What is people management?

While many of the competencies we explore might seem like common-sense to you, there are still many managers using outdated approaches and styles based on old thinking about what management is.

Being a manager is quite hard. Statistics from various sources suggest that around 40% of first-time managers walk away from the role in the first year (Daft & Marcic, 2014)

One of the reasons cited for this occurrence is that too many people are promoted to management on the basis of them being a top performer, rather than having any management aspirations, potential or talent. If you aren’t motivated to manage other people, it is unlikely you will excel in the role.

Another reason, of course, is that managing people is hard and not everyone wants to do it, and on top of that, once in the job, or even prior to landing a management role, very few people actually get any management training, making the job feel even harder than it needs to be.

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References

^{Daft, L., & Marcic, D. (2014). Building management skills (International ed.). South-Western Cengage Learning.}