"The Man I Want to Be" is a song written by Brett James and Tim Nichols, and recorded by American country music artist Chris Young. It was released in November 2009 as the third single and title track from his album The Man I Want to Be (2009). The song is about the singer wanting to change who he is to make amends to a former lover.

The song received positive reviews from critics who praised Young's vocal performance and James Stroud's production for saving the bland lyrics. "The Man I Want to Be" was Young's second of five consecutive number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It also peaked at numbers 48 and 81 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100 respectively. The song was certified Gold by the RIAA for selling over 500,000 digital copies in the United States.

The accompanying music video for the song was directed by Chris Hicky. The video features Young at a bus stop making a call to God through a phone booth to help him find his former girlfriend.

"The Man I Want to Be" is a moderate up-tempo country song. The song's male narrator describes the kind of "man [he] wants to be." The first verse finds him realizing that he hasn't been the man he should ("I've spent my whole life gettin' it all wrong") and describing that he wants God's help to change. In the second verse, he longs to have his old lover back, and for him to be the perfect man for her ("I wanna be the kind of man that she sees in her dreams").

Juli Thanki of Engine 145 gave the song a "thumbs up," saying that while "some lyrics are a little too bland to be particularly moving," that "Young sells it, truly sounding as though he’s at the end of his rope and praying to anyone who’ll listen." Thanki also described Young's vocal performance as "slightly reminiscent" of Keith Whitley and "the best voice to hit commercial country since Josh Turner." Leeann Ward of Country Universe gave the song a B- rating, stating that while he "deserves lots of credit for a stellar vocal performance, solid contemporary country production and for being a generally inoffensive composition," the song itself has "lyrical and melodic weaknesses [that] are still impossible to overlook."

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