"I really, really hope he doesn't get the job," Sheila said.
Immediately, I was intrigued.
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Ayesha has built a really great team here," Sheila answered. "We trust each other, everyone pitches in for the good of the department, and we accomplish a lot. Our work is excellent, but we also have fun together."
Sheila was rightly worried about the upcoming leadership transition on her team. Of the two internal candidates, one was known to be difficult to work with. He had hardly any empathy and was very directive in his approach. Unfortunately, upper management liked him because he "got things done." Never mind that those accomplishments often came at the cost of low morale and high turnover.
We've all known leaders like the one Sheila is talking about. No matter what industry you work in, it seems that organizations are full of them. Actually, it doesn't just seem that way. Bad leaders are the norm, not the exception.
Some cold, hard facts:
75% of employees say the most stressful part of their job is their immediate supervisor. (Harvard Business Review)
86% of the factors that contribute to job satisfaction are directly related to employees' relationship to their leader. (McKinsey)
Only one in ten people possess the necessary traits to be great managers. (Gallup)
Companies fail to choose the right talent for management positions 82% of the time. (Business Journal)
This begs the question: Why? Why are there so many bad leaders?
Though you might think that the answer is complicated, it's really not. And the solution isn't all that hard to understand either.
Certainly there are a few people who simply don't have leadership capacity. Their personality, values, and strengths work together to make them ideal candidates for other types of work. Others, probably a larger number than the first group, simply aren't interested in learning how to become a good leader. They are self-centered, overconfident, narcissistic, arrogant and manipulative. And according to organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, these are the very qualities that landed them leadership positions in the first place. So why would they change?
The vast majority of subpar leaders have simply never been encouraged to be better. No one ever explained the difference between the work of a professional (some who is responsible for their own work) and a leader (one who accomplishes the work through the team). Leadership requires a different skill set, different values, and different ways of spending your time. Failure to make that shift results in frustrated, disengaged teams and leaders who don't live up to their potential.
How about you?
Does your company prepare people for leadership? How well do those aspiring to leadership positions understand the changes they'll have to make in how they work? What training are they given? How much ongoing coaching do they receive as they make the transition?
John Maxwell says, "Everything rises and falls on leadership." While there may be an element of hyperbole in that statement, it's not far from the truth.