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Struggles of Struggles of managerial being and managerial being and becoming becoming

Experiences from managers’ personal development training

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Thomas Andersson University of Sko¨vde, Sko¨vde, Sweden and Gothenburg Research Institute, School of Technology and Society, Gothenburg, Sweden Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the struggles of managerial identity in relation to the process of becoming/being a manager, and the personal conflicts involved within this process. Design/methodology/approach – In a qualitative, longitudinal project, five managers were studied for two years using interviews and observations. This was undertaken before, during, and after their participation in personal development training. In total, 62 interviews and eight half-day observations were conducted. Findings – The study puts emphasis on the role of management training in providing templates for “how to be a manager”, but it also illustrates the double-edged and complex role played by context in managerial being and becoming. On the one hand context shapes managerial identity; on the other hand, context might operate to dilute the identity an individual manager wishes to assume. Research limitations/implications – The study focuses on only five managers in two organizations. This small sample limits the generalisabilty of the research. Practical implications – Management training tends to be based on the idea that management concerns the acquisition of competencies, techniques and personal awareness, while managerial practice is more fluid and contextually based. There is a challenge for organizers of all types of management training to bridge the gap between a fixed idea of what it is to be a manager and how management is actually practised. Originality/value – The longitudinal and in-depth qualitative approach facilitates an important contribution to understanding issues in developing a managerial identity. Keywords Managerialism, Managers, Self development, Management training Paper type Research paper

Introduction What does being a manager in an organization mean? According to organizational research (e.g. Collinson, 2003; Thomas and Linstead, 2002; Watson, 2001), this is not a simple question. In fact, many researchers question whether there is a definitive state of “managerial being” at all, since managerial identities are characterized by fragmentation and are in a constant state of fluidity, rather than permanence and stability (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). In short, managerial identities might best be described as constantly emerging, that is, as a process of becoming rather than a state of being. The idea of becoming a manager, however, remains undeveloped in the literature. The common understanding is that management is something that is clearly identifiable, for example, as a collection of competencies, or as a particular set of roles (e.g. Quinn et al., 2003). This understanding is represented in management training, as

Journal of Management Development Vol. 29 No. 2, 2010 pp. 167-176 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0262-1711 DOI 10.1108/02621711011019305

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it implies that management is something that can be “learned” through courses and training (Andersson, 2005). However, when managers describe how they “learned” to be managers, they seem often to be dismissive of programmes, courses and books concerning the subject (Watson and Harris, 1999). Instead, managers “learn” mainly through practice in a long-term process of constantly becoming a manager (Watson, 2001), which continues throughout the manager’s working life (Mintzberg, 2004). Becoming a manager is about mastering the process of “becoming” rather than learning the managerial techniques of “being” (Hill, 1992). Managers, however, might long for the stability and security that a competence/skill perspective represents. For some managers, the idea that management is an ongoing fluid process might create stress and insecurity (Watson, 2001). The putative post-bureaucratic, flat and network-based organizations that characterize the changing business environment may increase this personal stress. People, and especially managers, in such organizations consequently find themselves in complex and multifaceted situations (McKenna, 1999a) that challenge their sense of a coherent identity (Collinson, 2003). Sense making then becomes the core activity of managerial work (McKenna, 1999b), since managers need to make sense of every situation and of “who they are” in specific situations to be able to act. Consequently, there is a tension between ideas emphasizing that management can be learned out of the contexts in which it operates and the practice of management occurring in context. Managers have to manage this tension and live out this conflict between being a manager, but paradoxically, always becoming a manager and becoming. This paper examines this conflict based on a study of five managers participating in a management-training programme. While managerial identities are better understood in the context of processes of becoming, managers may focus more on “being” a particular kind of manager in line with prevailing discourses of what it is to “be” a manager that emanates from management training, specific organizations and/or society as a whole. Framing “being” or “becoming” a manager The idea of managers either being a manager or constantly becoming a manager implies two competing perspectives (Watson, 2006). First, being a manager suggests that there is an ideal to which managers should aspire. Such an ideal-type is often represented in literature and management training, but there will also be “local” ways of managing that are very context specific. Second, this also implies that organizations are stable and essentially unchanging in terms of structure, culture and processes of organizing; and consequently that social reality is stable (Chia, 2007). Thus, the identity of a manager and what it is to be a manager is clear and definable and perhaps, can be subject to classification in the form of competencies (e.g. Quinn et al., 2003). Lately, this view has been criticized, since viewing management and managers in this way creates “monocultures of the mind” (Ruth, 2006, p.216) that are destructive and delimiting for managers. Furthermore, skills and competencies cannot be abstracted from the person or the context, which makes the idea of a set of generic managerial competencies problematic (McKenna, 2004). This critique leads us to another perspective, where management can be viewed as a process of constantly becoming (e.g. Gergen, 1995; Gergen and Thatchenkery, 1996; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Watson and Harris, 1999). Managerial becoming implies that managers and management are

