"Gallup reported in two large-scale studies in 2012 that only 30% of U.S. employees are engaged at work, and a staggeringly low 13% worldwide are engaged."

12 years of an employer's job market, 12 years of layoffs 12 years of 'the rest of you will have to pick up the slack, 12 years of 'be happy that you have a job', 12 years of benefits cuts, 12 years of deteriorating work conditions, 12 years of no promotions, 12 years of 'training is too expensive', 12 years of dismal prospects - and 30% of US employees are still engaged?!?!?!?

That's very good.

In other words most managers lack high levels of innate empathy. The rare trait that allows you to be highly socially and self aware and respond appropriately.

Nobody is going to be engaged in an organization desperately trying to find ways to get rid of them. Attributing this to the hiring of "untalented" managers for the temporary, 2 week assignment in Bangalore is an irrelevant conclusion.

The numbers are interesting and very valuable but the prognosis is out of whack. Managers can readily learn to collaborate with and grow their producers - anybody can learn these skills, not just a chosen few. What’s really valuable is pointing out the high performance characteristics that make the difference! Thank You for that.

In an era where even CEO's are also failing fast....the research findings are supporting the problem we face. The increasing complexity of the environment & the demands its placing on people. However I feel the issue is being only looked at from a Behavioral perspective. We also need to understand that what are the existing management practices that are hindering or enabling the people to perform their roles. We should stop polishing the fish & start creating a healthier & clean pond for them to swim. Management practices need a upgrade, only focussing on behavior will not bring this change. As Peter Drucker rightly said that Knowledge Era requires us to reimagine the way work is done. Check the interesting work done by Lukas Michel on agilityinsights.com

It's hard to find a successful manager to hire because they are usually already employed somewhere else because of their ability. Maybe employers should ask about previous leadership experiences during the interview. I believe that former high school team captains, student council members and others have some of the traits that organizations are looking for.

Hello leadercoach14,

It isn't hard to find and hire successful managers but what is hard is getting hiring managers to learn how to do it.

Agree Bob. Not everyone is a born leader or a manager. It is not enough to just hire a good manager but there is a need to constantly train him/ her. Similarly someone who is good technically when he/ she becomes a manager, that is when most of the engagement issues usually start. Very important to train them constantly. More about the relationship here in this white paper..http://www.slideshare.net/mutualfo... and more here too..https://mutualforce.com/homeProduct...

Hello Mutual Force,

I agree with your comments, thanks.

It's quite worrying that people feel most managers are selfish egotists. Perhaps this is a reflection of certain organizations and their culture? No doubt a strong talent programme is key to a businesses success - however at the same time, if you get the right culture, perhaps such egocentric individuals wldnt thrive anyway? Of course easier said than done..

Hello David,

Employers get the managers they deserve, i.e., they hire them.

Management candidates presume that if they are hired they will be successful managers. Too few managers are educated, trained, experienced, and knowledgable about how to manage. Also, too few are well suited to be managers. The managers are not to blame but the hiring managers are.

● 80% of employees self-report that they are not engaged.
● 80% of managers are ill suited to effectively manage people.
The two 80 percents are closely related.

Successful employees have all three of the following success predictors while unsuccessful employee lack one or two and usually it is Job Talent that they lack.
1. Competence
2. Cultural Fit
3. Job Talent 



Employers do a… 

A. Great job of hiring competent employees. 

B. Good job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture. 

C. Poor job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture and who have a talent for the job. 


Identifying the talent required for each job seems to be missing from talent and management discussions. If we ignore any of the three criteria, our workforce will be less successful with higher turnover than if we do not ignore any of the three criteria.
1. Competence
2. Cultural Fit
3. Talent

There are many factors to consider when hiring and managing talent but first we need to define talent unless "hiring talent" means "hiring employees." Everyone wants to hire for and manage talent but if we can't answer the five questions below with specificity, we can't hire or manage talent effectively.
1. How do we define talent?
2. How do we measure talent?
3. How do we know a candidate’s talent?
4. How do we know what talent is required for each job.
5. How do we match a candidate’s talent to the talent demanded by the job?

Most managers cannot answer the five questions with specificity but the answers provide the framework for hiring successful employees and creating an engaged workforce.

Talent is not found in resumes or interviews or background checks or college transcripts.

Talent must be hired since it cannot be acquired or imparted after the hire.

Ironically, it all boils down to MOTIVATING the MANGERS. Then the managers can motivate the line workers. It all starts at the top. So don't go saying that it is hard to "hire" a good manager.

I think that's precisely what they are saying, no? The managers of the managers are still managers, are they not?

