Not Everyone Gets a Trophy, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER TENBUILD THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS

No question, I was as good a sprayer as anyone in the company. I know my agronomy. I know the rigs. That's how I ended up as a supervisor. That was a promotion and I wasn't going to turn it down. But now I've got all this paperwork and have to worry about these other people on the team, people I know are not that good as sprayers anyway. Maybe I'm just not a natural leader.

—Twentysomething

“They want more status, authority, rewards,” said one senior engineer in a major electronic products company. “But they don't want the additional responsibilities of being in management roles. We give a junior engineer the big promotion, make him an engineering supervisor, and he keeps acting like he's just a project engineer. He acts like nothing has changed. They don't step into that role. There is a big leadership gap, especially at those lower levels. How are we supposed to find those people who have sufficient technical skill to be in charge of an engineering project but are also suited for leadership?”

This is the Holy Grail of retention: identifying and building new leaders. It's not just retaining the best technical talent. Rather, it is retaining those with the best technical ability who are also willing and able to take on leadership responsibilities and helping them step into those roles successfully. How many people have both the technical ability and the desire and ability to lead?

What usually happens is this. Those who are ...