“Manager” is a term which covers a rather disparate collection of job holders. Sometimes it implies that the person who has this position is superior to and should manage other people, who, being non-managers, are co-workers or subordinates. However, the term is often also used for individuals who are responsible for a particular task. Many HR, information, sales and financial managers are mainly responsible for personnel administration, information leaflets, their own sales or accounting systems respectively. In this book, we are only interested in managers in the first sense, that is to say those who have a job where they are expected to lead subordinates in some way. What this actually implies is not always clear.

Managers are a popular topic of interest. Leaders – a common term for managers, and one which managers themselves like to use – are an even more popular topic of interest. However, we are not following fashion here, but are interested in those professionals who are managers in the sense we have just described. Whether they also practise leadership and can be seen as leaders is a question we will try to answer. The widespread interest in managers is partly linked to the general growing interest in how people experience expectations, challenges and demands in modern organizations. Naturally, everyone in an organization acts according to specific expectations and demands, but this is perhaps particularly true of managers. There is a large industry offering ideals and templates for managers and leaders. Managers cannot just “be themselves” as they please but are undoubtedly expected, more than others, to represent organizations, to be leaders, competent decision makers, strategic, knowledgeable and to be seen to be in charge (Watson 2008, p. 122). At the same time, they must make an effort to be human and empathetic – someone you can trust – in order to establish and maintain good, and thereby productive, relations with their co-workers. Against this background, our aim in this book is to portray managerial work as it is experienced and understood by managers, with a particular focus on the importance they attach to different demands and activities in their work. We will therefore describe how a number of managers from different organizations form their managerial work. Why do they want to be managers and what expectations do they have of their work?