Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? I know that this question would hit a nerve and upset a lot of people. I am quite sure it is a question you most probably had asked yourself a number of times and I really hope that by the end of this article, you won’t find yourself to be the subject of the same question from your subordinates!
You would be surprised to find how popular this question actually is. Good leadership has always been the exception, not the norm. And you do not have to take my word for it or question your own judgment on the many poor, unqualified managers you had encountered throughout your career. The reason why I opened this article with the question is that it is the title of an article published in Harvard Business Review, one of the best publications in the world of management studies.
The article published in 2013 was trying to discuss the reasons why there are not enough women making it to the top ranks of the corporate world. One of the main arguments the author used to explain this phenomenon was the tendency we have, “to discern between confidence and competence.”
Although the article referred to many studies that put such an argument to test, we can draw on so many examples from our own experience to validate it. In the Saudi management scene, and many other masculine cultures like ours, it can be seen that those who show power or fearlessly engage in any argument or play with confidence (or overconfidence!) are usually looked at as “a leadership material” regardless of their true skills or abilities to lead and assume managerial responsibilities.
A friend of mine, who used to work in one of the biggest companies in the local market, was once overlooked in a promotion he unequivocally deserved. When he asked for the reasons, he received a blunt answer, “you are good, actually, you are the best person to fill this job, but you have a very serious problem, you do not shout enough! To be a manager, the vendors should fear you, the team should fear you!” Needless to say, after he left the company, the section he was working for took a dive in performance and profits and never bounced back.
“The paradoxical implication is that the same psychological characteristics that enable male managers to rise to the top of the corporate or political ladder are actually responsible for their downfall. In other words, what it takes to get the job is not just different from, but also the reverse of, what it takes to do the job well. As a result, too many incompetent people are promoted to management jobs, and promoted over more competent people,” Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic wrote in the article.
Taking such a critical approach to look into how leaders are selected in the local market would lead us to so many practices that we have become so familiar with and which we use without a second thought. Take for example seniority or nepotism that would most probably lead to the same results; putting incompetent managers in the leading positions.
However, that does not, in any way, mean that confidence and experience are unimportant factors in shaping up a good leader. Actually, competence can be looked at as a package, where all these traits are grouped within and yet, the most important one of all these is being a humble person, a people’s person who knows how to understand others and relate to them. After all, management is mostly about managing people. It is all about inspiring, motivating and leading others to discover themselves and their abilities along the way of realizing the common objective of the team and the organization. “The ability to build and maintain high-performing teams, and to inspire followers to set aside their selfish agendas in order to work for the common interest of the group. Indeed, whether in sports, politics or business, the best leaders are usually humble,” wrote Chamorro-Premuzic.
Such a topic cannot be taken lightly. If we deeply investigate why we have so much shortcomings in our business world (poor and delayed project executions, lousy customer service, lack of meaningful socially related corporate initiatives, etc.) we will most probably end up with the fact that the wrong person has been put at the driving seat.
