I think the biggest personal reward of being a manager is that a manager is in a way the face of the company. His or her managing style will ultimately bring the company great success or failure. If I were a manager, I would feel my greatest reward to be the satisfaction of knowing I am leading the company in the right direction. The position of a manager entails: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. All of which require great attention and the ability to make the best possible choice that will benefit the company. The biggest potential ‘downside’ of being a manager would be making a bad decision that will damage a company. A great example of the downside of being a manager is when Bob Nardelli became CEO of Home Depot in 2000. Nardelli implemented an aggressive plan to institute controls that effectively centralized many merchandise and supply decisions. Nardelli’s changes created greater discipline and more structure throughout the company, but also led to unexpected consequences. Local managers became unhappy with their loss of autonomy and flexibility and thus the morale among store managers and employees drastically declined and turnover occurred.

I believe that to be an effective manager, one must have an equal mix of technical, interpersonal and conceptual skills. A balance of the three skills will result in a well-rounded manager capable of managing various types of companies. An overreliance on one skill can reduce a manager’s effectiveness. For example, the first Apple computer designed and built by Jobs and Wozniak required technical skills to start the new company. As Apple grew, Jobs and Wozniak’s technical skills became relatively less important because they employed technical specialists. However, Jobs and Wozniak were not always readily able to exchange those technical skills for other leadership skills. Another example of not having