STRATEGY
You Need to Stop Hiring Incompetent Leaders
Hire Leaders for What They Can Do, and Not What They Have Done
Traditionally, companies reward their best employees with promotions. They have the preconceived notion that these employees will produce the same — or better — result when they are placed in a higher position, and that they might have their standards permeate to his/her subordinates.
Yet ironically, incompetence seems to be a norm.
When there is poor leadership, there also exists employee mismanagement. That contributes to the employee burnout crisis when a recent Gallup study showed that about two-thirds of full-time workers experience burnout on the job—in most situations, the burnout does not stem from hard work and high performance, but about how the employee is managed.
Poor leadership comes in many shapes and sizes. Signs of incompetence can come from abusive behaviors, lacking technical expertise, having no clue on how to give feedback, failing to understand potential and general inability to evaluate performance. Regardless of how purposeful, well-crafted and meaningful the job is to the employee, incompetent leadership will result in inevitable burnout, turnover, and even accidents.
