What is required to become a manager?

This is just a random thought about what do we require to be a manager. Now a days becoming a manager has become synonymous to prestige and responsibility. Lets analyse both the aspects.

Manager role certainly attracts prestige because of the responsibility people are required to handle in the job. A manager not only manages people of varied characters and potentials to deliver the goods for the company, he also handles the legal aspects and the client aspects for companies. So does the prestige comes at a price ? Definitely YES.

Lets take an example in IT industry. A programmer is only concerned with his sub-routine and he can quickly check his performance and be aloof with the other works of the company. But what about the Project Manager? He has the responsibility of making the work place safe and non-intimidating to anyone. Carrying the team with himself for a long time with getting respect from team members without demanding it can be a delicate task. The performance of his, is also evaluated in long term, with objectives set quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.... reminds of annual exams... huh !! yes prestige is given, but u earn it too.

Last thought regarding managers is many people think at early stages of their career to become a manager straight away. This is not at all real and there is requirement of work experience of significant amount to handle the functional matter. So it takes a person with very good knowledge min of 8-10 years to reach a management position. I can give example of Infosys here. In the period of IT's early boom people with 6 years of exp were given management responsibilities who even didn;t have the required technical knowledge in management. So after this Infosys had to put a min of 6 years technical exposure for becoming a project manager. So there comes a question of what happens to people from IIM's in India, most of whom are freshers? Hmmm.... i don't have a explanation but if i go by what i said above then yes they would have to climb the ladder too. So an MBA degree will not jump a person somewhere, experience counts.