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This is not at all my experience (except CFO which has responsibilities not only on paper but in real life, where blame can’t be transferred) but I’m willing to

This is not at all my experience (except CFO which has responsibilities not only on paper but in real life, where blame can’t be transferred) but I’m willing to chalk it up to culture differences. Basically the more you see yourself as a “manager that facilitate work” the easier it is to go higher and the less expertise you need (social expertise exempted). Need something done? Hire someone to do it! Is there a specialist under you that isn’t replaceable? Better keep him in his position! I really wish we had what you seem to have though.

sokoloff 6y ago
I would think the General Counsel has the hardest of those abilities to "I'll just have a go at it."
- airstrike 6y ago
  I think it's probably hard to rank them but being CFO also requires specific hard skills that you can't improvise on A good COO will also have specific experience and therefore hard skills and easily outclass a general manager that's just winging it... but some operations are simpler than others, so the requirements associated with any of these C-level roles (including CFO and GC) are really on a spectrum
mcguire 6y ago
"This suggests that received wisdom about what makes a good boss may need some rethinking. It’s not uncommon to hear people assert that it’s a bad idea to promote an engineer to lead other engineers, or an editor to lead other editors. A good manager doesn’t need technical expertise, this argument goes, but rather, a mix of qualities like charisma, organizational skills, and emotional intelligence. Those qualities do matter, but what our research suggests is that the oft-overlooked quality of having technical expertise also matters enormously. ... Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business."

sokoloff 6y ago

I would think the General Counsel has the hardest of those abilities to "I'll just have a go at it."

airstrike 6y ago
I think it's probably hard to rank them but being CFO also requires specific hard skills that you can't improvise on A good COO will also have specific experience and therefore hard skills and easily outclass a general manager that's just winging it... but some operations are simpler than others, so the requirements associated with any of these C-level roles (including CFO and GC) are really on a spectrum

mcguire 6y ago

"This suggests that received wisdom about what makes a good boss may need some rethinking. It’s not uncommon to hear people assert that it’s a bad idea to promote an engineer to lead other engineers, or an editor to lead other editors. A good manager doesn’t need technical expertise, this argument goes, but rather, a mix of qualities like charisma, organizational skills, and emotional intelligence. Those qualities do matter, but what our research suggests is that the oft-overlooked quality of having technical expertise also matters enormously. ... Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business."