continually emerging processes. Instead of focusing on the development of managerial competence against fixed notions of what it is to be competent, managerial becoming suggests that managers are continuously creating, maintaining and repairing their managerial identity (McKenna, 1999c, 2004; Watson, 2001). Thus management and therefore, what it is to be a manager, is intertwined with other processes, such as processes of organizing and the processes of identity construction (Andersson and Wickelgren, 2009). Managerial becoming then is inseparable from other fluid processes and this flux and fluidity implies that a state of being a manager, in an absolute sense, can never be achieved. Managerial becoming also means shifting the focus from external causality to internal, site dependent causality (Bourdieu, 1990; Schatzki, 2005), since managerial identities are not only processual, but also relational and situational (Andersson, 2008a). The work environment of managers is characterized by shifting demands that challenge their identities (Tengblad, 2002, 2006), which means that managers struggle daily with different situations and relationships at work (Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003). The relational aspect of managerial becoming means that management is negotiated between people and within organizations (Watson, 2001), and the situational aspects means that the reflexive question “who am I” is answered in relation to different contexts (Fiol et al., 1998). Furthermore, this question might also be answered in relation to an ideal managerial self (Boyatzis and Akrivou, 2006). What a manager is, or becomes, might be then a combination of what the context requires, what individual managers feel they should be and, what other organizational members want them to be. Organizations “organizing” and managers “becoming” can seem like awkward dance partners, each trying to follow the other’s moves. They are in constant motion, changing, although these changes are not always synchronized in speed or direction. As a result there is much room for disconnection. The struggle takes place in the relationship between managers and organizations, as well as in the identities of the managers as the individuals cope with different expectations and different identity templates (Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003; Thomas and Linstead, 2002). Some templates relate to aspects of the organization, that is, organizationally derived roles and objectives of the manager and the organizational culture (Watson, 2008). Other identity templates might be a manager’s personal beliefs and attitudes to the different work roles. Additionally, the dominant management discourse of what it is to be a manager, creates identity templates (Watson, 2001). Sometimes these identity templates co-exist in harmony and sometimes they conflict (Collinson, 2003). For managers, the implications are that there are many different expectations and requirements to which they must adjust (Doyle, 2000; Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003). To frequently try to adjust to different expectations of how to “be a manager” is in itself part of the managerial process of becoming, which means that managerial being and becoming influence each other in an ongoing cycle. In the following sections these ideas are explored using data from a research project that investigated the issues involved in being and becoming a manager. Method Qualitative methods are the most appropriate for the study of management and managers in relation to processes and experiences involved in being and becoming a manager. Such methods provide proximity to the managers studied and allow

