Peter Drucker said, "So much of what we call management consists in?
I have a radically different take on the matter. In my world, as an executive, I have one job: eliminate everything standing between my people and their success. They need training? Fine, well get it. Budget? OK, somehow Ill make that happen. Access to ? Sure. If Im doing my job, theyll never really notice what I do, or how I do it - just that they can do their jobs with what seems like a lot less friction than they might have experienced anyplace else. As to what Im actually doing, and how? That, folks, is management. I have to align interests of other parties, make trades, persuade others of the relative priority of this versus that its mostly conversations and presentations, with rounds of writing and researching in between. Equal parts networking to figure out who the keeper of whatever scarce resource I might need and running strategic simulations to explain why my way is the way. But at the end of all that, 100% of the net effect is to enable the success of my people.