How many people do you want to make decisions in your company? And the only logical answer, surely, is "all of them".

The days of hiring people to do meaningless, manual labour has gone. As has the "sit there, shut up and do your job" factory clerk mindset. Both are a legacy of our industrial past, when people came to factories off the land and were treated as knowing nothing, unable to learn and not to be trusted.

So now you have a team of self-determining, engaged and clever individuals who know what they need to achieve and how to get there. But those efforts need to be facilitated, matched with resources and co-ordinated.

Now the question becomes - which will hold you back more - a leader or a manager?

I suggest the answer is obvious - a leader. Because every leader creates a follower - someone not allowed to make decisions for themselves. They also create a bottleneck - a pinch point all decisions have to go through. And a Chinese whispers point - where all the clever ideas from the team are prone to being respun to suit a different agenda, or simply miscommunicated because of lack of understanding.

But we don't quite want a manager either. Managers in many companies are simply people to blame - they take the heat for their team. Or they focus on their little bit and their deliverable, letting the rest of the company go hang.

What we really need is a co-ordinator, a hub person who makes things happen for everyone, keeps them informed and helps ensure no-one is stepping on eachother's toes. They become a catalyst for better work from
everyone, a mentor, a social worker, an inspiration and a check and balance when required. But primarily they are support for people cleverer and more focused than them, enabling the company to maximise the benefit of having those clever people on board.

There is a name for this. It is part of social business. A social business, just like a social network, is all about communication and the power of everyone working together. So the real question is "how social is your company?"

If you have leaders and managers, I suspect the answer is "Not very!"

I hate to disagree but i think your understanding of what a leader is is flawed. What you have described as a leader is what is traditionally known as a "boss" in the '70s era cigar smoking variety. A leader is someone who can motivate a group of people to achieve a common goal. Leadership is not about creating followers. It is also, in my opinion, the single rarest trait in business. As the article says, people are often promoted due to technical ability which is not always, and very rarely in the case of engineering and science, related to managerial and leadership skills.

There are three key fundamentals required for people in a supervisory position. Command, Leadership and Management. These are are all different but vitally important parts of the same person, the person you want as a manager in your business.

Let me ask you one simple question. Why base the success of your business on "the single rarest trait in business"?

If you don't find it you have a dysfunctional, failing person in an unassailable position - a single point of failure who can bring down the business.

If you DO find it you have someone who is bigger than the business - a person who once they know their own worth can hold the company to ransom, take the best people with them when they go and who drives the business wherever they want to take it.

Is that the rock to build your business on?

Social Business. What a great name. I have been trying to capture the essence of the balance you describe for a long time! It is the greatest leverage of competence and creative capital out there.
Thank You.

Really interesting to read. Thanks for sharing. It's my firm belief that there's a lot of undiscovered talent out there. All too often, not least in very sales driven organizations, it's all about who beats the budget that gets to move up. How they beat the budget is not the question. I've seen so many selfish, egoistic persons move all the way to the top. Trying to get sales people to work together and share knowledge is sometimes very hard. You want to win. The result is what counts. Later on these people sit in great positions writing amazing core values statements - have them printed in 4-color brochures and then distributed. Do they count? Of course not! The word trust keeps coming back to me as a key word for a sustainable driver forward this trust is though often completely disregarded because we have a very short sighted financial system that only focuses on results. Money counts. Today long-term capitalists with ambitions to build and developed is replaced by computers that make thousands of transactions per second with absolutely no consideration for long term development. What counts is the result. End of the day I believe that if we want to change the nature of leadership we also need to change some fundamental parts of the way in which we build and develop companies and finance their growth.
Can companies grow without being on the stock market? Well IKEA have done fairly well I'd say.
Can we find new leaders in the ranks? Yes, of course we can. The question is - Do they want to play the game with the rules written as they are today?

Wise words Rod. Egotists in my experience lack in real substance, that's why you don't have to look too far for the right answer, it generally comes from the quiet one at the back! His results are subject matter for the egotists.

Excellent very logical

This article makes a certain level of sense, but falls far short of "Truth." It makes some assumptions which are flat out wrong.

This article helps to perpetuate the myth that people are locked into a certain type. This smothers rather than enables. Sure, you can find raw talent and help it blossom, but you can also find the root causes of talent and the barriers to such talent. More work needs to be done here. Pretending that it's impossible only patches over the problem rather than fixes it.

There is a rare individual who can see beyond the BS an ego presents of itself. This rare type can sniff out talent. They are the leader's leader. They are humble, but confident. They have this talent, because they have worked at it. If you take the long view, everyone has this potential. Don't miss the bigger picture; a vast majority do.

