Management Tasks

The first element of the Complementary Management Model consists of the management tasks. Management tasks specify the goals that need to be achieved. Structural management tasks and people management tasks complement each other, and effective management addresses both.

Graphical representation of the Complementary Management Model with emphasis on the model element of management tasks
Management Tasks

The Path Via Management Tasks

To concretize management and leadership via their tasks is the classic way of almost all practice-oriented management approaches. For example, it is common knowledge that management and leadership involve defining strategies and developing people. Managers who know their tasks will usually translate them into appropriate behavior. This is therefore the right starting point for describing and shaping management and leadership. However, the incompleteness of most established models is surprising—practitioners often achieve more comprehensive task catalogs in a simple brainstorming session. Of course, management tasks can be categorized or divided at will and named differently. Also, overlaps are inevitable. The crucial thing however is that no important tasks are left out.

Management as a Service

The idea of management and leadership as an act of serving has a long tradition. In the complementary management model, it is interpreted as a professional service. This principle is highly relevant in practice because it counters a domineering self-image and thus prevents destructive management. However, two relativizing aspects are essential for a practical understanding of good management and leadership. On the one hand, professional service is never boundless, but limited to specific duties—namely the management tasks. On the other hand, every service has both a diciplinary and a support function. In literature, this field of tension is often addressed with keywords such as “results orientation vs. employee orientation” or “challenging vs. supporting.” Managing and leading is therefore not only about maximizing results or employee satisfaction, but about finding the appropriate balance between the two depending on the situation. Successful managerial influence requires both, and every management task is characterized by both functions.

People Management Tasks

Structural Management Tasks

People Management Tasks

The Complementary Management Model identifies seven categories of people management tasks, each with three single tasks. The basic understanding here is that these are human performance conditions, i.e., prerequisites for sustainably productive work. The point of reference here is the individual person.

Organizational management and leadership therefore ensures that everyone has what they need to work successfully: work content, job fit, resources, competence, collaboration, care, and motivation. The seven people management tasks complement each other and together constitute the entirety of what management and leadership must achieve in terms of individual performance conditions.

Table with the two columns „Task Category“ und „Single Tasks“. The seven categories: Defining work content Achieving best person-job fit Providing resources Strengthening competence Fostering collaboration Bestowing care Creating motivation The single tasks (three per category, top to bottom): To establish work tasks To appoint work activities To clarify ways of working To recruit and retain To select and onboard To dismiss and release To arrange working times and locations To supply information and work tools To evaluate performance and give feedback To qualify To develop To cultivate knowledge and innovation To ensure coordinative communication To maintain relationships and solve conflicts To foster culture, diversity, and team spirit To protect health and life balance To facilitate flow To explain and accompany change To consider needs and wants To round off the incentive field To shape expectations, to provide meaning, and impetus Under the table: „People management tasks of Complementary Management © Boris Kaehler / goodHR 2025. All rights reserved.”

People management creates personal performance conditions

Structural Management Tasks

The structural management tasks—three categories, again each with three individual tasks— are representative in the Complementary Management Model for regulations that need to be created and optimized. The idea behind this is to pre-structure operational people management through certain normative settings and thus make it more efficient. Since personnel measures generally do not take effect immediately, but only with a time lag, this is indispensable. Furthermore, such regulations constitute the organization (i.e., the company, the government agency, etc.) as an institution.

Table with the two columns „Task Category“ und „Single Tasks“. The three categories: Shaping the business model Building organizational structures Providing work instruments The single tasks (three per category, top to bottom): To develop a business purpose To establish functional models To craft strategies To establish a management system To structure organizational design To optimize processes To supply HR instruments To maintain materials and equipment To operate IT systems Under the table: „Structural management tasks of Complementary Management © Boris Kaehler / goodHR 2025. All rights reserved.”

In practice, structural management tasks are often neglected. Nevertheless, they are the key lever for effective management and leadership at every level of an organization. For example, it is not only the organization as a whole that pursues a business purpose, but also each business unit, each department, and each position, and all of these must be chosen wisely and coordinated with each other in order to be successful.

Structural management creates tools and framework conditions

Management Instruments

Unlike people management tasks, structural management tasks do not create conditions for human performance, but rather establish structures in the form of rules, systems, programs, or forms. These can be understood as management instruments, as formal tools. They are of particular interest because managers not only have to develop their own tools, but also apply those of higher-level departments. Ideally, this relieves them and ensures a consistently high level of management and leadership across the entire organization. In practice, however, the opposite is often the case, with management instruments actually making managerial work more difficult. Where, for example, appraisal systems prescribe nonsensical criteria and procedures, lively feedback discussions are replaced by meaningless rituals and bureaucratic effort. Structural management tasks must therefore be understood as such, especially by central departments, and implemented in a user-friendly manner. This requires professional know-how in structure design, which is often lacking.