A manager is a leader who enables people to work most effectively together by performing primarily the work of planning, organizing, leading and cont… - Louis A. Allen

The manager is one of the great unknowns in business. Although perhaps the most common word in the corporate lexicon, the term "manager" meets with little agreement as to nature, meaning, or scope. This is all the more surprising when we consider the vital importance of precise understanding of this expression to most enterprises. Most company organization charts are studded with dozens of boxes entitled manager of one kind or another. Each such position, presumably, has been assigned management responsibility and authority. In most cases, the performance of the person holding this position is being appraised as a manager and his potential for advancement is gauged against what is assumed to be a management yardstick.

Organization is a mechanism or structure that enables living things to work effectively together. The evolution of life and of human society demonstrates the need for organization.

The manager is a new kind of professional, destined to take his place with the scientist and the educator in shaping the society of the future. Expert in a complex, difficult, and most demanding kind of work, the role of the professional manager is critical and his potential is unlimited. In the years ahead, competence in management will mark the difference between the leaders and the also-rans. This will hold true not only in business, but also in government and education, and in all those situations in which people wish to maximize their efforts for their common benefit.