The Success of Apprenticeships

7Reflexivity and Management Apprenticeships

7.1. Introduction

Learning managerial skills highlights multiple challenges and issues. For managers, it is therefore a question of:

• – acquiring knowledge and know-how in many “technical” fields related to the company and its stakeholders;
• – developing an ability to manage the human dimension;
• – valuing and developing their reflective capacity and reflexivity in all forms of management apprenticeships.

7.2. From reflexivity to reflexive manager?

By reflexivity, we mean taking oneself as an object of analysis, both in one’s actions – and therefore in one’s mental representations and functioning – and in one’s being – one’s “ways of doing”. This position could appear narcissistic. However, this is not the case. The challenge is to objectify the object under analysis: oneself. It is a question of observing oneself (let us affirm the process of distancing oneself), thereby referring to one’s position, role and practices. The analysis is critical. The challenge is to position oneself in a process of continuous improvement and to extract oneself from a satisfecit aeternus by investing in an activity of thought and questioning. The reflective individual is thus aware of his influence on the evolution of his knowledge, his representations and his practices. Reflexivity is a modality and a vector for the progression and adaptation of its practices, renewal and innovation. As a corollary, the thought/action dichotomy disintegrates.