There isn’t a more frustrating thing in the world than dealing with management that doesn’t get it.  I know everyone fundamentally has some issue with someone in power at work above them, whether its their direct manager or being out of tune with someone above that lives in the clouds.

It’s only natural. It is like some crazy class system that has been adopted for capitalism.  It kind of makes sense to me, but the lines are getting super blurry as knowledge workers are starting to make up the lions share of the workforce in America.  The difference in skill sets between managers and their minions is getting ever so small.

So what are companies missing?  Why is it always tough to find good people, especially in middle management?

To me it’s simple.  Find people that others WANT TO FOLLOW.  It is a very natural thing for some people to lead. Its a whole different skill set than understanding technology or process or the rest of the underlying business principles.  Those are the skill sets that can be taught.  Having the ability to get others to WANT to follow you IS NOT.

I don’t care if someone has been at a company for 10 years and they work really super hard, and glow in the dark because they are so smart.  It DOES NOT translate into managing teams of people.  You are constantly going to be fighting resistance in these situations because in reality, you have never been a leader.  You have never been able to get several people going in the right direction and hitting on all cylinders and communicating. It’s a really hard thing to accomplish, don’t get me wrong, I do understand that.

So next time you are thinking that a person deserves to be managing because they are really good at their job, step back and give them a huge deserving raise to keep them around.  Take a hard look at them and see if people WANT to follow that person.  OR are they just BETTER at their job than others which deserves merit, but in a whole different way than promoting into managing.