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descriptions of the complexity of everyday life (Llewellyn, 2007; McKenna, 2002). In this research programme five managers were studied in two organizations, before, during and after their participation in an eight-month personal development-training programme. In total the managers were studied for two years. The longitudinal character of the study was important as repeated observations and interviews enabled an assessment of the managers’ experiences over time. Personal development training for managers is a popular trend in management training (Andersson, 2008b; Conger, 1993a, b; Luo, 2002). The purpose of such training is to develop a manager’s self-knowledge and awareness. This type of training is especially interesting since it promotes the idea that by finding an inner self and listening to it a manager can be more authentic and sure of their identity (O’Hara and Anderson, 1995). This study of five managers sought to understand what effect their participation in such a programme would have on their self-image in relation to being/becoming a manager. By following the managers before, during and after the training, it was possible to see how managers negotiated the issues and processes involved in being and becoming a manager. The five managers work at two different organizations that are designated in this study as Alpha, a governmental organization dominated by veterinarians and Beta, a large publicly listed IT consultancy firm. The two organizations have very different management structures; Alpha is loosely structured with informal lines of authority and responsibility, while Beta is tightly structured with a clear and formal management hierarchy. The names I use for the five managers are David, Paula and Richard at Alpha, and Christine and Maria at Beta. During the two-year study, observations were made at the two organizations and interviews were conducted with the five managers, their subordinates, peers, managers, and the leaders of the training programme. In total, sixty-two interviews were conducted (22 with the five managers and 40 with people around them), and eight half-day observations were made. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data was analyzed in relation to the issues of being/becoming a manager in the context of the three timeframes, before, during and after the personal development training. The empirical material is structured in three themes: what it is “to be a manager”; organizational and work relationship requirements of being a manager vs personal identity preferences of managers and; negotiating a new managerial identity within the organization after personal development training. These seemed to be the main struggles for all five managers, and the data presented in the following sections highlights these issues. Confusion of what it is to “be a manager”: management training vs practice Richard and David, who were both veterinarian managers, seemed to look for “the secret formula of management” when entering the training. They explained: I have been a manager for eight years, but I am a veterinarian by profession and education. I think the manager job might be easier with a real managerial competence (Richard, Alpha manager). I need a management course. In a sense it has worked rather well for me being a manager anyway . . . but still, I would like to learn what it means to be a manager . . . I mean to really be a manager (David, Alpha manager).

Both Richard and David express that they want to “learn” to be a manager despite having actually managed for some time. In their minds there are skills and competencies that they need to learn in order to become a manager, or to “be” a manager. They refer to the idea of management as competencies as if it were a box of “tricks”. It would magically make life easier and they would experience what it is to “really be” a manager. The programme trainers emphasized the importance of “personal development”. However, it is perhaps inevitable that management training mirrors a particular management discourse. Consciously or not the leadership trainers are carriers of certain preferred views of management and what it is. Their slogan “We transform managers to leaders” shows a preference for leadership and leaders instead of management and managers. Furthermore, despite the leadership trainers’ claims that they do not try to impose a certain model of “good leadership” on the participants, the preference for leaders and not managers highlights a particular set of skills that attend to this idea. For example, the trainers emphasized a movement from controlling to coaching; from pushing to facilitating; from directing to involving; from managers (specialists, experts) to leaders (generalists, humanists). In essence, they emphasized a very typical and well-trodden route for discussing the difference between management and leadership. One of the leadership trainers described the participants in the following words: They are all different in terms of managerial level, industry, gender, age et cetera, but they have something else in common. All have come here with a frustration nurturing a longing for something more as managers. They are tired of running around and trying to fulfil all kinds of different expectations (Kyle, leadership trainer).

The trainers’ view was that “they (the managers) are tired” of the fragmented management role that implies a fragmented identity. However, despite the rhetoric, it would be difficult to achieve a stable sense of being a manager for the participating managers, as the reality of their organizational lives reflected a fluid, changing and turbulent context. “Running around” may be very much a part of managerial life and it certainly involves all “kinds of different expectations”. The personal development training was conducted over five weeks during an eight-month period. Following the various training sessions, there were “home-comings” for the managers as they returned to their organizations. All five managers described the return experiences as journeys between two worlds. One manager commented: I missed the permissive atmosphere at the course when back at work. To sit there, totally open, talking about your most personal matters and you know that the others are not judging you and no one pushing you in any direction. What a difference from being at work! I just wanted to go back to the course immediately! (Maria, Beta manager).

