To Be Or Not To Be

A colleague of mine has asked me a tricky question.

"You seem to have ideas about how to manage a project. Yet you don't want to be a manager yourself and insist on coaching others instead. Why is that so? Could it be that you'd rather keep a safe position? Where you get to live a manager's life, without having to cope with any of its difficulties?"

I find there's something highly rewarding about helping a manager to discover new, better managerial options. Especially when they think they're stuck and doomed and bad, and they feel miserable about it, and they keep their fingers crossed hoping nobody will notice. I'm convinced this is the kind of attitude that makes the manager's job tough, not their role in itself. Things get much easier the second you know you're worth what you're paid for.

Do I want to cope with the difficulties of a manager's life? Probably not. But in the same time I don't think anyone should feel obliged to -- especially when it threatens one's self-esteem.