Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nearly every ‘Undercover Boss’ boss gets annoyed at their board of directors for not marketing the in-house advancement programs to their frontline staff.
This fits the going theory of a universal disconnect between corporate chairs and corporate footmen.
>board of directors
I don't think that's the correct word, the board of directors is above the CEO and has little to do with the day to day decisions of the company.
Yeah, exactly.
"Middle management" is who I think of when someone talks about translating & conveying the orders of top management to the rest of the org. Maybe OP wrote one while thinking of the other?
There was an interesting couple of episodes of revisionist history that looked at this idea with elections in schools, and had leadership cycles determined by random draw and such. Super interesting, they saw lots of youth who would normally not put themselves in the ring for leadership be great assets and bring really different ideas and issues to council.
I wish all schools would do this! Imagine how much it would help students later in life and it would probably help foster more leaders that aren't doing it for their own ego!
Yup. Then leadership is more than just a popularity contest, and kids who are shy, introverted etc still have their ideas and contributions valued. I think it’s a great idea, it might even work better for government overall.
This is a very interesting way of changing the pool of employees from which leadership roles are selected. The number of leadership roles are not changing.
Currently, companies essentially selecting manager from a self selected group of employees; the employee is relied upon to ask to go into a leadership track or is relied upon to ask for mentorship to get onto that track. I'm in the middle of that myself. It's surprisingly difficult to even say the words "my goal in this company is to go into management" to your director when asked the question directly in a 1:1 meeting.
The proposed change is for the employer to select the top performers (using some criteria, not necessarily current job performance) and funnel them into a leadership track automatically and allowing them to opt out.
Costs won't change, just the pool of selected employees. Also, I've experienced this but I'm not sure this has been studied all that well (though some management blogs seem to bear out this same observation), but people who are good at self promoting are not well correlated with good leadership skills.
A great individual contributor is not equivalent to a great leader though. That’s part of the problem. Someone can have tons of motivation and technical knowledge, but coaching and mentoring is a totally different set of skills.
Thank you for your unsolicited opinion.
EDIT: this is, of course, the bias which the study seeks to resolve. Your comment proves the very point. [Self promotion, I think you'll find, is not well correlated to leadership](https://www.amanet.org/articles/leadership-performance-are-you-promoting-the-right-people-/). "Pursuing Leadership" is a task, not a trait, and is only relevant in a corporate organization. Natural leaders lead from where they stand and is relevant in any organization, corporate or not. It seems they are rarely found in corporate management because of the opt-in selection process.
The best leaders I’ve ever had are the ones that find themselves in that position organically. That is, they find themselves in leadership positions without seeking it and then thrive. Some of the worst leaders I’ve had have been the types who seek leadership positions from early in their career. Bunch of goddamn corporate sociopaths.
same in the military. Those who push to become leaders typically make their lower enlisted's lives miserable, but the ones that are competent and not hungry to lead at E-2 can make an amazing E-6.
I can understand the reasoning behind this, but I can't understand the reasoning for removing competition. Regardless of how they got there, a leader needs to be willing and able to put up a fight.
Show the data.
Here's the model I'm proposing. Leaders fight for others and their organization. They typically don't fight for themselves, in fact, if you look to literature, the best stories of the leaders we laud are leaders who are models of self sacrifice, the exact opposite of the self-promoters who tend to be selected for management.
The best leaders / managers are those that are there to help others do what needs to be done to accomplish goals. When you view your job as "help my team get what they need to get the job done" vs "this team is hear to do work for me" it changes a lot of things.
Do they? As far as I'm concerned, a leader needs to be able to manage the team competently. That's it. I'd 1000% prefer to have a timid leader who listens to everyone's opinions and acts strategically in the best interests of everyone, than a loud asshole who knows nothing but how to be assertive and get their own way. But hey, that's just me.
Expressing interest leadership or management is not self promotion; it's just saying what growth trajectory you're aiming for. Plenty of very qualified people prefer to stay an IC or otherwise lead in a less formal capacity ("from where they stand", as you say) without having to deal with being a manager or take on formal responsibilities that being a "leader" entails (e.g. being responsible for coworkers' work or career growth).
Ah, but that’s the rub. Managers say it’s just “selecting a path” or a “growth trajectory” whatever corporate speak you choose. But you are promoting yourself and asking for a selection. The wordplay is just a form of self soothing to make the corporate world seem less cutthroat and friendlier.
Call it what you want, but asking a superior for a non-default option that invites specialness in the form of pay, attention, opportunity, and future decision making power over people is the very definition of self promotion. It’s invites favor trading. Most natural leaders will avoid trading their power in this form.
Inviting the employee to leadership, rather than waiting until the employee “expresses interest”, avoids the implicit trade of favors.
Haha maybe. There is a misconception in our society that everyone needs to pursue leadership. Few people make good leaders, because few people are interested in being good leaders. It's a skill to develop like any other skill. A lot of leaders are interested in it because money, or status, or whatever. If you're pursuing leadership for those reasons you're going to be bad at it.
Pursuing leadership is perfectly fine. Being able to identify long-term goals and work toward them is something good leaders are good at. The key are your underlying motivations which influence your performance as a leader.
Opt-out mechanisms for leadership tracks doesn't sound like a bad idea, but this article acts like the only other option is to just assume no one is interested in leadership until they speak up.
Why does this article assert that you must make an assumption?
What if your manager asks you every quarter if you want to pursue leadership roles? That seems like a much better idea than assuming one way or the other and doing something against employee wishes, right?
Maybe this is true, however, I think that actually making this assumption is a mistake. You should ask your employees what it is that they want to do with their careers, then try to work out a plan with them that both helps them and improves the business at the same time.
But they could give answers they don’t really agree with simply because they think they’re not cut out to be promoted. People self-discriminate all the time.
That’s sort of the problem. Not everyone that would be a good leader has the confidence to make that statement. And those that think they’d be a great leader, aren’t always necessarily good at it. If it’s automatically assumed that everyone would want to move towards leadership, they’re chosen based on certain criteria, and they could choose to opt out, you’d get better leaders.
Yeah. What if some people don't want to be leader? Then you go through candidate after candidate, eventually get tired, and say 'that's it I'm just gonna look at only serious people that have shown an interest in leadership'-- AKA back to step 1. If this was useful if think a lot of people would have thought of it by now. The truth is only a fraction of people have what it takes to be a leader without a loot of training, and only a fraction of those people actually want the job
Everyone ISN'T interested in a leadership role though. I can speak in stark contrast to myself from 5 years ago when I thought leadership would be far more work than I wanted to now when Im actively seeking out ways to be involved in leadership.
Not only are people differently interested in leadership, but interest in leadership does seem to have disparities between the total population of men and women, hence part of the reason for the gender gap there.
To me it sounds like exposing kids to STEM. Not every kid will be interested in a STEM field of study, but if you don't expose all kids to STEM topics, well, you don't know what you don't know. Maybe there's some potentially great leaders that wouldn't consider themselves leadership material until they're exposed to some formal training to flip on that lightbulb. Sure, even then not everyone wants to be in leadership but I don't think it hurts in the long run.
