Got a boss who sucks? A lot of people do. While there’s no doubt that some people just suck in general, there’s probably a reason that many bosses in particular suck. A new study sheds a lot of light on why by comparing the performance of leaders based on how they were selected to lead.
Here are Five Fast Facts on promoting the wrong people:
- 😣 Most Common = Most Bad - The study found that the most common way most businesses promote people nowadays – the most ambitious people putting themselves forward until they’re finally given the promotion – is actually worse than random lottery selections. It turns out that the people who most want to be the boss are also the worst at understanding their own strengths and weaknesses, and the emotions of others. Go figure, huh?
- 😒 Good At One = Good At Another - Another way promotions are often determined is by how the person performs in their previous job. But managing others is almost always a very different skill set than what they did as a worker, so these folks performed only slightly better than a random lottery selection. But they’re a lot less obnoxious, so that’s something.
- 👍 Intelligence And Decision Making - The leaders who got the best results had a high IQ and demonstrated competence at making decisions. That tracks, given that managing people requires being able to understand both the work (at least at a high level) and the people, and to make decisions about who should do what.
- 🤔 Hiring But Not Promoting? - Testing and measuring a candidate for the core competencies of the job happens all the time when hiring new employees. But very few companies do any sort of testing or measuring for managing successfully at all, let alone when choosing who to promote. Why is that?? Team suck-up for the win, apparently!
- 👀 Rubber, Meet Road - Ultimately, the best way to judge how people will manage others is to have them actually do it. Give them one or two reports, or maybe a small team and see how they perform according to some systematic criteria.
🔥Bottom line: So, if your boss sucks, it’s probably because they really wanted to be the boss, and their best skill was self-promotion. Lucky you! But if you’re part of the promotion process at your work – or looking to advance your own career – keep this in mind. After all, good bosses have almost double the positive impact on a business compared to good workers.
How’s your boss?
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