Are managers born or made? Find here everything necessary to explain this statement about leadership! Managers are born, not made essay below contains both theory and examples.
Introduction
Modern tendencies in the sphere of business and many other factors make managers important and inevitable members of the working process. It should be mentioned that managers are responsible for many different tasks, therefore, they are to possess many features necessary to manage those tasks.
Are Managers Born or Made?
Defining the profession of manager, the general definition of a term may be as follows, a manager is “someone who has the responsibility to utilize an organization’s material resources and to leverage cooperation from employees in order to attain a goal that is deemed important to the organization’s success” (Gualco 2010, p. 18).
To complete these responsibilities, a manager should possess a number of features, qualities and talents. There is an expression that good managers are made, not born and many scholars and professional managers support this idea. However, there is also a versa version of this notion that a good manager is born not made. It is hard to discuss these points as each of them has the right to existence and may be supported by arguments.
Trying to dwell upon an idea that the good manager is born not made in a critical way, it should be mentioned that each manager is to complete different tasks depending on the specifics of some company, however, each manager is to possess some particular features. Depending on the ability to learn those features, the statement may be either supported or rejected.
The statement that good managers are born, not made may be agreed upon only partially since to be a good leader a person should possess some specific inborn features which cannot be gained due to the specific practices, at the same time good managers are made as they are to possess the qualities they can learn and non inborn abilities can be helpful.
Leadership, futuristic vision, communication skills, and organizing skill are the features managers are to possess apart from a number of other qualities. Measuring this issue, many features of managers are going to be considered with the purpose of understanding whether it is possible to learn all the issues which are to be applicable to managers, or people can only have those being born.
According to Llewellyn & Holt (2007), good managers build teams, mentor, and empower workers, lead, motivate, reward, listen, cope and perceive; they are also flexible and focused. There are people who may possess some of these features, however, most of them should be learnt, what is more important, people are able to learn all of them.
People do not know how employees should be empowered and motivated, or how teams are built. All these features may be gained only if a person studies hard. The ability to listen is usually considered as an inborn one, however, one can learn listening abilities as well as flexibility and focus. Thus, people are to study hard, ruin past habits and do all possible to develop the new ones.
It is really hard to do it, but possible. Of course, those people who are born with necessary qualities should spend less time on developing the required skills, however, it does not mean that others cannot learn them. Baird (1986) is also sure that good managers are made, not born. He states that to become a good manager, a person should possess good problem-solving orientation, a scientific approach and skepticism.
These features may be inborn when nature gives a person an opportunity to solve the problems using inner qualities, when a person is a skeptic by nature and when a person can complete a research due to one’s personal desire to know as much as possible.
Still, it is impossible to reject the idea that these features may be successfully learnt. Walesh (2000) says that students of the engineering college are able to complete all these tasks after graduation as this is one of their responsibilities. Therefore, other features which are to be possessed by the managers can be easily learnt.
Leadership is an inevitable part of management. Managers are to be leaders and leaders are to possess some characteristic features which distinguish them from other employees. Sensitization to follower expectations, inspiring others, building positive affect, communication and listening skills, and individuation are the features leaders should possess (Cole 2011).
Sensitization to follower expectations is important for leader. To be sure that others will follow him/her a leader should do all possible to create the expectations interesting for employees. Motivation is important and there are no inborn features which would help people create the motivational guidelines in the organizations.
These features are to be learnt. Inspiring others is also important like building positive affect. A manager should make sure that he/she is able to inspire employees for better performance. Moreover, positive effect is the guarantee of a successful work. However, it is impossible to say that being a manager, one should have such inborn features. They are successfully gained by leaning and working experience (Cole 2011).
Communication and listening skill is really important for managers. Timmins (2011) has developed successful strategies which are able to help people improve their communication and listening skills. Therefore, these leadership features may be learnt.
Adeniyi (2007) develops the idea that learning the individual features of each of the employees is a hard work, however, he also agrees that there are people who are able to know others without learning their profile.
The inner possibility to feel others is really important. However, there are those who should study profiles of the employees, conduct tests and perform other HR tasks to get to know a person better, and there are those who have a talent of knowing a person’s inner world from communication on different themes.
Zenger and Folkman (2009) are sure that managers are made but not born as there are a lot of examples when people became great managers by their hard work contributing to their career development. Self-development also plays an important role because if people do not grow personally, they cannot be good managers.
Time passing, strategies, approaches and vision of business changes and managers are to catch all these changes and make all possible to lead the company ahead. Learning the world business strategies, considering the peculiarities of management tendencies, etc. are some of the tasks which may be completed by those who want to do it. No inborn features are to be possessed by people.
Dwelling upon inborn features, we usually speak about character and behavior which are affected by human character. However, character may be changed if people really want to. There are shy and silent couriers which look at the work of others, change their vision of the life, their desires, and become good managers. This is one of the examples of the personal development which is the part of each manager.
Stress resistance is another feature managers are to possess. There are many people who nave inborn calm character and who do not react on different provocations. However, there are also people who have an opportunity to learn this particular feature. It is hard, but it is possible.
Modern techniques can do everything for those who want to change (Mohr & Wolfram). Futuristic vision and organizing skills are also developed during the life of a person. It is impossible to be born with a great desire to be innovative in thinking and organized in actions.
When people grow up, parents teach them to keep everything in order, they are learnt to do things gradually. Going to school, children are taught to look into the future possibilities of their actions. Performing different tasks students are to understand their importance and the ability to be applied somewhere.
Trying to support the statement that managers are born not made, one can say that even though all the features and qualities people need can be learned, people are to possess some potential to learn and in this way to become a good manager. There is an expression that some people have better abilities to humanities, others to economics and mathematics.
This is all about human potential. To the point, Mozart was not born a musician, he just had the potential for it. The same goes about managers. None of the people is born with the set of features in mind necessary for being a manager, people may just have potential for being leaders, good listeners, creative thinkers, etc.
Conclusion
This is really important to understand as in this case the statement that good managers are born not made may be slightly changed to become the truth, good managers are born with potential, not made out of nothing.
Therefore, it may be concluded that having conducted a research about good managers and the inborn features, the conclusion is not in favor of the statement that good managers are born not made.
People are not born with the specific features which help them manage others, they may be born with the potential which may be helpful in leading others. These are absolutely different notions, therefore, the statement under consideration is false.
Reference List
Adeniyi, MA 2007, Effective Leadership Management: An Integration of Styles, Skills & Character for Today’s Ceos, AuthorHouse, New York.
Baird, L 1986, Managing performance, John Wiley, New York.
Cole, M 2011, ‘Become the leader followers want to follow’, Supervision, vol. 72, iss. 10, pp. 24-26.
Gualco, D 2010, The Good Manager: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century Manager, iUniverse, New York.
Llewellyn, AB & Holt, R 2007, The Everything Career Tests Book: 10 Tests to Determine the Right Occupation for You, Everything Books, New York.
Mohr, G& Wolfram, H 2010, ‘Stress among managers: The importance of dynamic tasks, predictability, and social support in unpredictable times’, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, vol. 15, no. 2. pp. 167-179.
Timmins, F 2011, ‘Managers’ duty to maintain good workplace communications skills’, Nursing Management – UK, vol. 18, iss. 3, pp. 30-34.
Walesh, SG 2000, Engineering your future: The non-technical side of professional practice in engineering and other technical fields, ASCE Publications, New York.
Zenger, JH & Folkman, J 2009, The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders, McGraw-Hill Professional, New York.