Category: learning and development

I have worked with some excellent managers, people who were not only good at what they did, but also had great leadership potential. Sadly though, these managers didn’t invest in their own growth. They were so busy attending to the daily demands of the management job — putting out fires, resolving production issues, solving for customer escalation, moving from one delivery timeline to another — that they failed to build the skills required to become a great leader someday.

Like many managers in their position, they kind of assumed that by doing their job fairly well and staying in it for too long, they will automatically earn the leadership title. And I don’t blame them for this kind of thinking. For years, we have seen leaders rise through the ranks of the corporate ladder who had no business to be in those positions. When you see examples of bad leadership all around you, it’s kind of easy to assume you can be a leader too — after all, you consider yourself better than them. If they can be in those positions, you can be too. If they can jump through a fire hoop, you can jump too.