Great Employees vs Great Managers

Gauging employee satisfaction can be a difficult process. Indeed, while it’s easy to get a number from your research, it may be harder to figure out what is causing those numbers to occur, and what you can do to fix it. Yet there are two factors that almost always play a role in how an employee views the company: Growth Potential Bad Bosses Both of these play a role in employee satisfaction, and both of these need to be addressed before satisfaction can increase. Yet for employers to make big strides in this area, they need to remember one thing: the best employees may not always make the best bosses.

Employers have a tendency to hire two groups of managers and supervisors that may not be right for the position. These include: Those that were trained in management. Getting an MBA does not necessarily mean that someone will be a good manager.

It may mean they have been trained well in management skills, but advanced degrees won’t tell you if they are good at handling the people factor. If employees appear unhappy with this type of manager, it’s best to believe the manager is probably at fault no matter their education or experience. Those that were promoted from lower level positions.

Being great at one job doesn’t always mean you’ll be great at another. Employers often look at those they promote and assume they’ll succeed in every role, but someone that was able to handle their previous tasks may not be as skilled or competent at handling the new ones. All companies are going to need to be especially skeptical of anyone they hire from those two positions.

It’s easy to assume that in both of those cases, the manager is going to know what they are doing, but education and the ability to succeed in a previous role in no way imply that someone is also going to be an outstanding supervisor. The two often require completely different skills. Yet the latter also creates its own problems.

Growth potential is another factor that affects employee satisfaction, but if you are becoming more skeptical about promoting great employees (as you should be), that means that growth options may start to become more limited. In the next article, we’ll throw out a few ideas on how to address this issue. Related Blog