Twenty-Two Ways to Develop Leadership in Staff Managers

Introduction

First the bad news: A person who works exclusively in staff jobs throughout a career is less likely to develop important leadership competencies than a person who works exclusively in line jobs (or in a combination of staff and line jobs).¹ Life as a staff professional is developmentally impoverished.

The consequences of having developmentally deprived staff professionals are serious. It means it is more difficult to find strong staff leaders, with all the implications for staff performance that this entails. It means we are wasting future talent; the pool of potential leaders for senior management positions is being restricted because women and other minority executives, who have primarily entered organizations via staff positions, ...