The essence of management lies in two essential skills. The ability to identify the result that is required to make your business unit/organisation successful, and the ability to achieve those results through the efforts of those that you manage, your resources. 

Every organisation must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order to maximize its effectiveness.  The commercial world of management would lead some analysts to define private sector management as the true definition of management, as it is so dependable upon econcomic indicators.  The public sector managers on the other hand, which is not always commercially driven, could be defined as business admininistrators and not managers.

Managing is defined regardless by five functional areas in both the private and public sector:

Managers in both the public and private sector are responsible for task and activity management for themselves and their teams.  Depending upon the position and the level, managers need to be able to respond to these accountabilities:

Lower management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the middle and upper managers are carried out.  Lower-level managers' decisions are generally short-term ones.

Middle management is a layer of management in an organization whose primary job responsibility is to monitor activities of subordinates while reporting to upper management.

Upper management is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of organizational management who have the day-to-day responsibilities of managing a corporation. There are most often higher levels of responsibility, such as a board of directors and those who own the company (shareholders), but they focus on managing the senior management instead of the day-to-day activities of the business.