Gallup is a very smart organization and they do many things well. They also provide great services to organizations and those that lead them, especially in understanding the problem, challenges and solution to employee engagement.
But their findings in some recently reported research could potentially be a major disservice to those same leaders.
Here’s my point: you shouldn’t be happy that Gallup is wrong, only be aware that the point they are making is very incomplete.
Some of their research, as reported on the Harvard Business Review Blog in a post titled Why Good Managers are So Rare (link to the full article here) states that great managers have these talents:
- They motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.
- They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
- They create a culture of clear accountability.
- They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
- They make decisions that are based on productivity, not politics.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this list (though I would say they are leadership skills more than management ones – which is a whole different, but important article).
The article continues:
Gallup’s research reveals that about one in ten people possess all these necessary traits. While many people are endowed with some of them, few have the unique combination of talent needed to help a team achieve excellence in a way that significantly improves a company’s performance. These 10%, when put in manager roles, naturally engage team members and customers, retain top performers, and sustain a culture of high productivity. Combined, they contribute about 48% higher profit to their companies than average managers.
Again, I have no real reason (and certainly no empirical data) to dispute these findings – this rigor is part of what makes Gallup so good at what they do. And I do agree that natural gifts or strengths are important and real.
It is what comes next where we disagree.
It’s important to note that another two in 10 exhibit some characteristics of basic managerial talent and can function at a high level if their company invests in coaching and developmental plans for them.
Really?
Coaching and development plans can only help another 20% deliver on the five skills they have listed? I guess that means that 70% of people don’t have what it takes to be an effective manager/leader. (Boy, I hope I am in the 30%!)
There is a difference between and can and could.
The items in the bullet list above are all skills – which means that they can be learned. Do all leaders/managers exhibit them? Of course not – in this way Gallup is right and their ongoing research on employee engagement continues to prove we have a long way to go.
There was a time you couldn’t walk, read these words, or drive a car. But now, you can do all of them. They are skills and were learned. Is the skill of “[having] the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance” something that is a strength or comes easier to some people?
Of course.
Does that mean others can’t learn it?
Of course not.
To be clear – the list of manager talents listed above are skills (as are the hundred other great lists of leadership attributes you could find in a google search or research), and skills can be learned.
I know, in the whole population there will always be people who won’t learn what they could – that will choose, consciously or not, to not devote themselves to learning what would help them be more successful, more productive, happier and healthier.
There is also a difference between could and will. But just because some won’t doesn’t mean they couldn’t. (Tweet that.)
Gallup got a lot right here – there are important skills (a few have them as a part of their strength set), and developing them will be easier for some than others (based on their strength mix), and not everyone will develop them. Knowing this can even be helpful in hiring. If you have someone with the natural strengths, hiring them makes sense.
But those abilities are not preset by nature, nurture or DNA.
The potential disservice in their assumption is that if we look for those that “have it” and ignore the rest, we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy – and we will always have few who can be successful leaders.
In the big picture there will always be many who won’t; that doesn’t mean any individual (including you or those you want to see successful as managers/leaders) can’t – given desire, opportunity and support.
Kevin, I commend you for this article and couldn’t agree more with your viewpoint. As a leader and an effective manager, we must operate under the inclusive assumption that everyone on our team can develop their skills, and it is our mission to provide them the required support and mentorship to make that happen. Otherwise we risk creating an employee culture consisting of an elite few and disengaged many.
what’s truly ironic is that gallup’s basic philosophy about becoming the very best one can be is essentially to ditch/forget about one’s short-commings… the idea is to focus on one’s positives… that will eclipse any shortcomings… so, forget the negative/inert… they say, don’t even waste your time trying to learn. in fact, they have devised an entire structure called “strength’s finder” in which individuals can identify strengths. the mechanism (ie strengths finder) is the source of one of gallup’s more lucrative revenue streams. ticking boxes on a list does not produce leadership nor management expertise. having all the ingredients for a cake doesn’t produce one. these attributes have more to do with human spirit than contrived categories.
Kevin, good catch. I admit I haven’t read the original article YET (I plan to do so later today), but I trust both your analysis and my existing knowledge of Gallop and the “strengths” movement espoused by Marcus Buckingham, all of whom I respect. Yet their conclusions and leadership models are incomplete and are best applied with additional perspective.
You’ve caught the hidden premise that is implied, although I doubt was intended by Gallop survey questions or resulting data interpretations — that leadership, as well as the skills and characteristics of leaders, is inherent in the individual, “endowed”, or “natural” in its origins. In other words, leaders are born.
There is no such thing as a born leader. Leaders are developed. Everyone has potential for leadership. That is the value of (inherent) strengths-based models: to identify the foundations of individual potential. But what is often missed by laity, if not the experts themselves, is that leadership is not measured by those unique sets of innate qualities each of us already have to various degrees and combinations. Leadership is measured in the results produced by the discretionary behaviors of followers — to what degree do followers support and pursue the mission of the leader in response to the leader’s collective qualities, characteristics and behaviors, both inherent and developed ones, as well as a leader’s direction.
