Question

1. The three purposes a leader would generate a report is to:  1) inform, 2) instruct, or 3) persuade.  List the types of reports associated with each of these three purposes and what their content would focus on.

Answer 1

1. Inform: The report for the purpose of information is Progress report. Progress report includes detailed information on ongoing business process. Progress report presents the actual status of the business operations. The main content in this type of report is to inform the management and employees of current status of business operations.

2. Instruct: The report for the purpose of instruction is Summary report. Summary reports present the detailed information about the feedback from the top management to the lower management and from lower management to top management. The main focus of this report is to present a summary of ongoing business processes with instructions of follow up.

3. Persuade: Reports to persuade are recommendation reports. These reports are prepared after studying a scenario. The focus of this report is to present the recommendations and persuade the manager/employee to adopt or retrench a practice/norm/standards/policies/procedures etc.