Is Dilbert’s view on Managers accurate?
The Peter Principle states that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His or Her Level of Incompetence." For Example: Tony, is a pizza delivery boy who does a great job of finding addresses and always brings extra packets of cheese with him. As a pizza delivery boy, he excels. So when time comes for a promotion to management, Tony is the first choice. However, as a Manager, Tony’s driving skills are no longer important. If he somehow happens to be good at management as well, it is likely that at some point he will be promoted to Area Manager, and so on until he gets to the point where he no longer has the skills necessary to do his job: his “level of incompetence." At this point he is no longer eligible for promotion and will remain at a job he is unable to adequately perform.
It would seem that we expect our managers to be incompetent. To take the concept further, the Dilbert Principle states that "companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they’re capable of doing." Here harm is defined as reducing product quality, offending customers, etc...
Both principles underline a major problem in corporate America. Managers are generally not very well respected. A manager is a person who has been put in a position of authority over his/her fellow employees for the purpose of organizing, motivating, and when necessary, disciplining them. If their subordinates see them as an impediment to success, there is a fundamental problem with the system.
Where did we go so wrong?
We promoted employees to a position of management without training them on the necessary skill of leadership. In a lot of ways leadership is a natural ability. You may have heard the phrase "born leader" which implies that its something you either have, or you do not. There are people who naturally have the ability to lead, and many of them are not even in management positions. The trick for businesses is to try to combine leadership skills into managerial roles. They could try to make sure that only "born leaders" are promoted, but we at LearnKey have a simpler solution. How about we train your existing managers to develop leadership skills? We have a series of training courses designed to provide managers with the soft skills they need to be effective in rising to their next level of "incompetence". The LearnKey Principle may be that employees who have reached their "level of incompetence" simply require training to regain their competency.
Here is one place they can get it : Quality Focused Supervision
