Should You Turn Down a Promotion to Management?
Linda Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative , has just co-authored a new book with Kent Lineback called Being the Boss. It was Mr. Lineback who a decade ago wrote about entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley with Randy Komisar in The Monk and the Riddle.
Mr. Lineback, spent 25 years as a manager and executive and has been candid about his shortcomings. The book he and Dr. Hill wrote may provide new insights for managers and leaders, in the post recession economy. It may even spare employees some grief as their new managers negotiate a learning curve. Dr.Hill says she frequently asks executives, “How many people have suffered as you tried to learn to do this job?”
For today’s action oriented managers, the reality is that many never learn how to do the job properly. “A promotion is painful, says Dr. Hill because there is a relearning that has to take place and the manager needs to become what she calls an instrument of transformation.
And, it would appear many are not up to the task. First, a manager is required to deal with peers and manage relationships where he or she has no formal authority. And good luck says Dr. Hill, if you don’t know how to form those relationships and cultivate them. “You have no chance of being effective,” she says.
if you are a manager who isn’t skilled in give and take, it’s possible you will have limited success in fields that employ knowledge workers or started as collegial partnerships—publishing banks, law firms.
To remedy shortcomings she counsels seeks mentors where ever you can find, and not necessarily on the job. That long ago buddy from undergraduate or graduate school may have the answers you need to be effective.
If you are the employee who is in the cross hairs of a manager who thrives on internal conflict, there may not be much you can do directly and immediately. Still as the economy turns around, managers who flourish in times of crisis, and may run roughshod over their employees to get results, will be seen for who they really are.
Perhaps the most startling consideration in Being the Boss, is whether to become a manager at all. There are rights, privileges and duties that come with being a manager says Dr. Hill who has an obligation to his or her direct reports. If you are asked to be a boss and you don’t want to do it, then act on your principles. “People don’t deserve your indifference,” she said.
Tags: leadership, management, mentoring