Let’s dispense with, once and for all, any intended or unintentional messages that leadership is some mystical quality with which some lucky few are born, and the rest of us schmucks are not. Thank you for your role in doing so!
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
Kevin 🙂
Hello Kevin, to say Gallup is wrong straight out the gate leaves you vulnerable I suggest. There is substantial other research out there , over a number of years consistently suggesting that many levels of management do in fact struggle. Gallup Workforce Survey suggests 85% of people are disengaged from their work/company. Randstadt suggests 86% of people leave because of a lack of career development and in a further Career and Agility Study 81% of people say their talents are not being used effectively. Closer to home we use the Sales Development Tools from Objective Management Group and from 55,000+ Sales Managers evaluated well over 50+. They can’t all be wrong. You state that most of the deficiencies can be trained and on that I would agree. However the question you need to ask is “How many managers are in fact trainable” and there I think you might be a lot of managers would be found wanting. Thank you nonetheless for taking an opposite view.
Thanks for your comment Ray. I’m happy to be “vulnerable” :). Actually your additional data is completely in line with my point that these are all skills that can be learned. I am not suggesting more people already have the skills, just that they ARE skills, and therefore can be learned. To your last point, each individual has to decide if they are willing to learn or not. While we as organizational leaders, coaches and mentors can influence those decisions, individual leaders will decide.
Thanks again for your comment!
Kevin 🙂
This was very REAL. Enjoyed reading it.
Kevin, you are so right in this blog, and it echoes my own experience as the former CEO of five companies from a start-up to a $1B NYSE turnaround. People have incredible capabilities latent within them. Leadership is a learned art and a choice one makes. My experience tells me that with the proper coaching, experience, and practice leadership capabilities can be elicited in many people. They won’t all rise to be a VP or CEO, but they’ll lead some things at work, home, or in their volunteer commitments. Sometimes they’ll lead; sometimes they’ll follow. 10% have leadership capabilities? Gallup could not be further off the mark.
Thanks for your comments Bob.
Kevin 🙂
Great insights Kevin. We shouldn’t underestimate an individual’s capacity or willingness to learn new skills. Many more leaders/managers are “made” through learning (whether it’s formal learning or absorbing the right instincts/actions from the modeling of others) than those who are naturally “gifted.”
One pet peeve of mine about this particular Gallup study is the point about “manager’s motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.” Manager’s can’t motivate anyone to do anything; it’s up to the individual to tap into their own motivation. Having said that, it’s incumbent on the manager to create the conditions and environment for someone to be motivated, but ultimately the individual has to make that choice.
Best regards,
Randy
In general I concur, though the most VITAL ingredient of individual character has been entirely omitted from this discussion (tragically). It is excellent character which results in excellent people skills as outlined in Kevin’s blog above.
In my 30+ years of people management, I’ve learned “good” managers are good because they have sufficient courage & wisdom to decide & execute tough decisions involving many factors. Wisdom is applied knowledge properly deduced, and courage is maintaining the correct stance when expediency or self-preservation might otherwise be more comfortable. Neither of these are inborn or can be taught from a management book, but rather caught through steady application of life’s events, and learning from each lesson along the way.
Sometimes the best way to affirm a viewpoint, premise, or theory is to consider the opposite – the traits of a “bad” manager. When these opposite behaviors, traits, or skills deficits are compared with the “good” manager’s skills, very interesting contrasts result. The main difference – good vs. bad CHARACTER!
Many entrants into management are rewarded/promoted for being highly functioning practitioners or line workers. All too many times (especially in high-technology industries) these people are not “people people”, which is what led them into the industry in the first place. There are countless examples of projects & entire companies destroyed by advancement of good technologists into managerial roles, and these technologists had dreadful people skills because of character defects they chose not to correct along the way.
Too many companies believe they must promote to people management rather than expand a dual-ladder structure, where people can be rewarded by deeper involvement in project/task/technology work. Companies which have dual-ladder systems have experienced less abominable people management & increased technology growth as people can be rewarded in the direction best suited for themselves & their co-workers.
I’ve read the article from Gallup and your response and I see both sides. But does it really matter if it is an innate skill or a skill which one can learn? Either way most are poor managers and workers continue to be disengaged. I work for a large defense contractor and I’m retired military. I also worked in a few other industries concurrently and consecutively. In all my careers there were a lot of resources spent on management training, but the majority of manager continue to be poor at best. Why? Workers really do not care if their boss has the skill or not. They want and deserve better managers and companies need to promote those who either;
A. Has the gift or skill.
B. Can and be willing to be trained to be better managers.
It seems from my experience companies tend to promote good followers and not good leaders so they may control them and have low level managers who don’t “rock the boat” so to speak. One of the core issues companies need address is teaching managers what to look for within individuals they want to promote. Until a company starts promoting people with the skills and desires to be better managers, engagement will always languish.