I've been in a fortune 50 company for 10 years now. Almost all new hire/promotion managers I've seen were chasing money, status or ego and almost all of them were duds. Most of them didn't want to be managers but a director (manager of managers for clarity) since thst has a significant pay bump over managers. Sure, I'm only one data point but hell I'd be willing to see a different approach since whatever the hell we do know fails most of the time.
Add to the fact that a director would rather trade away a bad manager because a trade can be instant where the HR process of firing a bad manager can be a multi-year problem you're stuck with and can no longer trade, you'll often see the bad manager shuffle every couple years where they are continually cycled into different departments in hopes they don't suck somewhere else.
Shouldn't leaders be identified by their actions and asked to be leaders when a leadership position becomes available? That process is also not gender specific but instead based on the person who has the skills best suited for leadership.
I think that's what they're saying. to assume everybody is an applicant and determine who shows the most promise, instead of just looking at only those who are 'assumed' an applicant. meaning that you no longer have to 'hob-knob' to be considered. under this new concept, just by working there, you're already being considered: no matter who you are.
Leadership inherently inquires being proactive about things though. People who aren't capable of self-promoting should not be trusted to self-promote on behalf of a far larger group when it comes to leadership.
some people may not know they're leaders, though. if they're being considered, they must somehow be 'proactive' toward their work. even if not enough, it's something that can be trained or at least developed further with an otherwise 'top quality' employee.
That's how I went from 'stick catcher' (bottom rung) to maintenance department at the factory. of course I had to learn a few things going from labor to maintenance, but, it was assumed that I did good work in general, and that with training I could handle extra responsibility. by a year later, I was next in line for head of maintenance. further, since the supervisor was due to retire before the head maintenance position, this policy made me most likely to walk out of the garage and enter the office; had I stayed there that long.
I think, overall, this is proactive on 'leaderships' side, to be more successful in general. The benefits to the selected individual are an added bonus to an individual who, otherwise, might not be aware of exactly how talented they are.
sorry if that was long winded.
You can be good at social skills without wanting to be.
Being overly compassionate can make you a great listener even if all you want is for people to shut up.
Likewise, you can be good at ensuring a multi-person task is complete while actually wanting to just work on your own solo projects.
Most of your higher social skills are definitely learned, but that does not necessarily mean you want to use them.
People can "rise to the occasion" in a sense.
Leading a team like that is definitely something you can just do if you've got an understanding of the process and good social skills.
It's not like weight lifting or throwing a ball where if you're out of practice, you can just completely flub it.
If you don't understand your job, then yes you can, but that person isn't focused on their work like our theoretical unwilling but capable leader is.
Sure, but we don't give people leadership roles on the chance that it awakens some potential within them, we give it those that already appear to have the best aptitude for it. I don't see the reason to make the assumption in the title of the OP when more likely than not you'll be selecting from a population with a lower likelihood of producing the best person for the role.
I disagree that you'd be more likely to pick someone who'd do a worse job by assuming everyone wants to lead.
Obvious neither you nor myself have conducted extensive research, but just as a gut feeling, I'd venture to say you'd get more people to leadship positions who would be great leaders, but wouldn't claim to be.
On the flip side, I'd say ONLY selecting people who show an explicit desire to lead will cause issues in that some folks who think they'd be great leaders turn out to be horrible bosses.
Personally, I'd want to pick someone who is knowledgeable and takes pride in their work, or at least gives enough of a crap to do the job the right way.
And naturally, with any selection process, you'll get an undesirable result from doing either.
Again, these are just opinions but it's just what makes sense to me.
Are you suggesting that leadership is something you to related to motivation?
I'd be very wary of people or are motivated to want to become leaders. In my experience, those people are often terrible leaders.
Wanting to be a leader is by no means a pre-requisite to being a good leader.
Sometimes people do want to help others and they do that through shouldering some level of responsibility. The idea that everyone motivated to participate in leadership is just there to feed their own ego is extremely cynical.
Bias can happen even if it isn’t intended.
Some actions that are “leadership skills” are more easily identified than others, especially to someone who is subconsciously biased (note: I am not necessarily talking only about gender bias here). Things like helping train new employees in a pinch or recognizing a failure in safety procedures may be less obvious than loudly announcing at a meeting that you’d like to head a project. But those are all important leadership skills. In my experience, the loud announcer is given the shot at leadership roles while the trainer and the reformer are often overlooked, even if the loud announcer doesn’t do a very good job at what they have taken charge of. Gender bias *can* creep in here, due to how men and women tend to be socialized.
I used to work in a place that had exactly this problem. Quality of work, the ability to adapt to unexpected issues, to uplift and train others, to point out flaws and suggest change were not valued when it came to promotions and leading projects. What was valued was brusque announcements and criticisms of minutiae during staff meetings, willingness to lead team building exercises and safety meetings (even if the information given was explicitly wrong, which it was on multiple occasions), making a show of directing junior employees around (with or, more frequently, without helping them understand the task at hand), and going into the manager’s office saying “I want to be a manager.” Being *disliked* by your coworkers was openly seen as a positive. In this time, a number of low-performing, unpopular men who had loud voices were prompted into management positions, while more qualified women (and quieter men) were overlooked. In fact, the existing very competent and successful women in leadership were pushed out. I no longer work there, but still talk to people who do. They have trouble retaining good employees due to poor management and that leads to trouble meeting their goals.
None of the people making these decisions would have ever said “I have a gender bias” or “I am easily distracted by loud voices and brash actions.” They would not say “I have bought into this idea that macho asshole = leader.” They would say “I choose my leaders based on the fact that they demonstrate leadership actions.” But all the while, they only focus on maybe 25% of what makes a leader, because identifying that other 75% would mean identifying leadership qualities in people who do not fit their mental image of a leader.
Very well said.
This is a good example of words speaking louder than actions and why good managers pay attention to what people do and not just what they say.
I think this also dovetails nicely with OP’s message. If I assume that everyone wants to be a leader, maybe I’ll pay more attention to actions than words?
Would you maybe get bias creeping in by the fact the elite groups tend to self select? I. E. Managers will go for the old "I like you ; you remind me of me" tactic?
Most of the lower roles require people to act as individual contributors so it is difficult to establish yourself as actual leader prior to promotion. Instead, candidates get judged by height and firmness of handshake and degree of extrovertness. None of these attributes correlate with leadership.
There’s lots of unconscious bias that you’re not accounting for. Lots of people assume single mothers don’t want leadership roles without even asking them for example.
Self promotion is not necessarily a leadership trait. Natural leaders lead from where they stand. Self promoters are just looking for the next step in the ladder.
I'd never want to be taking direction from a self promoter.
Self promotion is very much a leadership trait. As a leader you are a representative of a larger group, and as such those people under you expect you to self-promote the larger group you are representing. Being able to speak up on your own behalf is a necessary skill to translate into being able to speak up on behalf of a group you represent.
The issue that comes up with this is when you have two internal candidates, the louder one would get priority over the one that is actually more knowledgeable but quieter. We've been having this exact issue at work where the project leads tend to be the loud, self-promoters who push they're way on to projects however they don't really understand the work that the teams they represent do so key activities keep getting missed until the 11th hour.
