Don’t Promote the Loudest Goose: Lessons in Promoting Leaders

This article is written by James Eyring

A new study by Dutch researchers showed that among geese, bold and assertive geese tend to be the leaders. Unfortunately for the geese, the assertive goose was not necessarily the best leader. This is often the case in business, where strong networking and communications skills get people promoted, even when the leaders are not good performers. Before you stop reading this, let me acknowledge that all companies try to promote based on merit. It just does not always happen. Read on to find out why!

In the study on geese, the researchers paired up geese. One was bold and assertive and the other was shy and tentative. They put them in a maze to find food, and the assertive goose was the first to strike out in search of food, with the shyer goose following behind. Interestingly, the shy goose knew where the food was because of previous exposure to the maze. This meant that the pair of geese performed worse when together than if the shy goose was left to its own devices.

In a way, you see a similar dynamic with leaders in companies. Some leaders stand out in a crowd. They speak up, speak well and set direction. Sometimes they get promoted for this, even when they don’t actually deliver good results. Research studies support this. Luthans (1998) found that leaders who focused their time on Networking, Communicating, and Planning and Controlling were more likely to get promoted. Time spent networking was the biggest predictor of promotions. Leaders who focused their time on People Management, Communicating, and Planning and Controlling were more likely to deliver better team results for the organisation. Unfortunately, only 10 percent of the leaders he studied delivered results AND got promoted.

With the focus on performance in companies today, I am sure most companies are better than this 10 percent benchmark. However, despite their best intentions, companies still make mistakes. One prime example is amongst executives. I have seen managers with best-in-class metrics get passed over for promotion because the companies wanted them to exhibit better communication skills or better impact across a broader set of the company before promoting. Others did get promoted, even though their performance metrics were not as strong. Communication skills are important, but they should not be the main criteria for making a promotion decision.

So, remember these tips when promoting leaders in companies:
• Leadership is about helping teams succeed. Use metrics when identifying managers for promotion
    o Use business metrics of the whole team’s contribution
    o Measure commitment of the team (e.g., culture surveys, low turnover)
• Don’t over-rely on communication skills or other competencies when considering promotions
• Prepare your best leaders to network and communicate!
• Be careful about managers’ assessments of potential for the next job. Although this input is important, it is not always accurate.
   Use validated measures of potential to better predict potential

And remember, avoid promoting the loudest goose. Instead, promote the goose that lays the golden egg!

(c) 2010 Organisation Solutions Pte Ltd.

About the Authors: Dr. James Eyring is the chief operating officer of Organisation Solutions, a global consultancy specialising in organisational design, development and change solutions worldwide. James has more than 20 years of experience in the field of Organisational Development and his areas of expertise lie in large-scale organisation design and change, leadership development, and the design and management of distributed organisations.