Most of us have worked for a boss who was perfectly pleasant, but not good at their job. I had one such boss, who I referred to as ‘The Grinner’, and in many ways he was a good boss. He always had a big grin on his face. He never missed a team member’s birthday, showing up with or sending to their home their favourite cupcakes or sweet treats.

He always asked us how we were doing in our one-on-one meetings and genuinely wanted to know about our family, friends, pets and hobbies outside of work. He never called us on vacation, sent late night texts or emails, or expected us to work on the weekends.

He was lovely in so many ways. And he was completely incompetent.

And when I mean incompetent, I mean this: The Grinner didn’t know how to lead his weekly team meetings. He had each of us rotate responsibilities to run the meeting, coming up with agenda topics, all while he grinned. He rarely offered any items for us to discuss.

He would be incredibly supportive, peppering our time together with “Well done” and “That’s amazing” and “I am so proud of this team.” He never hired a chief of staff, even though he hired for a number of other less critical roles. So we all had to pitch in and do our part to keep the team running smoothly.

Eventually, despite his incompetence, The Grinner was promoted. He was likable, and that’s all that mattered. He continued to fail up. But it came at a cost: I knew several very skilled people who left the company because they couldn’t deal with The Grinner’s incompetence anymore. This attrition undoubtedly cost the company thousands over the years.

Promotion and responsibility

Too many of our workplaces are set up to recognise high performers, outstanding individual contributors through promotions. And that promotion usually means you are now responsible for other people’s careers.

Yale professor Kelly Shue and her colleagues’ study shows that organisations still prioritise employees’ performance as an individual contributor versus their potential to lead people when deciding who to promote. This is similar behaviour to how factories operated in the 1960s, when workers were promoted into leadership roles based on manufacturing efficiency and not based on whether or not they could actually lead teams.

Let’s stop just promoting people to the next level. Help them thrive in their career so their teams can thrive. Give them the tools and training and support they need if you do decide to promote them. Or consider an individual contributor track for them where they can continue to advance and grow, get paid more, without ever having to manage another individual.

When promoting someone into a leadership position, here are some questions to consider:
• When a new leader joins from an external company, do you just ask the assistant to set up 25 one-on-one meetings for them and dump a bunch of other meetings on their calendar? Or do you take the time to craft a thoughtful 30-day onboarding plan?
• Do you have a three-month and six-month check-in to see how they are acclimating?
• Do you ask their team members at least once a year how their leader is performing, allowing anonymous feedback? Do you dismiss the feedback or try to process and understand things that may surprise you?
• When you are doing performance reviews, are you specific on their areas of opportunity or providing vague or generic feedback that can be applied to anyone on the team?

If we don’t set our leaders up for success, don’t onboard them properly, don’t support them, or promote them too quickly, we can’t be surprised when they start exhibiting bad boss behaviour.

Are they fit to do the job?

Finally, we need to stop to consider if this individual is actually fit to do the job. Are they capable of sharing their expertise and leading the team? Or are we convincing ourselves that they will just figure it out along the way?

I have watched too many leaders continue to advance someone’s career based on their potential, rather than their performance. They will take a bet on them, move them up simply because they like them, advocate for them because they are friends. Or because something about this person seems familiar: the individual reminds them of themselves.

We can mistake a company full of incredibly likable leaders, who just happen to look like they came from central casting, as a sign of a healthy culture. And if the team is spending most of their energy and time propping these bad bosses up like puppets, they will one by one by one make plans to escape this theatre that they find themselves trapped in. After all, they didn’t sign up to be a puppeteer. That wasn’t part of the job description.

Mita Mallick is a speaker, writer, coach and a former chief diversity officer.