Harvard Business Review

Paul,

Nearly everyone starts their career with an image that advancing up the ladder to a leadership position is not only an objective, it's a necessity to survival. In many cases it almost feels like lemmings off the cliff as they march into their ultimate demise.

Is Management for Me? kinds of programs are good starts but the bigger issues are actually training folks to do the job once they get there. Successful people get promoted and often think they no longer need the tools. My personal experience was that the first time I achieved the CEO-level, I felt isolated without a support system. You put yourself (as do many others) up on a pedestal where your supposed to already have it wired. Were it not for some very good mentors in the community and on my board, I'm pretty confident I would have crashed and burned like so many others.

The reasons for leading need to be personal and real (like running for President) or folks will see through you. Once that foundation is in place though, its the support system that matters more than 'is it for you'. You can scare away pretty much anyone with a DISC profile test to tell them they aren't tough enough to lead but truth be told all types have succeeded and failed at it. Support is more important.

Phil

I have been in my field for a number of years going up the corporate ladder. A couple of years ago I leaped into a position of leadership, which unbenknown to me, had many problems that needed solving; I tried personally solving them all at once and quickly burned out. For my personal well-being I stepped out of the role.

It took a number of months to recover from both the assignment and the ego-bruising that I experienced. I have a number of years to go before retirement and have struggled with jumping back on the leadership merry-go-round. You really do learn from your mistakes, but as you've mentioned, is the costs associated with leadership worth that knowledge.

Hi,

My general idea about the promotion is: “everybody gets promoted till they reach the level of their incompetence”. When you are doing your job well you will be invited and every now and then even forced to climb the corporate ladder, till the moment that you do not perform that well anymore. And at that moment managers and leaders get in trouble.

Learning the skills is one thing and practicing those skills another. Simply educating people in the classroom is merely enough to learn the basics but the real life struggles of a manager are encountered outside.

I became passionate about my current line of work almost three years ago and have been involved professionally for about two. After a few months of working and learning hands on skills and developing knowledge and creativity, circumstances led me to the position of business manager in my company. Since then, I've gained lots of business skills but sometimes feel so bogged down by HR, Accounts and financial management, sales and purchasing, records upkeep, bookkeeping, general operational oversight, etc, that I've lost connection to the work that led me here in the first place. While I appreciate the opportunity to learn the portable skills of all aspects of business management, I often wish I could take a step back and just get my hands dirty again, never mind the pay and prestige.
I have to echo those who press the importance of adequate training and support of managers. I got my wings here by getting kicked out of the nest, and it occurs to me daily that there are not enough management training resources available. any ideas?

Sir,

The comment about everyone being promoted to one's "level of incompetence" is indeed true. An outstanding sales person becomes a complete failure as a supervisor. At the other extreme, examples abound about great functional managers failing as CEOs.

One way of overcoming this paradox is probably to have extensive job rotation at the beginning of one's career so that one is able to always look at the big picture. The Japanese companies successfully adopted this practice in the 1970s and 80s. Another way is to have fixed tenure leadership positions - some of the institutions of higher learning in India have this practice - each faculty member of the rank of Assistant Professor or above becomes the Head of the Department for two years. Similarly, Heads of Departments become Deans by rotation every two years. While this may reduce stress at the individual level, it may also breed a certain degree of mediocrity.

The problem is quite acute at the top of the hierarchy. Trade-offs are inevitable and the concept of work-life balance is seen to be a myth. Unless one is ready for extreme imbalance in favor of work, it may be prudent not to take up leadership roles. Too often do we see Managers and Leaders bringing their baggage of personal problems to the workplace and trying to make up for it by carrying some work to be completed at home. Both the workplace and the home become wrecks in the process.

Warm Regards

Dear Sir,
Namaskars from India, Bengaluru

I agree with your view point of considering the personal costs of the advantages and career growth that comes with leadership positions. I believe; At times, Money can be too Costly!!

I guess increasingly we need to move towards "Servant Leadership" styles; as we grow higher up the ladder; to manage the flat organization structures that are preferred.
Hardly any leader can suceed without the support of a core team; who need to be kept in good faith and should have lot of goodwill towards the Leader and the organization.
How best we develop the faith and goodwill determines the success or failure of the Leader as well as the organization.