The setting the management training offered was very different to the managers’ daily organizational lives. All managers expressed in different ways the same experience as Maria, that while it was possible to experience a sense of a strong personal identity during the course, it was impossible to maintain it in their daily organizational lives. It is likely that while being at the training the managers did not experience pressure to “be” in many different and contradictory ways. The personal development training allowed them to reflect on “who they are” and “what they want to be”. It was less about reflection on the role of manager or leader.


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Organizations and work relationship requirements vs personal identity preferences There were clearly expectations from the organization and the organizational members of what a manager “should be” that was not easy to fit to the managers’ personal identity preferences. For example, while the training awoke Maria to – as she describes it – who she really was, when she tried to live out her new managerial identity, she met sharp resistance from her peers and her manager. She described this situation: Concerning my role in the management group . . . that was something I had hoped that the training would help me sort out. They see me as sarcastic and with a sharp tongue, and I have become a very cursed woman in the group. During the course, I felt very clearly that I was someone else. I am not the person that I am in the management group. But I don’t seem to be able to express who I really am. Instead, I think it has become worse since I began this course . . . I am no longer flexible and smart . . . I feel an urge to say what I feel . . . and the others ask, “Why are you going to these courses since they only make you strange?” (Maria, Beta manager).

Maria expresses a wish to be a certain kind of person/manager, more authentically her, but finds herself within a context that does not accept this “new” Maria. She tried to live out “her new managerial identity” or “her new managerial being”, but her colleagues and the context more generally were not receptive to this. The conclusion, based on Maria’s experience, is that work relationships are an important parts of managers’ process of identity formation and will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve a managerial identity that is under the control of the manager him/herself. Furthermore, implicitly organizations nurture templates on “how managers should be”. For Maria, her preferred managerial being and identity was not in line with the kind of manager she was expected to be in her organization. Managerial identity is dialogical, formulated in a specific context, it is perhaps necessarily fragmented and does not lend itself to a personal desire to be authentic. For Paula, similar difficulties became apparent when she tried to give up her dual position as both manager and veterinarian specialist. She decided during the training that she would rather be a veterinarian than a manager. However, because of her long work history (20 years) and established position at the organization, it was difficult to make this change. She explained this problem: I am trying to take a step back from my old role, but I can see that my colleagues still expect me to stand up for them. If someone is unclear, some of them give me a look that says, “Are you really going to let him get away with this?”. It is hard not to act automatically given such expectations (Paula, Alpha manager).

Paula’s experience illustrates how her peers within the organization continue to see her as a “manager”. She has made efforts to alter her identity within the organization and she has striven to become “someone” else, yet, she cannot escape what/who she was previously. Her colleagues expect her to act in certain ways and refused to recognize her own preference to be someone else. Eventually, Paula took a non-managerial position as a veterinarian specialist in a different organization. For both Maria and Paula their colleagues and context inhibited their capability to change and made it more difficult for Maria and Paula to achieve a new managerial identity/personal identity. Since managerial lives appear to require variations in behaviour and action because of context, a state of being a manager, which is fixed and stable is not possible. For both Maria and Paula the process of “personal development” was indeed a personal

one. They seem to have rejected a managerial identity altogether in favour of another truth about themselves (Costas and Fleming, 2009). Negotiating a new managerial identity The relationships between the managers and their organizations have also inhibited their attempts to achieve a stable sense of managerial being. All five managers felt that the personal development training resulted in personal changes that were not recognized by their organizations. Maria and Christine explained: They [Beta] have handled this strangely. They have paid a lot of money for my participation, but I have not even received one single question such as, “What do you get from the training?” Don’t they understand that things happen to me, and I might want new challenges? (Maria, Beta manager). The number of suitable jobs is after all limited in one organization, I would have understood if they hadn’t found me the perfect job, but obviously they were not prepared that the training would influence me (Christine, Beta manager).

