with style. The Daily Art of Management covers the issues managers face every day--but for which they are rarely trained.

PEG THOMS is Professor of Management and Director of the MBA Program in the School of Business at Penn State, Erie, the Behrend College. She is the author of Project Leadership from Theory to Practice, Driven by Time, (Praeger 2003) and Finding the Best and the Brightest (Praeger 2005), as well as the co-editor of Battleground: Business (Praeer, 2007). She has conducted extensive consulting, leadership development, and training programs with organizations in both the public and private sectors.

JAMES F. FAIRBANK is Associate Professor of Management at Penn State, Erie, The Behrend College. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Navy veteran, he is the author of numerous journal articles and has done extensive management consulting and training.