With Best Wishes & Regards,
BM Bharadwaj

Thanks for your comments so far. They’re interesting and thought-provoking. If possible, I'd like to keep the conversation going around three themes that have been raised:

1) How do you avoid the appearance – in the eyes of others and even yourself – that your career has stalled?

Phil Myers points out how widespread is the expectation that, if you’re any good, you’ll continue to climb the corporate ladder. (He uses the metaphor of lemmings racing off a cliff; you might also think of it as being pressured into making a summit ascent without having adequately assessed your equipment and physical condition.) Given this expectation, what can you do to remain a real player in your organization – and continue to feel good about yourself – if you choose not to follow a managerial path? One tactic I’ve seen people employ is to become the expert in some area or activity that is both indispensable to the organization and high profile enough that their expertise is noted and valued. Anyone have other thoughts on how to stay in the game if you decide not to pursue a management or leadership position?

2) How do you build a support system that can make leadership more enjoyable (or at least tolerable)?

A number of people commented that such a system can be the difference between success and failure. One increasingly common way to get this is to turn, for better or worse, to an executive coach for practical and moral support. I’d love to hear some descriptions of more complex support systems leaders can try to establish, as well as examples of people assembling such a system that helped them in their leadership roles.

3) How does an organization create exceptions to the Peter Principle?

A number of the comments talk about the problem of people rising to their level of incompetence. Clearly, leadership development program can help ensure that people aren’t promoted to positions that they’ll never be able to grow into. But such programs aren’t always available, especially in smaller companies. Professor Krishnamurthy talks about job rotation and fixed-tenure roles as possible solutions to the problem. A related solution that I've come across in my writing and editing of articles about multiplayer online role-playing games, though one requiring a major cultural change: shifting from the “once a leader, always a leader” paradigm to the expectation that (to use MIT professor Tom Malone’s phrase) “leadership is a task, not an identity” – a state that a person enters and exits rather than a personal trait that permanently defines a person’s career. Any other thoughts on this?

I can’t resist immediately jumping back in with an observation a colleague just shared with me – an observation about the leader of the Free World.

Senior Editor Lew McCreary (also a blogger on this site) recounts how he was watching the Washington Nationals defeat the Atlanta Braves in the first stateside game of the baseball season on Sunday. Commenting on the game for ESPN were Joe Morgan, John Miller – and George W. Bush. Lew noted how Bush, sitting between the two in a sport coat and sweater, looked so COMFORTABLE as he chewed the fat about baseball with the commentators. (Recall that in the 1990s Bush had a successful run as a managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.) This was in sharp contrast to how uncomfortable and even inauthentic he often appears when appearing in his leadership role as President of the United States.

This got me thinking about something else that Phil Myers said in a comment above – that “the reasons for leading need to be personal and real (like running for President) or folks will see through you.” If I understand Phil correctly, you’ve got to truly want to be in a leadership role; you can’t just take it on because that’s what one does when such an opportunity is offered. If you don’t really want it, “folks will see through you.”

But that raises a fascinating question that should prompt some serious soul-searching by people as they consider stepping into a leadership role. WHY do I want it? Is it because I think I have the necessary skills and temperament to succeed and will thus get to savor the enjoyment that comes from doing something one is good at? Is it because, even if I may initially lack those skills and that temperament, the role offers the opportunity to work toward some organizational (or political or social or other) goal that I care deeply about? Or is it simply because moving up the corporate ladder is something others and our culture expect of me – that is, because it’s the right and proper thing to do?

It makes me wonder how much President Bush really wanted to be President – and if he really did, why he did. Was it the expectations of others, both family and advisers? The seeming inevitability of his ascension? The opportunity to avenge the humiliations of his father? For me, his appearance on ESPN Sunday and his typical appearance at a presidential press conference provide a vivid pair of side-by-side images that bring to life the question: “Do You Really Want to be a Leader?”

Paul,

I can think of a couple of recommendations that seemed to have worked in the leaders and companies that we've studied who are successful:

1. Be a thought leader -- getting promoted doesn't have to mean you turn on the stupid button, only go to corporate meetings, and start spouting pablum about the business or market you're in. The best leaders we've seen stay tuned in and maintain an active interest in publishing, speaking, & blogging on a topic of interest.