Since there was no organizational representative for the five managers to negotiate with, they felt there was “no one on the other side” to negotiate a new role/identity with in their relationships with their organization. It appeared that little consideration was given by the organizations to the relevance and impact personal development training could have on participants. There was a tension between the organizational context and “personal development” that could not be bridged. Instead of developing a “fit” between what Maria and Christine now wanted and what the organization required them to be, the personal development training widened the gap. At a technical level this reflects poor consideration of the personal development programme in light of organizational needs, however, in the case of some managers, particularly Christine, Paula and Maria, the programme reveals a more meaningful level of conflict between a managerial self and personal authenticity. Conclusion This study supports the research that describes management and managers in becoming terms, but it highlights the fact that abstractions of managerial being in terms of identity templates influence these becoming processes, both by forming/regulating managerial becoming processes and by nurturing a wish to become in certain ways. This study put emphasis on the role of management training in providing templates for “how to be a manager”, but it also illustrates the complex role of context in managerial being and becoming. On the one hand context creates the fluid character that makes managerial becoming inevitable and managerial being almost impossible to achieve in an absolute sense, which is in line with previous research results. On the other hand context, in the form of work relationships and specific organizational discourses, puts pressure on managers to “be” in specific ways. Managers struggle to balance these expectations (and other) with their own personal beliefs about “how to be a manager”. Since there are always many different managerial identity templates “floating around” at the same time, managerial becoming processes are always “going on”. Consequently, managerial being (abstractions of “how to be”) and managerial becoming (frequently adjusting to expectations of “how to be”) influence each other all the time.


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The managerial implications of this research are related both to management training in general and the specific type of management training based on personal development. The most important general result is that management training tends to be based on “categories of management”, while practice is more fluid. There is consequently a challenge for organizers of all types of management training to bridge the “being” of training and the “becoming” of practice. Off-site training means increased difficulties in bridging these, since management to a large extent is contextual and relational specific. There is a need for incorporating potential contextual and relational changes into the training. In general, management training would gain from being better incorporated with participating managers’ organizations. Post-training support is essential to create organizational learning, since managers might have difficulties to realise their potential changes within the organization. A specific result regarding personal development training is that the personal development process may confuse participants who may discover a disconnection between an aspired “new” identity and the managerial identity they are required to have in their working context. Personal development nurtures the idea that you should “be who you are” which means a non-context specific managerial being that not synchronize with their daily reality of required constant managerial becoming. References Alvesson, M. and Willmott, H. (2002), “Identity regulation as organizational control: producing the appropriate individual”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 39 No. 5, pp. 619-44. Andersson, T. (2005), “Managers’ identity work – experiences from introspective management training”, doctoral thesis, BAS, Go¨teborg University, Go¨teborg. Andersson, T. (2008a), Identity Work and Identity Regulation in Managers’ Personal Development Training, GRI report 2008, Go¨teborg University, Go¨teborg, p. 7. Andersson, T. (2008b), “Personal growth and sensitivity training – fashions in management and management research”, International Studies of Management & Organization, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 61-82. Andersson, T. and Wickelgren, M. (2009), “Who is colonizing whom? Intertwined identities in product development projects”, Ephemera – Theory & Politics in Organization, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 169-82. Bourdieu, P. (1990), The Logic of Practice, Polity Press, Cambridge. Boyatzis, R. and Akrivou, K. (2006), “The ideal self as the driver of intentional change”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 25 No. 7, pp. 624-42. Chia, R. (2007), “Ontology”, in Clegg, S. and Bailey, J. (Eds), International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies, Sage, London. Collinson, D. (2003), “Identities and insecurities: selves at work”, Organization, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 527-47. Conger, J.A. (1993a), “The brave new world of leadership training”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 46-58. Conger, J.A. (1993b), “Personal growth training: snake oil or pathway to leadership?”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 19-30. Costas, J. and Fleming, P. (2009), “Beyond dis-identification: a discursive approach to self-alienation in contemporary organizations”, Human Relations, Vol. 62 No. 3, pp. 353-78.

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