The incredible story of a minute encounter with my boss and the invaluable leadership lessons it taught me. Please read, comment and share.
Becoming a leader requires more than just being competent. While competence is crucial, having a career strategy, a positive attitude, and a unique mindset can be very beneficial.
This article demonstrates how combining these traits can help attain career goals. It also shares valuable leadership lessons from a brief encounter with my boss.
How I Lost a Vital Leadership Position
I was considered for a leadership role in my Company years ago. My boss believed I could handle crucial tasks and recommended me for an open leadership position. He even advised me to prepare myself to manage a strategic department just created. But unfortunately, when the promotion list came out, my name was not on it.
Being excluded from the promotion list was disappointing. But even more disappointing was promoting a less qualified colleague over me.
At that time, I needed help understanding the promotion criteria. It seemed outside the Company’s usual standards for selecting employees for leadership positions. Despite my boss’s assurance, losing the job was the first source of valuable leadership lessons.
You may wonder why I thought I was more qualified than the employee promoted above me. My judgment was based on my organisation’s criteria for selecting employees for leadership positions.
The Company recognised me for outstanding performance on challenging assignments. I have years of cross-functional experience and consistently met assigned targets. In addition, I maintained an excellent rating in three consecutive years of performance evaluation. Therefore, according to the organisation’s standards, I met the qualifications for the leadership role.
The Revealing Encounter with My Boss
Following my inability to get elevated to the position, I approached my boss for an explanation. Of course, I wasn’t hoping to get a review. But I was keen to understand what went wrong and where I could improve.
The brief meeting with my boss provided another opportunity for leadership lessons. First, he turned around and looked me straight in the face. Then, he told me that I had met the usual promotion criteria.
“But, in the position you wanted to occupy, executive management wanted more,” he insisted.
When I sought a further explanation, he turned away from me and ended the discussion with the sentence:
“Competence is not enough to take you to the top. Go, think about it, Francis!”
I was unsure what my boss meant in his response and needed further explanation. So I took his advice and left to reflect on the encounter. I realised the full implication of his comments years later. Then, I realised the opportunity the meeting provided for leadership lessons.
The Story Behind the Leadership Lessons
Leadership Lesson#1: It takes more than competence to rise to a leadership position.
I may be more skilled than my promoted colleague, but he was versatile, outgoing and more visible within the organisation. While I was good at managing work-related issues, he built relationships beyond the work.
The employee promoted to the leadership position had unique networking skills. He made friends quickly and knew how to manage relationships. These attributes aligned with the leadership behaviours my organisation required. It was years after this encounter that I learned this valuable leadership lesson.
Being promoted to a leadership position is not solely based on competence but also a person’s character traits. Companies generally favour employees whose traits match organisational goals and management ideals. Unfortunately, while organisational goals are clear, management ideals are often undisclosed. So, employees sometimes need help understanding the promotion criteria.
In the contest for a leadership position, only those whose character traits align with corporate goals and management ideals are chosen to lead.
Leadership lessons #2: Get acquainted with the politics of your organisation or become its victim.
The promoted employee perfectly understood the politics of our organisation. He was familiar with the intrigues, interests, and power dynamics. Accordingly, he knew those who mattered and created a friendly image of himself around them.
My promoted colleague always knew who was in charge and where to place his loyalty. Thus, he could get his average performance recognised where others struggled to showcase their mega performance.
I missed the leadership lessons inherent in my colleague’s actions. So, I showed no interest in the politics of our organisation because I felt it was divisive. My colleague always positioned himself for leadership opportunities that emerged. On my part, I relied on my competence to take me there. This attitude made me vulnerable because other employees saw it as being proud, aloof and self-centred.
Leaders must strive to understand the politics of their organisations. Of course, you do not have to participate in it, but you must have the skill to avoid being its victim.
Leadership Lesson# 3: Organisations are biased toward extroverts in leadership positions.
Earlier, I talked about my colleague being more versatile, extroverted and politically minded. These character traits may appear inconsequential for people in leadership positions. But my findings show a link between extroversion and successful leadership behaviours.
Research suggests that versatile and extroverted individuals make the best leaders. This link may explain why my organisation preferred my colleague for the vacant position. Because I was less outgoing and reserved, they may have felt I needed to develop leadership skills at the top.
Organisations want competent employees to proffer solutions to complex business problems. But they look up to their extroverted and politically minded employees to provide leadership.
Leadership Lesson # 4: The skill to manage your boss and other stakeholders is essential.
Finally, my promoted colleague always had a way around our bosses. He was close to our bosses, running errands, massaging their egos and attending to their every need. If we needed to get anything from any demanding boss, he was the right person to send. While other employees saw this as a sign of ingratiation, he was perfecting the act of managing the boss.
Your bosses are always needed to provide the necessary support base for you to perform. They are also required to appraise your work and to support your efforts to reach the top. So, learn to manage your boss.
The Last Word
These revelations were very shocking. They changed my entire attitude to work and taught me valuable leadership lessons. The disclosures also became a subject of a new book that I wrote. The ebook title is “Competence is not enough to take you to the top: Shocking reasons why competent people struggle to reach the top.”
For full details of my findings and the incredible leadership lessons you could learn, please read my article on Medium titled:
“5 Reasons Why Competence is Not Enough to Rise to a Leadership Position.”
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