There is a reason people resonate with the TV show “The Office,” or in past decades have found the comic strip “Dilbert” so funny. Most of us who have worked a long time know it is somewhat rare to encounter “great bosses.” Most of the time, most employees realize their bosses are not especially talented in such roles, including both middle and top management.
Very few people ever are ready to occupy the top rungs of any organization, research suggests. Nearly 70 percent of CEOs report they were not fully prepared or those new roles.
In fact, companies fail to pick the right people for such spots as much as 82 percent of the time.
In fact, according to Gallup research, only about 10 percent of people actually possess the skills necessary to provide leadership that makes a difference to organization results. Also, note that leadership and management are conceptually different matters.
If you think about leadership as always involving change, stress or danger while management involves the conduct of processes on a day-to-day basis, without major external threats, you get some flavor of the difference.
If leadership can be informal or formal,management is always organizationally determined. And the best of the best arguably are superior at both.
“It's important to note that another two in 10 people exhibit some characteristics of basic managerial talent and can function at a high level if their company invests in coaching and developmental plans for them,” says Gallup.
All together, finding that 10 percent of top managers, and cultivating the additional 20 percent, can contribute about 48 percent higher profit by their companies, compared to firms that did not make those choices.
Companies that hire managers based on talent also tend to see a 22 percent increase in productivity, a 30 percent increase in employee engagement scores, a 17 percent increase in customer engagement scores and a 19 percent decrease in turnover, in addition to the 48 percent boost in profit.
“Sure, every manager can learn to engage a team somewhat,” Gallup notes. But outperformance will not happen. “Being a successful programmer, salesperson, or engineer, for example, is no guarantee that someone will be adept at managing others.”
“Most companies promote workers into managerial positions because they seemingly deserve it, rather than have the talent for it,” Gallup notes. “This practice doesn't work.”
Gallup finds that great managers have the following talents:
They motivate every single employee to take action and engage employees with a compelling mission and vision.
They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
They create a culture of clear accountability.
They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
They make decisions based on productivity, not politics.
As some other studies suggest, outcomes are more likely when organizations focus on strength, rather than attempting to overcome or compensate for weakness. “Companies repeatedly put people in manager roles because they were successful in previous roles or because they have been with the company for a long time,” Gallup notes. “This is a flawed strategy.”
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