The usual "manager" is an egotist. They are selfish. Climbing to the top usually requires such selfishness. Eventually, all you have are egotists at the top, because the truly talented are not interested in the role of egotist. We need to change the perception and the expectations.

For instance, we need to make everyone accountable and responsible for everything! Quibble on this and you open the door to mediocrity. Responsibility is not blame, either. Responsibility is taking on the mantle of creation. Imagine a workforce with every individual taking 100% responsibility for every aspect of the business, including those outside the business (weather, economics, international relations and more). Such unreasonableness is the stuff of legend. This creates worlds.

Personal discomfort to learn is an ego thing. Those who thrive on ego want to keep the barriers created by ego. That gives them an advantage they want to hold onto. But break through this selfishness barrier and true talent is given a chance to blossom, if people are willing to let go of their ego. Then, it becomes a matter of choice, not some fiction of "innate talent."

This is not something you walk into overnight. It is something you develop, step-by-step. You take each aspect of ego (selfishness) and covert it into love, humility, responsibility and fearless confidence. Then, you have a workforce that practically leads itself. This is only scary to egotists who want to be "leader" for their own benefit. A business built on this kind of foundation would be unshakable. A civilization built of this kind of individual would never go to war and would not be fooled by those who pretend that such things are inevitable. I like that world. How about you?

"Climbing to the top usually requires such selfishness." How can we ever
expect to become the best as a whole if leaders do not value the whole as their
priority 1 because the leaders are typically selfish? It seems to me that
"selfishness" is a flaw in our "usual" system which
prevents the whole from becoming its best.
Often, selfishness derives from fear. The fearful cannot trust and
thus tend to not be trustworthy. Selfishness is a systemic problem.
How can we become our best, individually and as a whole, if we spend our
energy worrying about who can and cannot be trusted? Consequently, it
would seem, that the "usual" outcome is setup for mediocrity because of selfishness. Let us break from the "usual"
and the ordinary and become unusually extraordinary!

"They are the leader's leader. They are humble, but confident. They have
this talent, because they have worked at it. If you take the long view,
everyone has this potential."

You REALLY believe everyone has the potential to be a leader or manager? Come on, you know you can think of a few people who should never ever ever be a manager.

Manager's role is replaced by leadership roles. Therefore if you are unable to appreciate leadership aspect of manager's, you are likely to suffer this dilemma.

Leaders have an obligation to step out of the dept silos and join, encourage and participate in common mutually interesting issues of the workplace performance.

This tragic tale can be traced back into so many of the world's organisations. I've seen plenty of examples first-hand in many different countries and companies. Little wonder why such a high rate of business transformation programmes are run in chaos and fall short of their stakeholders' expectations.

An interesting article that outlines a bleak outlook for most of the business world, unless a lot of thinking undergoes radical change.

nah, business is about competition. Whilst everyone is rubbish, being rubbish is not a competitive disadvantage. If ever people started valuing sustainable profits over corporate politics then they will be in trouble.

I feel this article and these findings underscore the need to understand individual talent in an organization from the point of hiring. Scientifically validated assessments are tremendous tools. When the company takes the time to calculate the costs of a misfit, I don't see how the company can justify status quo as far as hiring and promotion practices. It's like someone, somewhere in the organization, has not gotten the memo that skills-based hiring and promoting have gone the way of the dinosaur.

As I was reading this I was thinking –“This has to be written by someone
from Gallup” – because it is presenting the same, outdated view of talent management that Gallup has been espousing for a long time. While it is true that there are currently relatively few good managers and that there is a strong link between management abilities, employee engagement and organizational success, it is not true that you can or even should hire yourself into better management. There simply isn’t enough turn over in the management ranks, nor is the current pool of management talent – which this post argues is essentially genetic – to meet all of the requirement for effective managers. The post also neglects to mention that one of the underlying causes of poor management is the pervasive lack of effective management development programs. People get promoted and are expected to somehow develop into great managers by watching a lot of PowerPoint slides, which is absurd.

Fortunately, recent breakthroughs in the study of “positive deviance” –
what top performers really think and do – and the neuroscience of learning,
have led to leadership development programs (these are distinctly NOT “management” development) that guide 90%+ of potential leaders to think and act like the best in about 4-5 months. More specifically, studies of top performing “managers” show that they are always driven by a compelling purpose – a desire to achieve a greater social good. This drive causes them to work very hard to master their function. When the stars images of purpose and mastery are articulated in a particular way, and presented to others following the guidelines of neuroscience, virtually any manager becomes a transformational leader. These learning processes are so deeply grounded in science that the results are very consistent, predictable and remarkably inexpensive to achieve.

