Promoted to incompetence: the rise of the accidental managers

Promoted to incompetence: the rise of the accidental managers

82% of new managers in the UK are “accidental managers”, taking on the role with no management training, according to recent research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

And this is a statistic with a real and damaging effect on employee engagement, ROI and, more broadly, economic performance in the UK. People are leaving ‘bad managers’ in droves, citing poor relationships with seniors and toxic workplace cultures – something management training is shown to mitigate.

Why is this phenomenon so common? What do we really need from managers? How can we better identify ‘management material’ and how do we help those already in the role? 

Why do we have so many ‘accidental managers’?

In many organisations – certainly in traditional hierarchies – management is seen as a reward for good performance in a given field, rather than an entirely different job conferring new responsibilities and requiring a distinct skill set.

As a result, people are promoted to their ‘level of incompetence’ – a phenomenon known as the Peter Principle.

Their skills and abilities no longer match the requirements of the job and simply working harder – doing more of whatever they did to get there – often doesn’t help.

In Team Role terms

So what is happening in terms of Belbin Team Role behaviours when someone is promoted to incompetence?

Let’s suppose that our successful salesperson scores highly for Resource Investigator and Teamworker roles.

They will thrive on getting out and meeting new prospects and might instead find themselves ‘stuck’ in the office in one-to-one meetings with their team members.

The very Teamworker characteristics that helped them build rapport with customers might make it difficult for them to make potentially divisive decisions in crunch situations.

The broad view

Another common scenario is the Specialist who knows their own subject inside out, but who prefers working alone and isn’t accustomed to reaching beyond this specialism to consider the bigger picture.

Whilst others may consult the Specialist manager for their expertise, unless the manager also scores highly for the role, Co-ordinator, they might find it more challenging to take a broad view and build consensus in the team. 

What do we need managers to do?

Managers are the critical link between organisational strategy and its successful execution, translating leadership directives to teams on the ground.

They’re responsible for navigating the team from point to point, organising resources, delegating work and troubleshooting problems. They are also required to develop and coach those they manage, attending to the needs, relationships and performance of their team.

Gallup finds that 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores is attributable to managers and how effectively they guide their teams. In other words, it is managers who transform teams.

Good managers engage their people by enabling each person to play to their strengths and delegating work in a way that best benefits the team and organisation as a whole.

With Belbin, managers can:

1. Identify and articulate their Team Role contributions, to better understand how to use these to develop a strengths-based management style. 

To do this, managers need to complete the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory and receive a Belbin Individual report.

Provide feedback

2. Ask their team to provide Observer feedback as part of the Belbin exercise.

This gives a more rounded picture, boosts the manager’s self-awareness and enables them to formulate their own personal development strategy.

Are there differences between the manager’s own perceived strengths and those the rest of the team see? How can the manager use this information to become more effective in their role?

Get to know the team

3. Get to know the Team Role strengths present in their team using the Belbin Team report, so that managers know whom to involve at each stage of a project and can delegate according to strengths.

People are six times more engaged when working to their strengths. Belbin is a powerful tool in the manager’s arsenal, enabling them to nurture talent and delegate more effectively. This in turn leads to greater engagement, lower employee turnover and a greater ROI.

4. Use the language of Belbin Team Roles to help promote healthy working relationships, address performance issues, and depersonalise and resolve conflicts in the team.

Teams are always evolving, so one-off solutions that sound promising on an awayday don’t always stick.

Belbin is a common language which can be used to describe and delegate work, and to help with the many challenges faced by managers, whether discussing performance or diagnosing and addressing difficult working relationships.

Behavioural job description

The Belbin Job report can help those hiring to specify their requirements in Team Role terms, producing a behavioural job description which can sit alongside the hard skills checklist.

The Team Role profile of the job can then be compared to the Team Roles of your applicants, so you can see the degree of fit in behavioural terms and open a discussion as to the individual’s suitability for the role.

When a candidate is chosen, this information can be used to develop a strategy to grow the new manager in the role, cognisant of their strengths and areas where they might require help – from the team or from their seniors.

This can help prevent the costly mistakes associated with promoting to incompetence, which can damage individual and team engagement, and harm business performance.