The Trouble with Authority
The more you have the less use it becomes
Whenever you make someone a manager you should ask them why they want to be a manager. A lot of the time you’ll get answers such as:
- “I want to progress my career”
- “I want the authority to get things done”
Both of these answers are problematic. The first one implies there is no career path for individual contributors to take in order to advance within your orgranisation. The second one implies that the way things get done in your organisation is via job title and seniority. Both of these misconceptions can hinder the transition to manager and the people affected by it. It’s the second one I’m going to deal with in this post.
You’ll notice I didn’t say “promote someone to be a manager” because there’s a difference between being an individual contributor and managing a team. It’s a completely new role that you’re asking someone to take on. By making a highly competent individual contributor a manager you are depriving a team of one of their star performers. The likelihood is they’ll continue trying to be a star individual contributor at the expense of the new skills and knowledge they need to be effective as a manager.
This is even more true if you’re making someone a manager of managers. Skip level management is harder than direct…
