Blog

Many of us have experienced the scenario where a colleague is promoted to management based on their excellence in the technical role only for them to be exposed as an ineffective leader.
It is a common misconception amongst employers that high levels of competence should result in a promotion and that job skills in one role with provide continued success in a different role with different or higher levels of responsibility. Unfortunately, but somewhat understandably in these economic times, it's not uncommon for people to accept such a promotion, without understanding the leadership responsibilities, or without a willingness to carry them out once they are in post, simply compounding the issue.

The reality of expectation is that rightly or not, employees look to those in positions of authority not only to manage but to lead. That's just the way it is.

So what is the potential consequence of creating this leadership void?

The leader is the person who reinforces the purpose and aims of the team.
Without any leadership direction, employees can become misdirected, develop attitudinal issues and question the purpose. There is a risk that their priorities become skewed, knowledge is misinformed and badly applied with the result being poor morale and declining productivity. A lack of common goals results in a lack of teamwork and the development of silo mentality working.

A key role of the leader is to set and build the moral and ethical standards under which an organisation operates; establishing the norms. Every company has a "way of doing things" and this can vary tremendously between organisations. Within a single organisation it’s important that this is consistent across all staff and this consistency is informed by the manager. Without this consistency it’s impossible to standardise the customer experience or establish operational norms.

In addition to the ethical standards there are the basic behavioural standards that organisations set and expect; in the absence of effective leadership there is no one to establish these standards. This could be the way that people speak to each other, support each other, communicate and share, stick to rules and so on. These are all aspects of organisational culture, all reliant on a dominant presence to direct and inform behaviours which, when absent, can result in people behaving unethically, shortcutting good practice or undermining each other to the detriment of team harmony.

What should be done to prevent this spiraling out of control?

• Accept that technical competence doesn't earn promotion to a leadership role. Find other ways to reward these people.
• Establish the exact skillset required of the role into which you want to promote someone, then compare each individual on the basis of that criteria. Know what you are looking and recruit the person who presents the best blend of those attributes.
• Recognise individual weaknesses as well as strengths, this will allow you to recognise the aspects of the role that the person will struggle at, not just those they'd excel at.
• Address the weaknesses in the person you promote as soon as possible. Very rarely will someone tick every single box so it's important to recognise the skill gaps and develop these to the standard required of the role. Provide clear training and development opportunities mapped against the role with targets and achievement criteria set to offer the promoted person goals to attain.