Using these new approaches, leaders quickly live the attitudes and behaviors
of great leaders and not surprisingly, employee engagement and productivity
soar…and all this is achieved without having to hire anyone new. Isn’t developing your own talent pool a better way to create high performing leadership and teams?

Thank you William,

Your analysis is compelling.

I started reading this article optimistically but the I came across this old cliche, "Talents are innate and are the building blocks of great performance.
Knowledge, experience, and skills develop our talents, but unless we
possess the right innate talents for our job, no amount of training or
experience will matter."

Innate talent is a flawed concept and has no place in management theory these days.

Careful delegation, training and development of individuals is more effective than the obscure notion of 'innate talent'.

Very nicely said, William.

Pretty nice article. I liked the sentence, 'More likely, it’s an employee with high managerial potential waiting to be discovered.' There is another important reason why it becomes hard to find good managers. My experience says organizations don't invest too much in training, coaching and mentoring the potential employees. Personal development trainings often get the last priority. So, even if we discover the talent, promote it as it deserves, but in most of the cases, we don't equip the talent to meet the upcoming challenges.

Just a real pleasure to read this article and all the associated comments. All of them have a part of trust.

I was surprised not to see any comment on the fact that companiesand people like to hire people like them, meaning by that clone. Many companies have difficulties to accept "unusual performing people". (As a non English native, I hope it means something).

Indeed, as Interim Manager, I have noticed that it is easier for all people in a company to accept that kind of performing behavior (focusing on result and people) when company' s people knows that the interim manager will leave the company at the end of the mission. One on the reason may be is due to the fact they will not be in competition with such a kind of mnager for higher position.

Eric Bezy from France

Eric, you draw a great distinction between "performing" and "conforming". Sadly, it's often the latter that's mistaken for "performing".

This article is really about what is Great Leadership and not on management Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences:

– The manager administers; the leader innovates.
– The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
– The manager maintains; the leader develops.
– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
– The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.
– The manager imitates; the leader originates.
– The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
– The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.
– The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Just a VetSailor...I couldn't agree with you more. You Sir, are brilliant. Too many companies say they want a leader but truly they want a manager. I've been in management positions where I've passed along innovative ideas from from my staff or myself only to be dismissed or roadblocked by arbitrary company policy that was almost quoted from a dusty tome of outdated rules. I understand and believe in policy that builds people. If you build people, I find the business naturally flourishes almost by osmosis and symbiosis. Thank you for the epiphany.

My experience is that managers are unwilling to admit their shortcomings. But we all know who these managers are - they are the ones struggling with poor staff performance, bad relationships and overwork. If only there was a way to tell them in sensitive manner: http://managerfoundation.co...

Good Manager is the result of a good Company or in some cases a wealth Company.
Depending of the Company is the level of Management strength.
The best money can buy, and in the other hand the core fits, the management profile some time limitate or enhance does so called rare good managers.
Companies should have a probation period process where they can be observed,and give those manager the time frame to show her ( him ) their skills, and if they want to go that extra mile, they can polish those diamonds and with time their worth will be invaluable...

Excellent write-up. I wish CEOs & Board of Directors read this again & again and make this a guideline for promotions & hiring.

This is an article that directors should read often. Now, where's the article called "Why good directors are so rare?" And the article called "Why good board members are so rare."

Randall & James - very provocative article and somewhat intimidating to think about the upheaval that would occur for an organization to restructure in the manner you suggest.

For more on developing leadership attributes behind the 5 traits you've identified, try this: http://wp.me/p2b9ZX-75

Srinivas is right! The difference between a manager and a great manager is the possession of leadership traits, principles, and personal attributes.

the definition of manager in this article has more "leader" traits ...great managers in my experience have exhibited great leadership traits ...

Great article and I feel it's 100% correct observation. Let's not go to correctness of % mentioned in the article. One need to belive that every body comes to work to deliver something and it is the duty of manager to find out what is the right job for him. How do we define a non performer?There are lot of cases when boss change non performer becomes performer and vice versa.

