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Struggles of
Struggles of managerial being and managerial being
becoming and becoming
Experiences from managers’ personal
development training 167
Thomas Andersson
University of Skövde, Skövde, 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. Journal of Management Development
Vol. 29 No. 2, 2010
The common understanding is that management is something that is clearly pp. 167-176
identifiable, for example, as a collection of competencies, or as a particular set of roles q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0262-1711
(e.g. Quinn et al., 2003). This understanding is represented in management training, as DOI 10.1108/02621711011019305
JMD it implies that management is something that can be “learned” through courses and
29,2 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).
168 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 Struggles of
competence against fixed notions of what it is to be competent, managerial becoming managerial being
suggests that managers are continuously creating, maintaining and repairing their
managerial identity (McKenna, 1999c, 2004; Watson, 2001). Thus management and and becoming
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 169
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
JMD descriptions of the complexity of everyday life (Llewellyn, 2007; McKenna, 2002). In
29,2 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.
170 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 Struggles of
having actually managed for some time. In their minds there are skills and managerial being
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 and becoming
“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”. 171
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.
JMD Organizations and work relationship requirements vs personal identity
29,2 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
172 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 Struggles of
truth about themselves (Costas and Fleming, 2009). managerial being
Negotiating a new managerial identity
and becoming
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 173
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.
JMD The managerial implications of this research are related both to management
29,2 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
174 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.

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About the author

Thomas Andersson, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor in Management at the University
of Skövde, Sweden. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Wallander Grant and is a research
fellow at the Gothenburg Research Institute. He received his doctoral degree from the School of
Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, in 2005. His doctoral thesis is entitled
“Managers’ identity work – experiences from introspective management training”. Thomas
Andersson can be contacted at: thomas.andersson@his.se

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