Becoming a manager: How newly appointed managers are shaped by and shape the future
Elisabeth Fellbom, Stockholm School of Economics
When first time managers enter their new role they have already constructed ideals of how a manager should act. Their ideals can be based on the ideal leadership models presented by management gurus that have a global spread. The ideals of first time managers can also be based on their experiences of their own managers – either as ideals or counter-ideals – or they can be based on their experiences of taking charge in various situations.
Companies support new managers’ transformation by offering management development programs. Important aspects are the intentions to support the managers to become effective managers, as well as to socialize them into the company culture. Guidance about how managers should behave in order to be successful in the future is supported by institutionalized management policies, tools and tasks.
Entering the managerial role means the managers are no longer subordinates. Instead, they receive a platform of formal authority. They now have to interact with others in new constellations and in a new context. What makes sense changes, influencing their understanding of themselves.
In this paper I will focus on how newly appointed managers are shaped by and shape their managerial role. My perspective is based on three assumptions. First, people are intentional and they act because things have a special meaning to them. Second, meaning is created in social relations with others. Third, what is felt as meaning is acted upon and modified in an interpretative process.
Inspired by institutional ethnography I take the starting point for the inquiry in managers’ concerns regarding every day life, and how these are coordinated by (extended?) social relations. These activities are not always directly visible and are often taken for granted. It is a matter of going beyond their concerns and translating their participation in social relations into the institutional process of becoming a manager. My object of inquiry is the aspects of becoming a manager related to the managers’ experiences, not the managers as individuals.
The empirical base of this paper is based on parts of the empirical material from a longitudinal study on six newly appointed first time managers. The study consists foremost of semi-structured interviews, but policies, guidelines and other documents are also included.
In the monthly interviews I conducted over a year, four specific situations or arenas appeared. The first was the arena of personnel development talks; the second the arena of being part of the management team; the third was the arena of employee surveys; and the fourth the arena of their reflections on their managerial role. These managerial actions can be seen as performative arenas where meaning is constructed through interaction. Managers who perform managerial tasks simultaneously perform identity work, which supports transforming the former subordinate into a manager. Expectations of the future simultaneously shape the newly appointed managers and are shaped by them.