Using the concepts of practice architecture, organisational and occupational professionalism, this research looks at the rites of passage from being a fully trained teacher to being a middle manager in the further education sector. It argues that teacher training at an academic level is a basis for being an excellent teacher but that what is more important is the background or 'architecture' that informs the trainee for a change in role and hence focus within their organisation. As a result, teachers with no previous management roles before teaching experience greater tensions between a student focus and an organisational professionalism than those with management experience and that even more important is the type of experience that the teacher has. It concludes that to fully succeed at being a manager with aspirations and few tensions, a past career history, identity as a leader and specific career decisions made in the past can assist a teacher into the role of a successful and less stressed manager in a difficult and contested arena of professionalism.