Management is not for everyone....
I think it is funny when people say they want to become managers. I say this because I feel management isn't like many other professions. For example, when someone studies to become an engineer, they go to school, take the PE test, and there an engineer. Being a manager is so much more then that. Yes, we have to go to school and we take some tests along the way. However, managing is not just facts. It's about people. It doesnt matter how smart you are or how many formulas you might know. Being a manager you have to sucessfully interact with others. The best way to obtain these tools are from real life experiences.
Comments
Posted by: Artur Grabowski
Posted on: October 9, 2005 04:58 PM
Ryan – I agree with you that the most important lessons that a manager will ever learn will come from real world experiences, as is the case with many professions. And, of course, it is necessary that a good manager is capable of properly interacting with other people. However, I feel that putting too much stress on interaction over a proper mix of interaction and other skills creates a situation where managers are just “people persons.” I don’t think that anyone who wants to manage others is not a “people person” or, at the very least, thinks that they are. Yet it seems that interacting well with others doesn’t cover the majority of the required skills set to be a manager, its simply the most basic prerequisite. Most managers, and specifically all whom I’ve worked with, are responsible for many analytical and computational tasks outside of just organizing a team. Additionally, even when they are managing others, the ability to interact with them is not the end; it is only the means to putting into action a plan that the manager has previously crafted with the use of his alternate skills set. Nevertheless, I do agree with you that no matter how much a manager learns in class, he must learn to apply it through real world experience.