Thanks! I agree with the concern, but I think I disagree about the root cause:
She likes Bobâs ideas and wants to find ways to implement them, but doesnât like Bobâs leadership style so doesnât want to put him in a leadership position
In general, Iâm skeptical about âputtingâ people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues donât want to be led by them.
If people arenât listening to Bob because they donât like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldnât describe this as the organization ânot letting him thrive.â
I do agree that itâs harder to hire senior people though:
Itâs ⊠higher stakes to hire someone with more seniority
Thereâs a related thing you might be pointing to like âin a big organization, Bob can just come up with ideas and someone else will implement them, diminishing the costs of his abrasive leadership style. But in a smaller organization he has to both come up with ideas and execute, and maybe heâs not enough of a generalist for that.â I definitely agree with this concern.
If people arenât listening to Bob because they donât like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldnât describe this as the organization ânot letting him thrive.â
I could also imagine it being that the org has a bad culture (e.g. they systematically donât listen to the ideas of people in more junior roles)
Sure, but thatâs also a reason against appropriately qualified people working there also, right?
What Iâm pushing against is the assumption that employees love outsiders coming in and telling them all the things they are doing wrong, and if they donât like you pointing out their mistakes it must mean you are âoverqualifiedâ.
I actually hear the opposite more frequently: having a more junior title makes it easier for people to listen to your suggestions, because itâs less threatening for you to point out mistakes.
Apparently my comment won a comment prize, which nudges me to carry on this conversation.
In general, Iâm skeptical about âputtingâ people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues donât want to be led by them
What if Bob has an ambitious project heâs excited to run, and 4 out of 7 of his colleagues are excited by this project and want to be led by Bob on this, and Alice thinks it couldnât hurt to try, but Aliceâs cofounder Carol really doesnât like the idea and 2 of the 3 board members also donât like it? Carol et al. surface objections like âitâs not in the spirit of our missionâ and âIâm worried about the effects Bobâs leadership would have on our cultureâ.
Maybe if the org had good culture and good leaders they could figure out how to thread the needle, give Bobâs project a shot while addressing the concerns that Carol et al surfaced.
But I guess the point is⊠all of that takes time. A lot of effort needs to be put into the work of coordinating around a contentious project. In a world where Bob was vetted as a senior hire (which again, takes more time) he wouldnât have made the cut because of these concerns. But since he was vetted as a junior hire, people didnât think to consider âthe effects of Bobâs leadership on our cultureâ.
To be clear, I think a good hiring processes would sufficiently address these problems at the beginning, either vetting Bob as a senior hire and/âor ensuring he understood the scope of the role. A good hiring process would probably notice that Bob has the skills to fulfill the finance role, but does not have the skills to lead in the organization.
But⊠itâs hard to make good hiring processes, itâs hard to anticipate how this kind of thing will play out. In the face of this, I think itâs somewhat reasonable for hiring managers to lean towards junior hires in some cases. Like if I âjust want someone to get this one set of things done reliably for the next two yearsâ I might have less headache with a junior hire that shows up, does the thing, and goes home.
If I hire an office manager and they start trying to reform my HR policies, this can be more of a headache than a help. I didnât think to vet them for their HR policy skills, but now they are feeling bored and upset that Iâm not giving more detailed feedback on their proposals. But I donât have time right now. And then they leave the org because they feel unfulfilled, and we need to recruit for another office manager. Aagh! Letâs just hire a junior person!
Even if I was a bad manager above, I think itâs a pretty realistic situation and have the sense that a lot of orgs/âmanagers have been burned like this, and so are more cautious about making senior hires.
To be clear, my all-things-considered view is pretty uncertain, and leans towards being willing to hire overqualified people (I also tend to be pretty bullish about hiring outside the standard EA demographic). Especially if you have decent management expertise, which would ensure e.g. good hiring processes.
Looking back at my comment, Iâm still a fan of this model:
the more agent-y the person you hire, the more youâll need to be careful about principal-agent problems
Something that feels maybe cruxy: Do overqualified hires have higher turnover? Higher management overhead?
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position? (E.g. he would be better able to convince Carol to do this ambitious project.)
If so, then maybe you want to say that he is âoverqualified in technical knowledge and underqualified in political abilityâ or something, but chalking the problem up to being âoverqualifiedâ across-the-board seems misleading.
If you are a junior employee then sure, itâs your managers responsibility to listen to your ideas. But as you become more senior, it becomes more of your responsibility to get buy-in. E.g.:
One of Steveâs direct reports told a story about a debate he had with Steve. Eventually, he backed down not because Steve had convinced him, but because he was afraid to keep arguing the point. When events proved that Steve had been wrong in his position, he stormed into his employeeâs office and demanded, âWhy did we do this??â When his employee pointed out that it had been Steveâs call, Steve exclaimed, âWell, it was your job to convince me I was wrong, and you failed!ââWhat Steve Jobs Taught Me About Debate in the Workplace
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position?
Yes⊠and no?
Yes: it would be better re. âoverhead requiredâ. If Bob foresees Carolâs objections and takes her out to lunch and convinces her, this could save a bunch of management/âboard time.
⊠and no: maybe Carolâs concerns were legitimate and Bob was just very convincing, but not actually right. Fade to: Bob becomes CEO and the org is thriving but itâs not really following the original mission anymore.