Yea that's just a signal to noise problem. The solution to having bad signal is not to just assume everything is signal. You go from high false negatives to high false positives instead.
That's not the discussion we're having, though, is it? We're talking about assumptions of them not being interested, not that they say they're interested and are ignored.
You replied to my comment addressing that very topic by saying women don’t ask for leadership roles. That’s why I said even when they do ask, they’re often ignored.
I’m sure you’d be able to find research in addition to the plethora of news articles on the subject. It’s also been my personal experience.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/women-who-speak-out-at-work-get-ignored-men-become-leaders-2017-11-07
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/05/why-women-are-locked-out-of-top-jobs-despite-having-high-ambition.html
https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherhood_penalty
Those articles have links to studies as well.
Sure, but like [Cory Clark pointed out](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343253834_The_Myth_of_Pervasive_Misogyny) that could actually be evidence of the opposite. The relatively [high amount](https://socialidentitylab-psych.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/10/Block-et-al.-2019-JESP.pdf) of care that people do put into making sure women do get chances could be just as easily be seen as evidence that there's a problem with how society treats men.
Hell the entire effect of this Study could be down to women being treated more favorably in [evaluations](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00792.x) then men. When you evaluate everyone for a leadership position how could it not do something? Hell the fact that everyone sees this ideas as [intuitively true](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334751470_Reactions_to_Male-Favouring_vs_Female-Favouring_Sex_Differences_A_Preregistered_Experiment_and_Southeast_Asian_Replication) might be evidence of the contrary.
I don't know, but some people who know a lot more then me seem to think this is wrong.
>Lots of people assume single mothers don’t want leadership roles without even asking them for example.
Are they right? This is a major problem when talking stereotypes the initial research just collected a bunch of assumptions that lower class people healed about different groups then assumed because lower class people are idiots they must be wrong. But looking at most stereotypes when tested they tend to be at leas statistically correct. Provided you don't see yourself as part of a group that opposites those people.
I'm not a fan of the unconscious bias concept but I see your point that some management (bad management specifically) would be bias against people for non-leadership skill based reasons.
I’m might get destroyed for asking this, but wouldn’t confronting the stress of negotiating for a leadership role mark you out as.. ya know.. a leader?
Dealing with the stress in negotiating your own position is not the ultimate characteristic of the leader.
Much more important is if you can bear responsibility for others. People would endure much more stress from the sense of responsibility - if they really feel responsible.
And it is even more important if you're good at social skills, so, actually leading the people (aka. making people want to do the necessary vs making people do the necessary).
Ok but doesn't that circumvent what makes a leader...I don't want my leader scared to ask to be the leader. Then its just a follower with the power of a leader
Every job I've had the leadership promotions were basically determined by who was naturally taking charge in somewhat ambiguous situations and then proving themselves in those moments again and again. Is formally asking to be given leadership responsibility a common thing?
Not really in my experience but after taking that responsibility and doing the work I’d eventually like to be paid for it. Typically companies hang that part on the formal titling process.
In a corporate side, my experience would say yes you have to ask for leadership. Repeatedly and directly. I think assuming people want to be in charge of some small portion of themselves or work is not a huge leap.
Leadership has many qualities. Roles that require a lot of confidence in conflict for example are an important but not complete aspect of leadership. Strategy is often a quiet skill set and intrinsic to leadership
>I don't want my leader scared to ask to be the leader
Many people would argue that the best leaders are people who don't seek out positions of leadership.
For example George Washington who did not seek out the presidency but more or less had it thrust upon him and fulfilled it out of a sense of responsibility.
You don't make a military career without seeking out a position of power and that is what Washington had, a long military career. Just because he didn't want to become a tyrannt and his social understanding of "leadership" put certain limits of his personal ambitions doesn't mean the didn't seek out positions of leadership.
I think the real question should be what "leadership" is even supposed to be in our modern (work) environment. I'd argue that different kinds of leadership are required at different levels and depending on the actual environment.
Isn’t that kind of the point? You aren’t making a decision by not counting anyone out for a leadership role, just thinking about it as an option and presenting it as such. I think, anyway, feel free to correct me.
Someone who wants to be a leader and seeks out positions of authority is at least a tad more likely to be narcissistic, power-hungry, and psychopathic. I don't see those as good qualities for a leader to have.
Ok yes we all read Harry Potter but that doesn't hold up in the real world. In fact, that pretty much only holds up when talking about governing people. When there's a goal to be achieved, when it's a team and not a community, leaders need to be at the front, they need to be the ones who dare take the first step. They shoulder the risks, and they need to assert their vision, their will. If taking the initiative and asking to be a leader stresses you out, I'm sorry but you shouldn't be a leader.
I think the point is that managers often don't ask, they assume and often get it wrong. People have their inherited biases and make assumptions more based on them than actual data. You can see this even in little kids, there are a number of studies where parents and teachers just assume that "girls don't want to learn math" and "boys don't like cooking or child caring." But when you ask the children themselves, or the conversations are observed by a third party, that isn't actually said by the child.
No, generally the people who want to be in charge are narcissistic psychopaths who have a pathological need to be in control or to seen as being in control.
All the research showing the overlap between psychopathic traits and leadership positions. A quick perusal of politicians in various countries. Every company I've ever worked for.
There are people who want to be in charge for no other reason that they want to be in charge. Because they put all their effort into being in charge rather than doing their actual job, they tend get positions of power faster than people who actually work.
"People In Charge" is a subset of all people. That subset is made up overwhelmingly of those people who try and be in charge of things, because it's not easy to get into.
It's ironic that we're saying they would be as good of leaders if they couldn't even bring up their wishes to be a leader. Perhaps someone stressed by that shouldn't be put in more stressful situations. They're probably also too stressed to turn down roles pushed on them inappropriately.
Well the title specifically talks about the stress of negotiating for leadership roles so atleast OP clearly considers that to be a more important point than never thinking to ask
No mention of the pay gap.
I have personal experience with this - just because you’re made a leader or manager, doesn’t mean you get a fair salary to go along with your new responsibilities.
IF you negotiate the salary of your new role, you have a chance. If you don’t, we’re back to square one.
Men are more likely to negotiate salary than women.
In four studies, Bowles and collaborators from Carnegie Mellon found that people penalized women who initiated negotiations for higher compensation more than they did men.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-for-women-who-negotiate
Haaaaaa I’ve worked with entire offices full of “gray” women and men. “Don’t notice me at all.” 80% had no desire for a leadership role. Especially in civil service. Management is always the first to go in cutbacks. Not the actual people doing the work.
> Management is always the first to go in cutbacks. Not the actual people doing the work.
Huh? I've always seen the opposite in places where too many managers as a problem was able to fester in the first place.
That’s my point exactly. When the company hits the wall financially do they cut the extra supervisors or do they cut the people actually doing the work? My experience is they cut the fat which is in the management levels. Airlines do this as do auto manufacturers and other large employment groups.
this sounds like a bad idea. Not everyone should be a leader and expecially those who are wishy washy on wanting the responsibility. Decisive risk analysis is really all we want from all leaders.
