I think this is a genuine problem for many employers with technical & professional employees. My own personal experience of this is in the accounting/tax profession. In these professions (certainly amkong the small and mid tier firms) many people are promoted to manage people simply because they have passed some more accounting/tax exams and not because they have shown any skills or inclination to want to become involved in leading or managing people. Some of these people show natural abilities at leading & managing people; some in this group should clearly never be let near other normal human beings - whilst the majority fall in the middle and with some help and encouragment many in this middle group could go on to great things. Unfortunately, many firms & organisations still seem to believe that the focus of 99.9% of business time is all about producing widgets and only .1% is about developing people and by default they fail to develop the business to it's maximum potential too.
I think this is a genuine problem for many employers with technical & professional employees. My own personal experience of this is in the accounting/tax profession. In these professions (certainly amkong the small and mid tier firms) many people are promoted to manage people simply because they have passed some more accounting/tax exams and not because they have shown any skills or inclination to want to become involved in leading or managing people. Some of these people show natural abilities at leading & managing people; some in this group should clearly never be let near other normal human beings - whilst the majority fall in the middle and with some help and encouragment many in this middle group could go on to great things. Unfortunately, many firms & organisations still seem to believe that the focus of 99.9% of business time is all about producing widgets and only .1% is about developing people and by default they fail to develop the business to it's maximum potential too.