Are Good Managers Born Or Made?

Managers are one of the most essential parts of every company. Certainly, every company should have at least one manager. Even a sole trader has one which is obviously the owner’s self. Without managers, the companies cannot possibly achieve any tasks and will most likely collapse eventually. Particularly, good managers are becoming higher in demand by various organisations, though, the amount of the candidates are going in the other direction (Verespej, 2001). This situation sheds light on a question. Are good managers born or made? This question is heavily controversial and has been debated for decades. Even now it still has not reached a conclusion yet.

In order to answer the issue precisely, relevant terms have to be defined first. Manager can be defined as a person who control resources to achieve a specific task (Ibrahim and Cordes, 1996). There is another word which could be confusing with manager - leader. Leader means a person who inspire and motivate people to achieve a goal (Nanus, 1989). In other words, managers are people who exercise managerial skills to get things done, while leaders are people who make use of leadership to do the same. These two words sometimes seem to be used interchangeably although their meaning are totally different. Moving on to the major key word, good managers are defined as managers who not only equipped with managerial skills, but also leadership (Ibrahim and Cordes, 1996). Both management and leadership cannot be totally separated since each part needs to play its role and contribute to each another (Gosling & Mintzberg, 2003).

The debate on the question has divided experts two sides - made and born. A number studies confirm that genes are a cause of some part of leadership qualities ...

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...ied on genetic properties, but experience and environment. On top of that, there are variety of development programs providing both internally and publicly. In the account of management, this essay represents some examples of management practices. Combining the two answers, the conclusion for the main question would become clear. Good managers are made, not born. One point to keep in mind, more facets needed to be considered. The future researches may discover some new information which may affect this answer. Anyway, one additional point to note down is that both managerial skills and leadership are not static. They always keep changing all the time. Therefore, learning them can be regarded as life-long journey (Avolio, 2005 and Henderson, 2000). People should keep their life-long learning and, ultimately, they will reach their destination – becoming good managers.