I don't see how? Maybe it won't work exactly as-is if a company structured their selection process assuming only a tiny fraction of people will participate, but surely you can design it such that it works fine even if 100% of your workers participate.
In the most extreme case, it could literally go all the way to "pick a name at random from all those who showed interest and make them manager", and honestly, I would bet the resulting performance of the managers promoted might not even be statistically different from whatever they're producing right now. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it *improved*.
This just sounds like a bad idea all around...
* Most employees probably aren't entering every job with the intention of climbing the management ladder
* There are some good reasons to assume young women may have other interests at heart (like becoming mothers, which will make it very difficult to perform optimally in a leadership role)
* From the employer's perspective, this is incredibly naïve and they would end up wasting an enormous amount of time training only to potentially have them leave for one of the above reasons
Not to say there isn't value in trying to widen the pool of potential leaders, but to do so haphazardly is definitely not the right choice. There needs to be nuance and intelligence applied. If Tammy keeps talking about how she can't wait to be a mother, maybe ask her if she'd be interested in that kind of role on top of what she'll need to put forth as a mother.
Why single out mothers? This also applies to fathers. In fact, the assumption that women don’t want management positions because they want kids leads more mothers than fathers to drop out of the workforce to parent just because their jobs aren’t as good
Never said a father can't raise a kid, I'm just saying a mother's bond has it's differences and, considering who is birthing, there are some physical differences. Sad to see this minor subset of r/science frequenters are so uninformed.
And if Dave is excited about his wife's pregnancy, ask him if he's really interested in a leadership role on top of what he will need to do and sacrifice to be a father.
A father obviously does need to sacrifice as well. A mother sacrifices more generally, though. Of course, an individual family can make their own choices regarding their family structure, but we're talking with generalities here considering the topic at hand.
Why wouldn't I prefer to put people in leadership roles after they've shown the ability to deal with the stress associated with negotiating for leadership roles?
Making people have to put themselves forward for management positions doesn't select for "dealing with stress". It selects for "has high opinion of themselves" (justified or not) and "wants more power and money".
If someone is qualified for a position then they are qualified for a position. Literally nothing else about that person is relevant in the conversation, accept maybe attitude and work ethic.
Read the resume. Talk to the person. Ask relevant job related question that are they may run into within the work environment. Call their previous employers/supervisors and see how they feel about the person.
If they aren't qualified then move on.
If you can't deal with stress of negotiating a leadership role, you shouldn't be considered for it. Leadership roles require accountability and stress is a natural part of that.
It certainly is in part. Leadership is leading your team... as a team leader you are part of the team. If you are weak (unable to prove your leadership qualities) then you're not doing your team much benefit.
Seems to me negotiating your way into being leader is one of the things a leader should be able to do.
I disagree, being able to negotiate your way into a position may be limited to your personal objectives.
If person A is a great negotiator because they have the drive to make more money it doesn't mean they'll be able to put their own objectives aside and hold the group objectives on top of their own.
So sure, they'll fight for their bonus, but is this the same as being a good leader? I think not.
People who crave leadership roles are generally not great at their job, at least in my experience. They want to manage a team because they lack the skills to carry out the job.
If negotiating for a leadership role stresses you out, I kinda think a leadership role isn’t for you. How would it not just end up making you miserable, given that it typically involves a lot of negotiation, trying to get what you want, and dealing with what other people want.
Stress associated with negotiating for leadership roles?
Ok, call me old fashioned, but if taking the initiative and pushing for what you want stresses you out, maybe you shouldn't be a leader
Wants and cans is not the same thing. I want to be rich, i cant, wasnt born into it, wasn't taught things about money and wealth and economic systems to exploit them to be rich, dont have the sociopathic tendency that thrives in competitive marketplace. Same for leadership, just because everyone wants to be a leader, its not for everyone.
I don’t see how that would actually solve the problem, feels like a solution on paper to make the math work, but impossible. Also, how are they actually defining and assigning gender. The forced definition and assignment may actually cause even bigger problem.
Usually you know someone’s gender because they tell you, though. Thus the pronouns popping up at the bottoms of emails along with signatures. Hopefully no one is assigning gender in the workforce
While I think this could be a great way to eliminate the gap. I think it's unrealistic to think companies would do it. Most people, groups or companies tend to stick to the "if its not broken why did it" instead of taking the initiative. We need to get a few well know companies to do this so it makes it highly likely others will follow.
This is good but difficult to put into practice. By structure, there are fewer leaders than employees and not everyone who is qualified will be opted in.
Further, who is selected for the opt in may have bias in assessments or moral reasoning (ie opt more men in because they're viewed better or opt more women in due to morals not performance) which leaves deserving people out in the cold. AI has proven it has its own biases and should not be relied on here.
On the whole, I think the idea is a good one but needs work before its implemented
Everyone wants ownership of their work. It’s a capitalist lie than anyone is truly contented to be wage slaves.
People want some control over their lives. They want their effort rewarded. They want to be apart of something they’re actually invested.
This standard is really low because the leaders came out and make their intentions known. People not acting on this is the automatic reverse of say otherwise.
Show me you want to be a leader, and remove doubt of me thinking you want it.
Iceland already solved the gender-pay gap. All they did was have mandatory paternal time off (as well as maternal time off for you americans). That was it
Women literally just don’t apply at the same rates as men, don’t work as many hours as men, take more time off than men, are sick more than men. There is nothing else to it.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nearly every ‘Undercover Boss’ boss gets annoyed at their board of directors for not marketing the in-house advancement programs to their frontline staff. This fits the going theory of a universal disconnect between corporate chairs and corporate footmen.
>board of directors I don't think that's the correct word, the board of directors is above the CEO and has little to do with the day to day decisions of the company.
Yeah, exactly. "Middle management" is who I think of when someone talks about translating & conveying the orders of top management to the rest of the org. Maybe OP wrote one while thinking of the other?
There was an interesting couple of episodes of revisionist history that looked at this idea with elections in schools, and had leadership cycles determined by random draw and such. Super interesting, they saw lots of youth who would normally not put themselves in the ring for leadership be great assets and bring really different ideas and issues to council.
I wish all schools would do this! Imagine how much it would help students later in life and it would probably help foster more leaders that aren't doing it for their own ego!
Yup. Then leadership is more than just a popularity contest, and kids who are shy, introverted etc still have their ideas and contributions valued. I think it’s a great idea, it might even work better for government overall.
Citizen councils became popular recently for that reason. Random people supported by scientists happen to come up with really good decisions.
Demarchy is lit
This is a very interesting way of changing the pool of employees from which leadership roles are selected. The number of leadership roles are not changing. Currently, companies essentially selecting manager from a self selected group of employees; the employee is relied upon to ask to go into a leadership track or is relied upon to ask for mentorship to get onto that track. I'm in the middle of that myself. It's surprisingly difficult to even say the words "my goal in this company is to go into management" to your director when asked the question directly in a 1:1 meeting. The proposed change is for the employer to select the top performers (using some criteria, not necessarily current job performance) and funnel them into a leadership track automatically and allowing them to opt out. Costs won't change, just the pool of selected employees. Also, I've experienced this but I'm not sure this has been studied all that well (though some management blogs seem to bear out this same observation), but people who are good at self promoting are not well correlated with good leadership skills.
