Running a workshop for a group of accountants in Melbourne two weeks ago and one of the participants made a statement that was an "Ah-ha!" moment for her, and which brought me up to again realise that some things that are basic and that I take for granted are not well understood.
She made the comment along the lines of 'our firm [and most others I might add] hires you for your technical skills and knowledge and they give you KPIs and monitor your performance, and once you can do that well over a number of years, they then put you into a management role without knowing if you have the skills at all and without knowing if you'd be any good at it and without any evidence that you know anything about it.'
Beautifully said. But it's crazy isn't it.
Just because a guy is a great car mechanic doesn't mean he is going to be a great foreman. Just because a woman is a brilliant professor of research doesn't mean that she can lead the Department.
Senior executives, HR and companies themselves need to wake up. If you want good leaders, you need to train them. Leadership is not genetic.
