The lens the author is looking through is missing the other side of the coin. Communication: Regardless of how smart you are, if you can't communicate it to o

The lens the author is looking through is missing the other side of the coin. Communication: Regardless of how smart you are, if you can't communicate it to others, then then value of your intelligence is limited to an individual role. People who can't/won't communicate make terrible managers. The people above them have no idea what's going on in their team. Poor coordination with other teams creates issues outside of their team. Their own team members will fail to understand what role they are playing in a larger effort. The non-communicating manger will know (because he's in the meetings), but will fail to pass that information to their team. As you move up the chain of command, communication becomes more important than what you as an individual can produce. Confidence: Your car breaks down. It's critical you have it working tomorrow. Two mechanics show up. - The first mechanic says: "This is really tricky. I don't know if we can get this fixed tomorrow. It may take a week. I'm not sure" - The second mechanic says: "This is no problem. I'll have it fixed by tomorrow". Which one are you going to hire? Perception: The hardest pill to swallow is that upper management is very aware of what's going on in a team, especially when the manager is a problem. - upper management has usually seen it all before. So any behavioral issues are easily spotted. - Team members complain to people on other teams, and word gets around. - Team members will request re-assignement or discuss quitting. There are a lot of ways to handle a bad manager, some good, many bad. The more professional you are, the easier they are to handle (i.e. be honest, don't participate in rumors, don't complain about others, own your responsibilities, be transparent, and communicate with facts) Performance over Perception: Performance is always more important than perception. The issue is a lot of employees don't understand what the priorities are for their organization. The priority is almost always. How efficiently and predictably does the job get done. Efficiency also includes how much hand holding someone higher up has to do.