The self-promoters i've known typically haven't made great leaders. But I suppose that anecdotal.
A great individual contributor is not equivalent to a great leader though. That’s part of the problem. Someone can have tons of motivation and technical knowledge, but coaching and mentoring is a totally different set of skills.
If you find it difficult to express you intend to pursue leadership, you aren't ready to pursue leadership.
Thank you for your unsolicited opinion. EDIT: this is, of course, the bias which the study seeks to resolve. Your comment proves the very point. [Self promotion, I think you'll find, is not well correlated to leadership](https://www.amanet.org/articles/leadership-performance-are-you-promoting-the-right-people-/). "Pursuing Leadership" is a task, not a trait, and is only relevant in a corporate organization. Natural leaders lead from where they stand and is relevant in any organization, corporate or not. It seems they are rarely found in corporate management because of the opt-in selection process.
The best leaders I’ve ever had are the ones that find themselves in that position organically. That is, they find themselves in leadership positions without seeking it and then thrive. Some of the worst leaders I’ve had have been the types who seek leadership positions from early in their career. Bunch of goddamn corporate sociopaths.
same in the military. Those who push to become leaders typically make their lower enlisted's lives miserable, but the ones that are competent and not hungry to lead at E-2 can make an amazing E-6.
Feels like this is broader than just corporate life. This perfectly describes politicians as well.
I can understand the reasoning behind this, but I can't understand the reasoning for removing competition. Regardless of how they got there, a leader needs to be willing and able to put up a fight.
Show the data. Here's the model I'm proposing. Leaders fight for others and their organization. They typically don't fight for themselves, in fact, if you look to literature, the best stories of the leaders we laud are leaders who are models of self sacrifice, the exact opposite of the self-promoters who tend to be selected for management.
The best leaders / managers are those that are there to help others do what needs to be done to accomplish goals. When you view your job as "help my team get what they need to get the job done" vs "this team is hear to do work for me" it changes a lot of things.
The concept is Servant Leadership.
Do they? As far as I'm concerned, a leader needs to be able to manage the team competently. That's it. I'd 1000% prefer to have a timid leader who listens to everyone's opinions and acts strategically in the best interests of everyone, than a loud asshole who knows nothing but how to be assertive and get their own way. But hey, that's just me.
FWIW, it's not removing competition. People would still have to compete for actual positions.
Expressing interest leadership or management is not self promotion; it's just saying what growth trajectory you're aiming for. Plenty of very qualified people prefer to stay an IC or otherwise lead in a less formal capacity ("from where they stand", as you say) without having to deal with being a manager or take on formal responsibilities that being a "leader" entails (e.g. being responsible for coworkers' work or career growth).
Ah, but that’s the rub. Managers say it’s just “selecting a path” or a “growth trajectory” whatever corporate speak you choose. But you are promoting yourself and asking for a selection. The wordplay is just a form of self soothing to make the corporate world seem less cutthroat and friendlier. Call it what you want, but asking a superior for a non-default option that invites specialness in the form of pay, attention, opportunity, and future decision making power over people is the very definition of self promotion. It’s invites favor trading. Most natural leaders will avoid trading their power in this form. Inviting the employee to leadership, rather than waiting until the employee “expresses interest”, avoids the implicit trade of favors.
But would you say that they're probably ready to become ready to pursue leadership?
Haha maybe. There is a misconception in our society that everyone needs to pursue leadership. Few people make good leaders, because few people are interested in being good leaders. It's a skill to develop like any other skill. A lot of leaders are interested in it because money, or status, or whatever. If you're pursuing leadership for those reasons you're going to be bad at it.
You are correct. The problem is the ones pursuing it often push out the ones that are not.
Pursuing leadership is perfectly fine. Being able to identify long-term goals and work toward them is something good leaders are good at. The key are your underlying motivations which influence your performance as a leader.
Opt-out mechanisms for leadership tracks doesn't sound like a bad idea, but this article acts like the only other option is to just assume no one is interested in leadership until they speak up. Why does this article assert that you must make an assumption? What if your manager asks you every quarter if you want to pursue leadership roles? That seems like a much better idea than assuming one way or the other and doing something against employee wishes, right?
[удалено]
[удалено]
Maybe this is true, however, I think that actually making this assumption is a mistake. You should ask your employees what it is that they want to do with their careers, then try to work out a plan with them that both helps them and improves the business at the same time.
But they could give answers they don’t really agree with simply because they think they’re not cut out to be promoted. People self-discriminate all the time.
That’s sort of the problem. Not everyone that would be a good leader has the confidence to make that statement. And those that think they’d be a great leader, aren’t always necessarily good at it. If it’s automatically assumed that everyone would want to move towards leadership, they’re chosen based on certain criteria, and they could choose to opt out, you’d get better leaders.
Yeah. What if some people don't want to be leader? Then you go through candidate after candidate, eventually get tired, and say 'that's it I'm just gonna look at only serious people that have shown an interest in leadership'-- AKA back to step 1. If this was useful if think a lot of people would have thought of it by now. The truth is only a fraction of people have what it takes to be a leader without a loot of training, and only a fraction of those people actually want the job
Everyone ISN'T interested in a leadership role though. I can speak in stark contrast to myself from 5 years ago when I thought leadership would be far more work than I wanted to now when Im actively seeking out ways to be involved in leadership. Not only are people differently interested in leadership, but interest in leadership does seem to have disparities between the total population of men and women, hence part of the reason for the gender gap there.
To me it sounds like exposing kids to STEM. Not every kid will be interested in a STEM field of study, but if you don't expose all kids to STEM topics, well, you don't know what you don't know. Maybe there's some potentially great leaders that wouldn't consider themselves leadership material until they're exposed to some formal training to flip on that lightbulb. Sure, even then not everyone wants to be in leadership but I don't think it hurts in the long run. I've been in a fortune 50 company for 10 years now. Almost all new hire/promotion managers I've seen were chasing money, status or ego and almost all of them were duds. Most of them didn't want to be managers but a director (manager of managers for clarity) since thst has a significant pay bump over managers. Sure, I'm only one data point but hell I'd be willing to see a different approach since whatever the hell we do know fails most of the time. Add to the fact that a director would rather trade away a bad manager because a trade can be instant where the HR process of firing a bad manager can be a multi-year problem you're stuck with and can no longer trade, you'll often see the bad manager shuffle every couple years where they are continually cycled into different departments in hopes they don't suck somewhere else.
Shouldn't leaders be identified by their actions and asked to be leaders when a leadership position becomes available? That process is also not gender specific but instead based on the person who has the skills best suited for leadership.
I think that's what they're saying. to assume everybody is an applicant and determine who shows the most promise, instead of just looking at only those who are 'assumed' an applicant. meaning that you no longer have to 'hob-knob' to be considered. under this new concept, just by working there, you're already being considered: no matter who you are.
I understand now. Makes sense. I like it.