I believe the problem also lies in that the corporate world
loves “big words” and “good appearance”. Therefore the hiring process looks for
these words, for the good looks, and misses the real good candidates. I am always surprised, maybe I should not by
now, how busy HR is when looking for candidates, yet once they chose one and
the company hires that individual, with a 90% chance it is the wrong
candidate. I don’t have the answer, but
I believe that a good HR should not scan resumes for key words, but should look
at the individual’s intellect and capabilities.
More candidates should be called in for interviews, and more time should
be spend on these interviews, talking about business and social issues, and
then try to judge the character of the candidates

great article on the subject- I do find that a lot of the time we take someone how is good at doing something, be it engineer, sales, and make them a manager. The issue being that while they may have many of the traits listed they are not provided with the skills, tools required to be a Manager/leader. A good example is time management- they may possess excellent self management and yet not understand why others don't just do it. Really what would improve the odds of creating better managers is to give them the coaching and skills they need to do their new jobs.

This is one of the best articles I have read on this subject in a long time. I think your five points on management are spot on.
I was in a company and brought into a management role after my manager had conducted some nefarious moves and was fired. I moved up from being a technician to the general manager by the time I left the company.
One of the key elements you mentioned, accountability, is the most vital part of a managers duty: make the employees in the team actually feel that they are part of the team and not an employee. This means that they have fiduciary responsibilities and not just an In/Out box of tasks.

When I became the GM of our business unit, I tasked the engineers on managing the costs of the projects, no longer using project managers. This produced a 4% improvement in the overall margins as the engineers were able to monitor where the scrap of the projects were located. This also eliminated many project managers.
A manager also needs to avoid fiefdoms and empire building. I always made sure I hired people who were more talented than I was when I had the role of technician, scientist, and manager. A true manager stands on the executive's shoulders and supports the staff on his shoulders. Build vision and you will guide the future.
Lastly, nepotism is the cancer of any business, period. I cannot state how many other business units and how our own facility suffered at the hands of upper execs hiring friends and family to place in key areas in an effort to control. Minions are for fantasy movies not for a professional organization.

Most Managers believe that brow beating, hardass ways are best to ahceive desired results. This can work and is the attitude diplayed by most companies. If you are on the bottom no excuses fire and re-hire. Ask Jack Welsh.This prevails with all companies. Less loyality by the companies means less by the employee.
Until each individual is thought of as more than a number and giving responsibilites and rewarded and RECOGNIZED for good to great results they provide (Not just the numbers) will impact their attitude and repeat their performance.When the results are underwhelming it must be addressed ASAP, Give the Emplyee ownership and imput on plans to be put place and monitored frequently until attitude and results change. Give them ways to monitor for themselves and report back .When negative attitude prevails and the individual does not reconnect and change then they must be let go.Managing is all about knowing everyone and what helps get the most out of each individual.We always say we need to build your weakness's while maintaining your strengths. Thats is so far from what is needed. Build the heck out of strenghts and recognize them for those.
If someone hates public speaking, loves crunching numbers, let them be the very best numbers cruncher and leave the speaking to those that are good at this trait
Example : we don't make Running Backs Offensive Lineman or Centers Point Guards.Why? They can never have the skills sets nor ability to perform those skill sets. Stop tring to do the same with business people.
Motivate them , Motivate them some more.Find their strenghts, build on them and you will have a GREAT HAPPY well functioning team member!
As we all know every position needs basic skills set .A sale rep is different than some in marketing or HR therefore basic requirements are neccessary.But if the sales rep is good at certain attributes work on those,their is a reason they are.
Someone in Marketing is great on ideas but terrible speaker,pair and share. Best of both worlds.Can't make a non innovator an innovator nor most people great speakers. Waste so much time trying its not worth it.

All of these characteristics can be learned, and fairly easily. With the right basic philosophy to underpin them it's a given for the willing manager. These are behavioral changes that can be integrated with a core.

Great thought provoking article well done! Whether you agree with the outcomes or not, Randall and James, you have certainly got many people thinking and talking about this very important business topic, which I can only presume, was the subliminal outcome intended.

There's a stack of fantastic comments that have been added. Let's face it, everyone is an expert in management and leadership. It's one of those classic 'illusion of explanatory depth' > http://www.theretailguy.com... topics. Lot's of people have some really good points and added comments.

For what it's worth. Hiring "MANAGERS" IS the problem. The word 'Manage' is, as lots of people have already outlined, 'systematic' and 'process' related. It has nothing to do with people in essence. Think about the acronym CMS = Customer Management System. But then we place these people who aren't people/people and expect outcomes that are replicant of Leadership? It's a disconnect.

Hiring on previous and past behaviour is one of the key hurdles in finding leaders and forward thinkers. It takes an extreme amount of bravery and courage to hire someone based on potential, but if you're in search of a Leader, that is, the quintessential element you should be focusing on. My 2 cents.

Well done to all for some really outstanding contributions. This is a great post and I've loved reading everyones thoughts. Some real gold.