Asklemmy

I’d argue that management is simply a different skill. And the reason so many managers are bad is because they were promoted from roles that didn’t previously require management experience.

Let’s say you hire someone to bolt things together on an assembly line, and then three years later they’re managing projects (without ever having gone to school in those interim years to learn any management skills). Yeah, they’ll probably be a fucking awful project manager. Unless they’re naturally gifted at management and really good at thinking on their feet, they’ll be flying by the seat of their pants. They’ll be using a ton of maladaptive tactics that were developed for surviving, not thriving. Because their original skill set and experience wasn’t based in project management, and they haven’t done anything to further their managerial skills.

It’s the old “if you judge a fish by its ability to fly” quote, except that fish keep getting hired because they’re good swimmers, and then they get promoted into positions where they’re expected to fly.