Manager: A person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff.

That, my fellow Puys, is the extremely condensed definition of an individual who in fact does much more than that. Without seeming romantic about it, a manager is dynamic; one with ample foresight who galvanizes his/her team to success without succumbing to groupthink. Of course you would say that these are the qualities of a ‘good manager’ not a ‘manager’. But think again. Can an individual truly be called a manager if he/she were not able to effectively ‘manage’?

That brings me to the bigger question at hand. If only ‘Some managers are truly MANAGERS’ and ‘All MBAs are managers’ would that imply that only a fraction of MBAs are truly MANAGERS? And which ones will influence you more in your career then?

For simplicity, let’s categorize into a table, the various kinds of individuals you will undoubtedly encounter during your professional life.

The ranking in this table is in the ascending order of the people you will learn most from with ‘MANAGER who is not an MBA’ being the most important source of knowledge in the course of your career.

Why? Let’s take a step by step approach to understand how important these individuals really are while keeping in mind that ‘MBAs’ does not imply ‘MANAGERS’.

4. Not MBA, Not MANAGER: For those of you just out of graduation or just starting off with work, type 4 individuals are colleagues with similar work-ex. They will be the ones you become buddies with while the both of you are in the kernel of your careers & the ones with whom you’ll bitch about your bosses.

As you move up that corporate ladder, type 4 individuals will appear lesser as colleagues and more as subordinates while previous type 4 individuals will move up simultaneously. Although there is always something to be learned from everyone, type 4 individuals will not necessarily add any sagacity to your life-approach but will be epic fun.

Recommendation: Keep close.

3. MBA, Not MANAGER: These are the ones you you’ll meet a lot just after leaving B-school & joining a corporate. They’re the individuals with fat starting salaries & minimal corporate knowledge. You must strive not to emulate these. Mostly, the only difference between type 4 & 3 is a post-graduation degree coupled with snob value.

You won’t ever know them as real friends of the college kind. Don’t forget that corporate environment is one with large amounts of work & minimal willingness to do that work. Strictly cordial relations become essential, what with everyone trying to load their work onto someone else.

Often, you’ll find reporting officers of type 3. Try not to apply the same yardstick to them though. Remember, hypocrisy forms the base in the corporate pizza.

Recommendation: Don’t emulate, keep comfortable distance unless boss.

The importance of types 2 & 1 in Part 2 of 2

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