Advantages and Disadvantages of a Management Career

A career in management can be many things to many people. It is a career that is at once exhilarating, and exhausting. It can be a career with camaraderie with those around you, only to be followed by loneliness when you have to let a colleague go. It is a career that can wield power and provide financial success, and it is a career that can lead to a sense of personal achievement. The ability to manage is an art.

Advantages of a Career in Management

• Annual Salary - One of the first items that most people think of as being the major benefit of a management career is the higher annual salary that a manager earns in comparison to other staff members. It is generally true that a manager will make a significant amount more, which is the result of how the marketplace and an organization value management professionals. But higher salaries go along longer hours of work, stress, fatigue, and the responsibility of decision making.
  
• Absolute Power - Management also wields absolute power in a company organization that is typically answerable only to company ownership, or the board of directors and shareholders. Successful managers also know that even though they may have the authority, the necessity of having staff cooperation and valuing the team's input and skills is part of the equation in the power structure of an organization.
  
• Status and Prestige - Throughout history, careers in management have been held in high regard, dating back the historical pecking order between nobility and peasants. The status and prestige in the modern business era is probably more reflective, however, of who sits closest to the power in an organization, which is management. This is also because careers in management typically require a college management degree, which may also translate to more status, prestige, and respect.
  

Sense of Personal Accomplishment

A career in management brings a sense of accomplishment and a sense of purpose. The definition of management is one of leading, in guiding, and working to accomplish a common goal or task. Driving to accomplish something that is tangible is what humans endeavor to do.

Disadvantages of a Career in Management

• Loneliness - The feeling of exhilaration that a manager can feel when winning the big contract also takes the opposite toll when company times are not perceived as being smooth sailing. The title of manager is at the top of the chart, which can be lonely when there is no one to turn to who has equal authority.
  
• No Immediate Reinforcement - One of the roles of the manager is that of a coach, offering encouragement and empowering the staff in the accomplishment of work. The manager commonly has no coach, or no immediate reinforcement. In other words, no one is encouraging the manager.
  
• The Buck Stops Here - The old saying “the buck stops here” certainly applies to managers. A successful manager does not blame the office staff but understands the ultimate responsibility for the success of the organization lies in the decisions that he or she made in the process of accomplishing the work at hand.
  
• Somebody Always Wants Your Job - Office politics are typically played out at management levels, when one manager looks to leap frog the next for the upcoming promotion. It is a management game that has been going on since civilization first began doing business.
  
• Legal Liabilities - The manager is often the legally and professionally responsible party when a company takes a risk in taking a bank loan or signing off on a decision to launch a new and expensive promotional campaign.
  
• Financial Restrictions - Although managers have the authority to make many of the decisions with respect to accomplishing work they are often not granted authority in deciding what the fiscal budget will be to accomplish the work. It can be a frustrating dilemma for a manager who must carry out the work without out a voice in setting the budget.