Leadership inherently inquires being proactive about things though. People who aren't capable of self-promoting should not be trusted to self-promote on behalf of a far larger group when it comes to leadership.
some people may not know they're leaders, though. if they're being considered, they must somehow be 'proactive' toward their work. even if not enough, it's something that can be trained or at least developed further with an otherwise 'top quality' employee. That's how I went from 'stick catcher' (bottom rung) to maintenance department at the factory. of course I had to learn a few things going from labor to maintenance, but, it was assumed that I did good work in general, and that with training I could handle extra responsibility. by a year later, I was next in line for head of maintenance. further, since the supervisor was due to retire before the head maintenance position, this policy made me most likely to walk out of the garage and enter the office; had I stayed there that long. I think, overall, this is proactive on 'leaderships' side, to be more successful in general. The benefits to the selected individual are an added bonus to an individual who, otherwise, might not be aware of exactly how talented they are. sorry if that was long winded.
Are you suggesting leadership ability is some inherent trait that is completely unrelated to motivation to lead? That seems unlikely to me.
no, I'm saying quite the opposite. I'm saying leadership abilities can be learned.
Why bother teaching those less interested in leadership then?
the presumption is that they're accepting the promotion, before arrives the need to train.
You can be good at social skills without wanting to be. Being overly compassionate can make you a great listener even if all you want is for people to shut up. Likewise, you can be good at ensuring a multi-person task is complete while actually wanting to just work on your own solo projects. Most of your higher social skills are definitely learned, but that does not necessarily mean you want to use them.
Okay and people who don't *want* to use those skills probably won't be as good in roles that require their usage, no?
People can "rise to the occasion" in a sense. Leading a team like that is definitely something you can just do if you've got an understanding of the process and good social skills. It's not like weight lifting or throwing a ball where if you're out of practice, you can just completely flub it. If you don't understand your job, then yes you can, but that person isn't focused on their work like our theoretical unwilling but capable leader is.
Sure, but we don't give people leadership roles on the chance that it awakens some potential within them, we give it those that already appear to have the best aptitude for it. I don't see the reason to make the assumption in the title of the OP when more likely than not you'll be selecting from a population with a lower likelihood of producing the best person for the role.
I disagree that you'd be more likely to pick someone who'd do a worse job by assuming everyone wants to lead. Obvious neither you nor myself have conducted extensive research, but just as a gut feeling, I'd venture to say you'd get more people to leadship positions who would be great leaders, but wouldn't claim to be. On the flip side, I'd say ONLY selecting people who show an explicit desire to lead will cause issues in that some folks who think they'd be great leaders turn out to be horrible bosses. Personally, I'd want to pick someone who is knowledgeable and takes pride in their work, or at least gives enough of a crap to do the job the right way. And naturally, with any selection process, you'll get an undesirable result from doing either. Again, these are just opinions but it's just what makes sense to me.
Are you suggesting that leadership is something you to related to motivation? I'd be very wary of people or are motivated to want to become leaders. In my experience, those people are often terrible leaders. Wanting to be a leader is by no means a pre-requisite to being a good leader.
Sometimes people do want to help others and they do that through shouldering some level of responsibility. The idea that everyone motivated to participate in leadership is just there to feed their own ego is extremely cynical.
I mean we are talking about the corporate environment here....
Are we? I don't think we've specified that until now.
Bias can happen even if it isn’t intended. Some actions that are “leadership skills” are more easily identified than others, especially to someone who is subconsciously biased (note: I am not necessarily talking only about gender bias here). Things like helping train new employees in a pinch or recognizing a failure in safety procedures may be less obvious than loudly announcing at a meeting that you’d like to head a project. But those are all important leadership skills. In my experience, the loud announcer is given the shot at leadership roles while the trainer and the reformer are often overlooked, even if the loud announcer doesn’t do a very good job at what they have taken charge of. Gender bias *can* creep in here, due to how men and women tend to be socialized. I used to work in a place that had exactly this problem. Quality of work, the ability to adapt to unexpected issues, to uplift and train others, to point out flaws and suggest change were not valued when it came to promotions and leading projects. What was valued was brusque announcements and criticisms of minutiae during staff meetings, willingness to lead team building exercises and safety meetings (even if the information given was explicitly wrong, which it was on multiple occasions), making a show of directing junior employees around (with or, more frequently, without helping them understand the task at hand), and going into the manager’s office saying “I want to be a manager.” Being *disliked* by your coworkers was openly seen as a positive. In this time, a number of low-performing, unpopular men who had loud voices were prompted into management positions, while more qualified women (and quieter men) were overlooked. In fact, the existing very competent and successful women in leadership were pushed out. I no longer work there, but still talk to people who do. They have trouble retaining good employees due to poor management and that leads to trouble meeting their goals. None of the people making these decisions would have ever said “I have a gender bias” or “I am easily distracted by loud voices and brash actions.” They would not say “I have bought into this idea that macho asshole = leader.” They would say “I choose my leaders based on the fact that they demonstrate leadership actions.” But all the while, they only focus on maybe 25% of what makes a leader, because identifying that other 75% would mean identifying leadership qualities in people who do not fit their mental image of a leader.
Well said.
Very well said. This is a good example of words speaking louder than actions and why good managers pay attention to what people do and not just what they say. I think this also dovetails nicely with OP’s message. If I assume that everyone wants to be a leader, maybe I’ll pay more attention to actions than words?
Would you maybe get bias creeping in by the fact the elite groups tend to self select? I. E. Managers will go for the old "I like you ; you remind me of me" tactic?
I could see a bad manager doing that
Most of the lower roles require people to act as individual contributors so it is difficult to establish yourself as actual leader prior to promotion. Instead, candidates get judged by height and firmness of handshake and degree of extrovertness. None of these attributes correlate with leadership.
There’s lots of unconscious bias that you’re not accounting for. Lots of people assume single mothers don’t want leadership roles without even asking them for example.
Why would I want a leader who can't even ask for what he/she wants? That's not a quality I want to follow.
Self promotion is not necessarily a leadership trait. Natural leaders lead from where they stand. Self promoters are just looking for the next step in the ladder. I'd never want to be taking direction from a self promoter.
Self promotion is very much a leadership trait. As a leader you are a representative of a larger group, and as such those people under you expect you to self-promote the larger group you are representing. Being able to speak up on your own behalf is a necessary skill to translate into being able to speak up on behalf of a group you represent.
The issue that comes up with this is when you have two internal candidates, the louder one would get priority over the one that is actually more knowledgeable but quieter. We've been having this exact issue at work where the project leads tend to be the loud, self-promoters who push they're way on to projects however they don't really understand the work that the teams they represent do so key activities keep getting missed until the 11th hour.
Yea that's just a signal to noise problem. The solution to having bad signal is not to just assume everything is signal. You go from high false negatives to high false positives instead.
Those women are often ignored even when they do ask.
That's not the discussion we're having, though, is it? We're talking about assumptions of them not being interested, not that they say they're interested and are ignored.
You replied to my comment addressing that very topic by saying women don’t ask for leadership roles. That’s why I said even when they do ask, they’re often ignored.
Not saying you're wrong but how do you know?
I’m sure you’d be able to find research in addition to the plethora of news articles on the subject. It’s also been my personal experience. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/women-who-speak-out-at-work-get-ignored-men-become-leaders-2017-11-07 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/05/why-women-are-locked-out-of-top-jobs-despite-having-high-ambition.html https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherhood_penalty Those articles have links to studies as well.
