Case example
An American IT company believed for years that technical expertise was the most
important management capability. They thought that the best managers were those who left
their staff to work independently and intervened only when people got stuck with a
technical problem. However, when the company asked employees what they valued most
in a manager, technical expertise ranked last. More valuable attributes were asking good
questions, taking time to meet and caring about employees’ careers and lives. Managers
who did these things led top-performing teams and had the happiest employees and the
lowest turnover of staff. These attributes of effective managers are well established in
scientific studies, so the company’s improvement efforts could have been put in place
years earlier.