2. Demand a support system -- the best time to negotiate the terms that are most important to your success are up front. We typically only worry about compensation but an easy give from the company hiring you or promoting you is to provide training, coaching and mentoring services to help make you successful. If they reject this, its a powerful sign to walk. They don't care about you, they're just filling a box on the org chart.

3. Create specialist roles -- in all areas of the business and compensate them for improving their skills. Sales is a great example. Why should sales managers make more than an industry solution expert for example? In engineering, why not have an expert in Web 2.0 technologies compensated more than the CTO?

Let me give you a great example that just surfaced in a post today from David Meerman Scott (www.freshspot.com). Question he asks: is Al Gore better in his role today or as a leader of the country? Politics aside, one would have to admit that Gore has been awesome at building a career around a single issues -- global warming. He's published, is a sought after speaker (and actually surprisingly entertaining), is promoting powerful, thought provoking ideas in the media, and making millions through mutliple channels. An interesting transformation from being a failed candidate for President to a Nobel Prize winner.

The question we probably should be asking ourselves is would ANY of us had advised him that this was a better path for him to take in 2000? I'd like to say yes but realize that if I'm being truthful the answer is 'of course not'. We all lead with our egos and view things through short-term outcomes vs. long-term sustained value.

These are the leadership questions that are most important it seems to me and the areas where we would do well to channel those aspring to advance. The Peter Principle does not have to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thanks for the opportunity to open a dialogue on this.

All the best,

Phil

There's one other essential personality trait that wannabe managers/leaders should check to make sure they have before embarking on this path: selflessness. You must have a genuine interest in the people that you manage and in helping them succeed both in the work at hand and in their careers.

I know one person in his mid-50s who cherishes the thank you letters that he has received from people he took the time and emotion to develop and champion along the way. He literally radiates pride when he talks about former subordinates whose accomplishments eclipsed his. He's got the right stuff.

If your interest in becoming a manager is limited to accumulating more power, money, and prestige for yourself, you will never be a good manager let alone a great one. For the job of manager, narcissists need not apply.

Steve, I like your sentiment -- and recognize that you're advocating selflessness in addition to other important managerial/leadership traits. But I'm wondering if empathy and sympathy, close cousins of selflessness, can paralyze a manager in carrying out difficult but necessary people tasks, such as letting an underperforming worker go. I'd be interesting in knowing how others in managerial roles reconcile such unpleasant chores with the empathetic side of their personalities.

Paul,

1) How do you avoid ... career ... stall(ing)?

When I was 'shipwrecked,' I intentionally sat on my island for a while to get my bearings. In particular, I questioned the path that my boat was taking and, when the next boat came, would I resume my course. It had taken a while to become 'captain' of my original boat, so becoming shipwrecked was neither on my radar scope nor in my career plans at all.

I am now finding that trying to get off the island onto a new boat is as hard as it was originally becoming 'captain;’ maybe even more so. I now have to prove that my lessons learned would be knowledge applied for future success not a series of 'failures' that I would repeat.

2) How do you build a support system ...?

I believe the ability to do build a support system is very dependent on the Social Style of those above you on the corporate ladder. I'm an Amiable Social Style working for many Driver Social Style leaders above me. As such, my comfort zone is very different than those that could provide a safety net. In an organization of “Shoot first, question second” leadership, my “Question first, shoot second” approach to life just doesn't make sense to those above me.

3) How does an organization create exceptions to the Peter Principle?

It depends on how valuable management is perceived to be in one’s organization. I work in an industry where management tasks are viewed as a necessary evil that gets in the way of real work. Thus, managers are an overhead expense that should be 'managed' away as much as possible. As such, the more a ‘manager’ can heap on their plate a series of tasks to avoid managing, the better. So, if the question of the Peter Principle is, "How do managers without people skills reach high peaks in an organization?", the answer is: “Your asking the wrong question.” Those viewed as being in Peter Principle positions would say, “Why aren't the minions needing management already well equipped to be self-sufficient so we don’t have to be bothered?”

Phil and Allen, just wanted to thank you for jumping back in with further useful, interesting, and somewhat (respectively) encouraging and discouraging observations. I may come back to this topic sometime in the future and will keep in mind the points made by you and others. Thanks again.