The Making' of the `Competent' Manager

Abstract

This paper examines one component of competency-based management education-Personal Effectiveness (PE), a unit taught on the Certificate in Management. The Certificate is part of a three-tier system of UK management education (Certificate in Management-Diploma in Management Studies Master of Business Administration). PE concentrates on developing the 13 Management Charter Initiative competencies. A conventional reading of PE is that the competencies it develops are indispensable for competent management. However the Foucauldian analysis deployed here argues that PE's developmental ethos simultaneously renders it governmental. The paper argues that PE acts on individuals in such a way as to constitute them as self-regulating subjects, unquestioningly striving to become so-called competent managers. It is this efficiency of modern forms of government which Foucault finds problematic, the fact that such programmes do not leave individuals room to question the ways in which they think and behave. Having attempted to explain how it is that PE works, the conclusion of the paper argues for a reworking of the content and delivery of the unit.