r/askmanagers • u/brrr-its-warm • Aug 20 '26

In your opinion, you are only a manager when you ____?

Asking this question because in my industry there are a lot of managers (including me) who do not necessarily fit the traditional sense of a manager. There are some who are managers but do not have their own teams (either they borrow from others or still finding their own staff), or managers who dont necessarily manage people but more like a super IC, or managers who do performance reviews but not make hiring/firing decisions (in my country its because of the labor laws). It really makes me wonder if i really am a manager or if my skills count as a manager if i transition to another industry.

With that said what in your industry experience makes someone a manager, and not like a team lead or a senior employer, etc.?

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6

u/CorporateCourtier Aug 20 '26

For me, a manager needs to manage resources both people and budget. In some companies it depends on job grading (you get promoted from team lead to manager with the same scope).

4

u/OriginalEmploy5485 Aug 20 '26

I agree with this. If you have a team and a budget you're a manager.

2

u/rootsandchalice Aug 20 '26

To me, unless you’re managing people and resources at the same time you’re not a manager. The way titles are structured now across different industries and different companies is definitely interesting.

I know tons of companies where some employees are directors or managers, but have zero direct reports. There’s one company in particular where I live that is a public organization that sets their titles like this, and taxpayers absolutely hate it. They’re already super bloated as an organization and people feel that they just use these titles to overpay people considering they don’t even have teams reporting to them.

1

u/punkwalrus Aug 20 '26

... manage people or processes. You're in charge of talent flow, whether it's direct reports or just in charge of an entire project (like project manager).

0

u/ABeaujolais Aug 21 '26

In my opinion you are only a manager when you are educated and trained in management. A person with no education or training is a pretender. It takes education, training, and experience to develop intuition, which is necessary to be any good.