Manage or Being Managed

“A musician must make music, accountant must make/validate or check accounting entries, painter must paint and a poet must write verses, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.  It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming. . . .” (Extracts from Abraham H. Maslow’s hierarchy of need)

Being a manager or being managed is a contradiction having multiple meanings in opposite directions. Every one of us lies within this contradiction and often neglects the view point of those on other side.

The question arises; whom, we can call a better manager?

Obviously that can manage things properly and can get work done by others effectively etc. A manager is being managed by another manager (whichever name called e.g. Director, GM etc.) and another manager is being managed by some other manager i.e. CEO, Chairman etc. and so on. It means a manager is being managed at the same time except he is an entrepreneur/owner.

Would you belief if I say “a better manager is a person who manages all the people around in upward or downward hierarchy and an ineffective manager is a person who is being managed by his/her peers, boss and subordinates”

Here I want to clear a doubt that managing boss/seniors does not mean that take a control or overreact, but it means managing by art of subordination. And being managed by boss does not lead to ineffectiveness until one cannot handle his/her work/job.

When we talk about management it includes management of work, people and processes/Technology (or man, money and machines). If we take a deep look we would find that actually there is only one factor having pervasive effect on all managements and that is “Managing people”. So managing people ultimately leads to managing work and processes. One can say that an era now came where technology manages people; yes it is a separate topic and a food for thoughts.

It will create a win-win situation for all where top to bottom employees were peers and respectful to others no one is inferior or superior as a human.