For this week's class, we focused on measuring the performance of leaders. The results of assessments of leader effectiveness are surprising. Most leaders fail (and some fail repeatedly).
As noted in previous posts, some estimates suggest that managerial incompetence is rampant - with about two-thirds of those in leadership/management positions being rated as ineffective! For example, our textbook notes that half of Fortune 500 company CEOs will be dismissed for poor performance over the next three years. The majority of nations in the world are run by dictators. Most new businesses fail. Employment litigation (workers suing their bosses) is on a steady rise. What's going on?
The bottom line is that we do a poor job of selecting, developing, and evaluating our leaders. When hiring, we focus too much on personal qualities and not enough on leadership competencies. Interviews lead to vague and biased impressions, and we rarely test for abilities or potential. The worst manager I ever encountered used to hire people who were "just like him." (He had no idea he was incompetent).
In promoting, we give too much weight to seniority and not enough weight to skills. Promotion decisions are typically made top-down, without input from the people who are going to be led (and who often have valuable information about the kind of leader that is needed). We promote leaders whose teams are performing well, without determining the leader's contribution to the team's outcome. That worst manager - he continued for a long while because his effectively "leaderless" team was highly skilled and motivated (in spite of him).
Finally, we don't do enough to develop our leaders. All too often, we throw a new manager into a complex situation (the swimming pool) without appropriate training or support. Then we wonder why the novice manager drowns.
Of course, it's not all bad news. Successful organizations are those who use best practices in the selection, promotion, and development of their leaders. They constantly strive to assess leaders' performance, to evaluate leadership potential, and to plan ahead (succession planning). We will focus more on these positive elements as the class moves forward.
