Leaders Leading and Managers Managing II

Many people get promoted to positions like manager or leader because they are good at their job. Others end up being the manager because they have been around longer than anyone else. And yet some become leaders and managers because they look or sound good or convincing. There is a question here:

Just because someone is good at their job, have been around longer than anyone else, look good, sound good are more convincing than others, does it necessarily mean that they will be good at being a manager or leader?

We are just finishing a research project one part of which was to look at leadership and management development:

From the preliminary results we estimate that only about 15% of leaders and managers receive any form of development for the role in preparation, before they take on the position.

Additionally and astonishingly, only about 40% of managers and 30% of leaders ever receive any formal development, like training, coaching or mentoring for example at anytime whilst they are in the role. The further up they are the less it appears that they are likely to have had any form of development and the also they less likely to engage in such activities.

Just under 90% of leaders and just over 70% of managers admit that they largely make it up as they go along, especially as far as decision making is concerned.

78% stated that they were aware that they had either frequently or very frequently made decisions based on their emotional reactions to events. Paradoxically 83% of leaders also stated that most of their decision making was based on the data. So maybe the data was sparking the emotional reaction. I'll let you know when the analysis is complete.

Something to think about.