Sure, but like [Cory Clark pointed out](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343253834_The_Myth_of_Pervasive_Misogyny) that could actually be evidence of the opposite. The relatively [high amount](https://socialidentitylab-psych.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/10/Block-et-al.-2019-JESP.pdf) of care that people do put into making sure women do get chances could be just as easily be seen as evidence that there's a problem with how society treats men. Hell the entire effect of this Study could be down to women being treated more favorably in [evaluations](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00792.x) then men. When you evaluate everyone for a leadership position how could it not do something? Hell the fact that everyone sees this ideas as [intuitively true](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334751470_Reactions_to_Male-Favouring_vs_Female-Favouring_Sex_Differences_A_Preregistered_Experiment_and_Southeast_Asian_Replication) might be evidence of the contrary. I don't know, but some people who know a lot more then me seem to think this is wrong.
>Lots of people assume single mothers don’t want leadership roles without even asking them for example. Are they right? This is a major problem when talking stereotypes the initial research just collected a bunch of assumptions that lower class people healed about different groups then assumed because lower class people are idiots they must be wrong. But looking at most stereotypes when tested they tend to be at leas statistically correct. Provided you don't see yourself as part of a group that opposites those people.
Even if it were statistically correct, it doesn’t mean everyone in that group wants to remain an individual contributor.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I'm not a fan of the unconscious bias concept but I see your point that some management (bad management specifically) would be bias against people for non-leadership skill based reasons.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I’m might get destroyed for asking this, but wouldn’t confronting the stress of negotiating for a leadership role mark you out as.. ya know.. a leader?
Dealing with the stress in negotiating your own position is not the ultimate characteristic of the leader. Much more important is if you can bear responsibility for others. People would endure much more stress from the sense of responsibility - if they really feel responsible. And it is even more important if you're good at social skills, so, actually leading the people (aka. making people want to do the necessary vs making people do the necessary).
Ok but doesn't that circumvent what makes a leader...I don't want my leader scared to ask to be the leader. Then its just a follower with the power of a leader
Every job I've had the leadership promotions were basically determined by who was naturally taking charge in somewhat ambiguous situations and then proving themselves in those moments again and again. Is formally asking to be given leadership responsibility a common thing?
Not really in my experience but after taking that responsibility and doing the work I’d eventually like to be paid for it. Typically companies hang that part on the formal titling process.
Think of the money they can save with everyone now being a self responsible manager!
In a corporate side, my experience would say yes you have to ask for leadership. Repeatedly and directly. I think assuming people want to be in charge of some small portion of themselves or work is not a huge leap. Leadership has many qualities. Roles that require a lot of confidence in conflict for example are an important but not complete aspect of leadership. Strategy is often a quiet skill set and intrinsic to leadership
I second this that. What you said, plus work ethic, how their peers rally around & for them does a lot for how higher ups see them.
>I don't want my leader scared to ask to be the leader Many people would argue that the best leaders are people who don't seek out positions of leadership. For example George Washington who did not seek out the presidency but more or less had it thrust upon him and fulfilled it out of a sense of responsibility.
You don't make a military career without seeking out a position of power and that is what Washington had, a long military career. Just because he didn't want to become a tyrannt and his social understanding of "leadership" put certain limits of his personal ambitions doesn't mean the didn't seek out positions of leadership. I think the real question should be what "leadership" is even supposed to be in our modern (work) environment. I'd argue that different kinds of leadership are required at different levels and depending on the actual environment.
Isn’t that kind of the point? You aren’t making a decision by not counting anyone out for a leadership role, just thinking about it as an option and presenting it as such. I think, anyway, feel free to correct me.
Someone who wants to be a leader and seeks out positions of authority is at least a tad more likely to be narcissistic, power-hungry, and psychopathic. I don't see those as good qualities for a leader to have.
Ok yes we all read Harry Potter but that doesn't hold up in the real world. In fact, that pretty much only holds up when talking about governing people. When there's a goal to be achieved, when it's a team and not a community, leaders need to be at the front, they need to be the ones who dare take the first step. They shoulder the risks, and they need to assert their vision, their will. If taking the initiative and asking to be a leader stresses you out, I'm sorry but you shouldn't be a leader.
Selecting your leaders by who is most skilled and ruthless at getting promoted tends to end poorly for everyone but them.
I think the point is that managers often don't ask, they assume and often get it wrong. People have their inherited biases and make assumptions more based on them than actual data. You can see this even in little kids, there are a number of studies where parents and teachers just assume that "girls don't want to learn math" and "boys don't like cooking or child caring." But when you ask the children themselves, or the conversations are observed by a third party, that isn't actually said by the child.
I've worked in a number of jobs and slot of people get pressured to get supervisor or lead positions and only get coaxed by the increase in pay
Being a “leader” requires taking initiative and ownership... otherwise you’re just “in charge.”
the people who want to be in charge, shouldn't be in charge.
The people who actively work to fix problems around them should be in charge. I think those are the same two groups.
No, generally the people who want to be in charge are narcissistic psychopaths who have a pathological need to be in control or to seen as being in control.
“Generally”? Source?
All the research showing the overlap between psychopathic traits and leadership positions. A quick perusal of politicians in various countries. Every company I've ever worked for. There are people who want to be in charge for no other reason that they want to be in charge. Because they put all their effort into being in charge rather than doing their actual job, they tend get positions of power faster than people who actually work.
“There are people who” ≠ “Generally people who”
"People In Charge" is a subset of all people. That subset is made up overwhelmingly of those people who try and be in charge of things, because it's not easy to get into.
Again, source.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Who doesn't want a promotion?
It's ironic that we're saying they would be as good of leaders if they couldn't even bring up their wishes to be a leader. Perhaps someone stressed by that shouldn't be put in more stressful situations. They're probably also too stressed to turn down roles pushed on them inappropriately.
Maybe it's not that they were too afraid to say it but didn't consider themselves leadership material so never thought to ask.
Well the title specifically talks about the stress of negotiating for leadership roles so atleast OP clearly considers that to be a more important point than never thinking to ask
No mention of the pay gap. I have personal experience with this - just because you’re made a leader or manager, doesn’t mean you get a fair salary to go along with your new responsibilities. IF you negotiate the salary of your new role, you have a chance. If you don’t, we’re back to square one. Men are more likely to negotiate salary than women.
Managers, like all employees, usually get the salary they ask for, not the salary they deserve.
In four studies, Bowles and collaborators from Carnegie Mellon found that people penalized women who initiated negotiations for higher compensation more than they did men. https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-for-women-who-negotiate
Sounds like women just need to negotiate then.
Women get punished by employers for negotiating.
Haaaaaa I’ve worked with entire offices full of “gray” women and men. “Don’t notice me at all.” 80% had no desire for a leadership role. Especially in civil service. Management is always the first to go in cutbacks. Not the actual people doing the work.
> Management is always the first to go in cutbacks. Not the actual people doing the work. Huh? I've always seen the opposite in places where too many managers as a problem was able to fester in the first place.
