Beyond Ability: Separating Talent from Good Leadership
One skill set does not guarantee another.
Obviously, leadership is a well-trodden topic, but I rarely see the subtle, very important distinction between talent/ability and good leadership. We often conflate the two in organizational hierarchies. At first, that idea seems like a simple, logical conclusion. But if that’s the case, it begs the question: why are there SO many bad managers and directors out there?
Unfortunately, it seems like no industry is immune to the effects of poor or underdeveloped leadership. While I’ve certainly had good, impactful managers, I’ve had my fair share of bad ones, too. Often, you don’t have to look very hard to find someone in a leadership role without the skills required to be effective. If you don’t have a horror story about a terrible or inept manager/supervisor, you definitely know someone who does. Being a talented writer, designer, producer, salesperson, etc., might make someone a good resource for their team, but it doesn’t guarantee they know how to be an effective leader that can facilitate and nurture growth. Subsequently, their teams often don’t feel seen, heard, or respected. There’s plenty of nuance involved in this particular topic, but I think the Peter Principle is helpful in understanding – at least in part – why this happens.
For context, the Peter Principle is a theoretical framework developed by Canadian sociologist Dr. Laurence J. Peter. The Peter Principle is predicated on the idea that many employees are promoted until they reach a level of respective incompetency. As a rough example, if someone in sales regularly exceeds their goals or sales quotas, they might move into a managerial role – responsible for an entire team of other salespeople. Once there, that same individual’s performance might drastically decline due to being a good salesperson but not a good manager.
While this is, admittedly, a somewhat reductive summary of Peter’s overall scholarship and thoughts on the subject, I think there is a fair amount of insight that can be gleaned from its thesis statement. I’m beating a dead horse here, but it bears repeating: the quality of someone’s leadership should not be solely evaluated based on their skills in a single aspect of their job. Now, that’s not to say those individuals shouldn’t be hired or promoted, but there should be steps that are taken beforehand to ensure their presence on a team won’t be harmful. As someone who has been on the receiving end of poor leadership more than once, organizations owe it to their employees to train their leaders and hold them accountable to ethical and beneficial practices. Without those components, while it’s not impossible, it is noticeably more difficult for people to flourish in their careers or feel fulfilled by the work they do. Talent and experience give us the tools to identify where someone is and where they can go, but an entirely different skill set is required to get them there.
I’ve heard of and experienced so many instances of people being promoted and praised by others in senior leadership for their output, who are – despite their title – unquestionably incompetent when it comes to leadership. They consider criticism and correction the primary tenets of leadership. Managing the work and ignoring the very crucial, EQ elements that involve lifting up and encouraging the people on their teams. You can’t act in unilateral, self-motivated, or boorish ways and expect people to like having you as their boss. All of this to say, it’s important for people – at all levels – to continually seek out strategies for personal and professional growth. Those are two things that are very rarely mutually exclusive.
Again, this topic is full of nuance and there’s no silver-bullet solution, but I guess my ultimate point is this:
You have to work just as hard at being a good leader as you had to work at the skills that put you in that position. If you’re a supervisor, manager, director etc., take a course, go to therapy, work on your EQ, be open to criticism from your team… SOMETHING, y’know? You owe it to the people you’re leading, and I believe we’ll all be better for it.