In the paper, the author deals with the attitude of the political regime towards the managerial position between 1945 and 1990. He finds that, in the first post-war years, this attitude was largely determined by current economic needs and major development plans, due to which the new regime refrained from abolishing the position. In the subsequent years, however, with ideological and political considerations coming to the fore, society was no longer prepared to acknowledge any positive role and influence of managers in the economy. Instead, managers were regularly held responsible for economic and other failures. It was only towards the end of the 1980s, after an economic crisis had left its mark in Slovenia, that managers were again given freer hand in the conduct of their business policies.