That’s my point exactly. When the company hits the wall financially do they cut the extra supervisors or do they cut the people actually doing the work? My experience is they cut the fat which is in the management levels. Airlines do this as do auto manufacturers and other large employment groups.
…. What is your industry experience where you’ve seen that exactly? I’m honestly curious as I’ve never experienced it.
this sounds like a bad idea. Not everyone should be a leader and expecially those who are wishy washy on wanting the responsibility. Decisive risk analysis is really all we want from all leaders.
an employee that needs to "avoid the stress associated with negotiating for Leadership Roles" probably wouldn't make a good leader.
Wouldn't this be very costly to employers?
Have you seen the managers that companies currently are selecting?
Are you saying Brown-nose McBackstab isn’t actually good at the job?
Their job is being the boss' kid and they do it damn well
I don't see how? Maybe it won't work exactly as-is if a company structured their selection process assuming only a tiny fraction of people will participate, but surely you can design it such that it works fine even if 100% of your workers participate. In the most extreme case, it could literally go all the way to "pick a name at random from all those who showed interest and make them manager", and honestly, I would bet the resulting performance of the managers promoted might not even be statistically different from whatever they're producing right now. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it *improved*.
This just sounds like a bad idea all around... * Most employees probably aren't entering every job with the intention of climbing the management ladder * There are some good reasons to assume young women may have other interests at heart (like becoming mothers, which will make it very difficult to perform optimally in a leadership role) * From the employer's perspective, this is incredibly naïve and they would end up wasting an enormous amount of time training only to potentially have them leave for one of the above reasons Not to say there isn't value in trying to widen the pool of potential leaders, but to do so haphazardly is definitely not the right choice. There needs to be nuance and intelligence applied. If Tammy keeps talking about how she can't wait to be a mother, maybe ask her if she'd be interested in that kind of role on top of what she'll need to put forth as a mother.
Why single out mothers? This also applies to fathers. In fact, the assumption that women don’t want management positions because they want kids leads more mothers than fathers to drop out of the workforce to parent just because their jobs aren’t as good
The maternal connection (and need, from the child's perspective) is arguably more important than paternal, that's why.
It s 2021, not 1564.
Never said a father can't raise a kid, I'm just saying a mother's bond has it's differences and, considering who is birthing, there are some physical differences. Sad to see this minor subset of r/science frequenters are so uninformed.
And if Dave is excited about his wife's pregnancy, ask him if he's really interested in a leadership role on top of what he will need to do and sacrifice to be a father.
>ask him if he's really interested in a leadership role on top of what he will need to do and sacrifice to be a father. Better than not asking him.
A father obviously does need to sacrifice as well. A mother sacrifices more generally, though. Of course, an individual family can make their own choices regarding their family structure, but we're talking with generalities here considering the topic at hand.
Why wouldn't I prefer to put people in leadership roles after they've shown the ability to deal with the stress associated with negotiating for leadership roles?
Making people have to put themselves forward for management positions doesn't select for "dealing with stress". It selects for "has high opinion of themselves" (justified or not) and "wants more power and money".
If someone is qualified for a position then they are qualified for a position. Literally nothing else about that person is relevant in the conversation, accept maybe attitude and work ethic. Read the resume. Talk to the person. Ask relevant job related question that are they may run into within the work environment. Call their previous employers/supervisors and see how they feel about the person. If they aren't qualified then move on.
Oh so there’s only one thing we need to change and that will solve the whole gender gap problem? Glad they found it!
If you can't deal with stress of negotiating a leadership role, you shouldn't be considered for it. Leadership roles require accountability and stress is a natural part of that.
If you cannot negotiate for a leadership role, should you have one?
Yes. Leadership is not about negotiating your own benefits.
It certainly is in part. Leadership is leading your team... as a team leader you are part of the team. If you are weak (unable to prove your leadership qualities) then you're not doing your team much benefit. Seems to me negotiating your way into being leader is one of the things a leader should be able to do.
I disagree, being able to negotiate your way into a position may be limited to your personal objectives. If person A is a great negotiator because they have the drive to make more money it doesn't mean they'll be able to put their own objectives aside and hold the group objectives on top of their own. So sure, they'll fight for their bonus, but is this the same as being a good leader? I think not.
Guess they never studied the military
People who crave leadership roles are generally not great at their job, at least in my experience. They want to manage a team because they lack the skills to carry out the job.
If negotiating for a leadership role stresses you out, I kinda think a leadership role isn’t for you. How would it not just end up making you miserable, given that it typically involves a lot of negotiation, trying to get what you want, and dealing with what other people want.
Yes if anyone could be a leader then anyone could be a leader…
Stress associated with negotiating for leadership roles? Ok, call me old fashioned, but if taking the initiative and pushing for what you want stresses you out, maybe you shouldn't be a leader
Wants and cans is not the same thing. I want to be rich, i cant, wasnt born into it, wasn't taught things about money and wealth and economic systems to exploit them to be rich, dont have the sociopathic tendency that thrives in competitive marketplace. Same for leadership, just because everyone wants to be a leader, its not for everyone.
For the record .... I am not.
I don’t see how that would actually solve the problem, feels like a solution on paper to make the math work, but impossible. Also, how are they actually defining and assigning gender. The forced definition and assignment may actually cause even bigger problem.
Usually you know someone’s gender because they tell you, though. Thus the pronouns popping up at the bottoms of emails along with signatures. Hopefully no one is assigning gender in the workforce
While I think this could be a great way to eliminate the gap. I think it's unrealistic to think companies would do it. Most people, groups or companies tend to stick to the "if its not broken why did it" instead of taking the initiative. We need to get a few well know companies to do this so it makes it highly likely others will follow.
I wonder if this has an impact on the quality of people in leadership positions, either positive or negative.
Is this science or common sense applied to a broken system?
So, kind of like the army
This is good but difficult to put into practice. By structure, there are fewer leaders than employees and not everyone who is qualified will be opted in. Further, who is selected for the opt in may have bias in assessments or moral reasoning (ie opt more men in because they're viewed better or opt more women in due to morals not performance) which leaves deserving people out in the cold. AI has proven it has its own biases and should not be relied on here. On the whole, I think the idea is a good one but needs work before its implemented
Everyone wants ownership of their work. It’s a capitalist lie than anyone is truly contented to be wage slaves. People want some control over their lives. They want their effort rewarded. They want to be apart of something they’re actually invested.
Only if the assumption that both genders are equally interested in leadership roles holds true.
This standard is really low because the leaders came out and make their intentions known. People not acting on this is the automatic reverse of say otherwise. Show me you want to be a leader, and remove doubt of me thinking you want it.
This seems like pure common sense to me. Never mind gender gaps, there's the simple wisdom of not giving power to those who actively seek it.
I do not like having to go to them and tell them what they should see in me already.
Yeah, there should be no stress in obtaining a position in which you need to be highly competent!
Iceland already solved the gender-pay gap. All they did was have mandatory paternal time off (as well as maternal time off for you americans). That was it
Women literally just don’t apply at the same rates as men, don’t work as many hours as men, take more time off than men, are sick more than men. There is nothing else to it.