UKC

For those in management, do you enjoy the job?

And how did you get there, working your way up the company with in-house training or getting a degree?

In reply to The Lemming:

I'm a senior manager but my career is not in management - it goes with the seniority of the role.

It has good and bad parts - the mass of admin is the bad, and having to divert attention to personal dramas. But the good is to see people develop and achieve under your guidance - very rewarding.

In reply to The Lemming:

Mgt is a pretty broad area - bit like saying do engineers enjoy it...

For me I really like it, but I'm more interested in high level and future focussed work rather than detail about the here and now. Not being able to throw lots of time at one issue might irk some but that's the best bit for me!

In reply to The Lemming:

I am a senior manager in the organization I work for, but I would hate to think I have a career in management. The management comes with the seniority of the job, I manage things more than I manage people and I prefer it that way.

I have got where I am through doing a degree, post grad, working my way through a number of organizations and a bit of time at business schools along the way.

In reply to The Lemming: I have two jobs. In my full time NHS job I am not a manager. In my other part-time job I am a senior manager and leader and am expected to demonstrate that I can perform to the same standards of those who are not managers in the key skills required for this job - managers are not removed from the sharp end in this job, that is unusual for managers in general. The management comes with the seniority of the job. I love it, in fact even though it is part-time, I love it way more than my fulltime NHS job - I get to plan ahead, manage people, shape policy, take part in the activities of the organisation as an equal with the most unmanagerly front line people and, crucially, I deliver front line output in exactly the same way as those in the organisation who are not remotely managers. I like that mix. It is a job in a career I did full time for 11 years before my NHS career. I got to my position by having a degree, a lot of in house training, a lot of hard work in extremely testing and dangerous environments. I do not have a career in management. I do not know what that means.

In reply to The Lemming:
I ended up in senior managment (board level)almost by accident, having worked my way up through the industry (the normal way when I started back in the dark ages). I was still closely involved in my own skill area so I felt I had the best of both worlds. The good stuff was having control rather than being at other people's beck and call, shaping the future of the company, launching new products and having a much broader view of what we were doing. I was mildly astonished to discover I loved the business/financial side too, an area I would never have thought of going into when I left school.
The downside was the paperwork/admin and the personnel issues, dealing with the bone idle, the misfits and the frankly nuts

In reply to The Lemming:

No.

Worked my way up through innovation and determination.....and a few ounces of 'chancer'.
The salary's ok but i hate the organisation i work for and would leave in a heart beat.

In reply to The Lemming:

It has its own challenges and rewards. I quite like it because whereas "things" - in terms of product - will generally do what you want them to, people don't, and will often react in totally irrational ways. Also, again unlike "things", every one is different with different motivations, skills and aspirations. It makes it more challenging.

How I got here - worked my way up through the organisation for 15 years. However I started in the company with a degree.

In reply to The Lemming:
I think a lot will also be dependent on the company. I had a fairly senior management position in the last job, that I worked my way up from the bottom to get. No training whatsoever, just expected to get on and do the job. Following the company being bought out we had a rapacious bunch of asset strippers in charge, and I was very much between a rock and a hard place. I was glad to be bought off with a compromise agreement and get out of the job.

I'm at the point now where I have the option to move into management again. To be honest I'm thinking of politely declining. We're an American led company, with all the bullshit bingo and false team spirit that goes with it. It's more money, which also racks up the pension, but I couldn't spend the next 13 years spouting bollocks I don't believe in.

In reply to John_Hat:

It depends, for example if the product is an IT system, that system does not always do what you or others want it to. This is because people have programmed it and people update or change them. Even bog standard boring products generally have some kind of impact on others. Customers can be just as challenging if not more so than staff. And "things" wear out and fail.


Whether you are managing people, resources or the whole chain etc, the opportunities are vast and can be very rewarding. I consider that everyone is a manager at some level, it is perhaps a simplistic statement but managers are generally more able to take greater responsibility than someone who has not yet reached the level of a manager.

I worked my way through an organization based on my experience and training.

In reply to The Lemming:

Hmmm, I am responsible to people, for a load of other people, all of whom do stuff, are brilliant, and make mistakes.

I try to have the answers for all the questions they think they dont know the answers to (but normally they do really), take all the decisons that noone else likes taking, and only ever get cross with people who dont behave as I think I would.

The bloke who is above me probably feels the same....

I could be a manager but I'm not sure?

As to how I got here, I cant really recall, I am sure I spent a summer shovelling concrete after I left school, now very many years later I sign contracts for multi million pound building projects....I am sure things happened in between those two situations, but its all a bit hazy....

In reply to The Lemming:

degree - work way up profession - manage a team - then set up own business

you could short cut it all and just set up your own business to 'manage' if you have a good idea....