4 ms·

Skilled leaders make a big difference in organizations, and they have skills that engineers don't (always) have. A leader that discounts the advice of his engin

Skilled leaders make a big difference in organizations, and they have skills that engineers don't (always) have. A leader that discounts the advice of his engineers is doomed to failure, but an engineer promoted to leadership that doesn't know how to people manage and steer the ship will also fail. It seems that some of these fluffy C-level people are actually good at their jobs, but we haven't found how to reliably distinguish them from the fluffy C-level people that slash and burn everything and juice the stock price with buybacks and financial engineering, then ride it out until a catastrophe happens.

munk-a 7y ago
There are absolutely some great leaders out there in executive positions, but there are also a lot of rich kids that step directly into C-level roles and really have no business being there. One of my requirements when taking on a job (and I work in smaller companies) is having a sit down with the executive and making sure they know what they're doing - after googling them and making sure they aren't just the child of some famous person. Being in a c-level position and having a famous relative is a bad sign for the company.