“The Manager’s Job,” 50 Years Later

That stereotype of a general manager is not really how the world works today. Now the managers are uniquely good at something, and then they learn other things.

Managers, he frequently repeated, do things right—while leaders do the right thing. “My mandate in these jobs has never been to be Mr. Popularity.”

Every company I talked to had middle and even senior managers who operated as player-coaches, tasked with both doing things and directing others.”

Management's job was to establish the conditions under which performance served both the company's and the individual's best interests.

We often take for granted the systems we use to structure and coordinate work in our organizations. We assume they are natural ways of getting things done. But in reality, they are historical artifacts, shaped by the technological and social conditions of their times. The organizational chart, for example, was originally made to run railroads in th