Iâm guessing Steve Jobs wanted people to convince him if (and only if) they were right. âRightâ meaning not just factually correct but probably also whatever Steve thought was good (whatever that was).
So maybe if Bob was more politically skilled and also aligned with the mission of the organization? But aw geez now weâre back to how itâs hard to hire people aligned with the org. Hmm, that would probably cruxy too. Not sure how to measure it.
Ahâmaybe your post is making the point âif they would make a good senior hire, it seems fine to hire them in a junior positionâ. Maybe I was getting confused by the term, Iâve seen people labelled âoverqualifiedâ when they are above average on a few dimensions but not all of them.
Iâd have a harder time steel-manning a counterpoint to that. Maybe something about it not being stimulating enough so risking turnover⊠but that doesnât hold much water in my mind.
This really matches my experience. As a high skill worker (software engineer at a FAANG), I strongly view top down proposals without team buy-in as a leadership failure.
If your idea is good, you should be able to convince the team that it is good and ought to be implemented (contributing to the implementation yourself is going to win you big favor points). Going over the teamâs head to force the solution by forcing the HR team to accept the proposal in the example is going to burn bridges. Maybe itâs necessary if the proposal is incredibly important, but mandating a solution on a team after pushback should generally be viewed as an organizational failure to mourn.
Thanks! I agree with the concern, but I think I disagree about the root cause:
In general, Iâm skeptical about âputtingâ people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues donât want to be led by them.
If people arenât listening to Bob because they donât like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldnât describe this as the organization ânot letting him thrive.â
I do agree that itâs harder to hire senior people though:
Thereâs a related thing you might be pointing to like âin a big organization, Bob can just come up with ideas and someone else will implement them, diminishing the costs of his abrasive leadership style. But in a smaller organization he has to both come up with ideas and execute, and maybe heâs not enough of a generalist for that.â I definitely agree with this concern.
I could also imagine it being that the org has a bad culture (e.g. they systematically donât listen to the ideas of people in more junior roles)
Sure, but thatâs also a reason against appropriately qualified people working there also, right?
What Iâm pushing against is the assumption that employees love outsiders coming in and telling them all the things they are doing wrong, and if they donât like you pointing out their mistakes it must mean you are âoverqualifiedâ.
I actually hear the opposite more frequently: having a more junior title makes it easier for people to listen to your suggestions, because itâs less threatening for you to point out mistakes.
Apparently my comment won a comment prize, which nudges me to carry on this conversation.
What if Bob has an ambitious project heâs excited to run, and 4 out of 7 of his colleagues are excited by this project and want to be led by Bob on this, and Alice thinks it couldnât hurt to try, but Aliceâs cofounder Carol really doesnât like the idea and 2 of the 3 board members also donât like it? Carol et al. surface objections like âitâs not in the spirit of our missionâ and âIâm worried about the effects Bobâs leadership would have on our cultureâ.
Maybe if the org had good culture and good leaders they could figure out how to thread the needle, give Bobâs project a shot while addressing the concerns that Carol et al surfaced.
But I guess the point is⊠all of that takes time. A lot of effort needs to be put into the work of coordinating around a contentious project. In a world where Bob was vetted as a senior hire (which again, takes more time) he wouldnât have made the cut because of these concerns. But since he was vetted as a junior hire, people didnât think to consider âthe effects of Bobâs leadership on our cultureâ.
To be clear, I think a good hiring processes would sufficiently address these problems at the beginning, either vetting Bob as a senior hire and/âor ensuring he understood the scope of the role. A good hiring process would probably notice that Bob has the skills to fulfill the finance role, but does not have the skills to lead in the organization.
But⊠itâs hard to make good hiring processes, itâs hard to anticipate how this kind of thing will play out. In the face of this, I think itâs somewhat reasonable for hiring managers to lean towards junior hires in some cases. Like if I âjust want someone to get this one set of things done reliably for the next two yearsâ I might have less headache with a junior hire that shows up, does the thing, and goes home.
If I hire an office manager and they start trying to reform my HR policies, this can be more of a headache than a help. I didnât think to vet them for their HR policy skills, but now they are feeling bored and upset that Iâm not giving more detailed feedback on their proposals. But I donât have time right now. And then they leave the org because they feel unfulfilled, and we need to recruit for another office manager. Aagh! Letâs just hire a junior person!
Even if I was a bad manager above, I think itâs a pretty realistic situation and have the sense that a lot of orgs/âmanagers have been burned like this, and so are more cautious about making senior hires.
To be clear, my all-things-considered view is pretty uncertain, and leans towards being willing to hire overqualified people (I also tend to be pretty bullish about hiring outside the standard EA demographic). Especially if you have decent management expertise, which would ensure e.g. good hiring processes.
Looking back at my comment, Iâm still a fan of this model:
Something that feels maybe cruxy: Do overqualified hires have higher turnover? Higher management overhead?
Congrats on the comment prize!
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position? (E.g. he would be better able to convince Carol to do this ambitious project.)
If so, then maybe you want to say that he is âoverqualified in technical knowledge and underqualified in political abilityâ or something, but chalking the problem up to being âoverqualifiedâ across-the-board seems misleading.
If you are a junior employee then sure, itâs your managers responsibility to listen to your ideas. But as you become more senior, it becomes more of your responsibility to get buy-in. E.g.:
Yes⊠and no?
Yes: it would be better re. âoverhead requiredâ. If Bob foresees Carolâs objections and takes her out to lunch and convinces her, this could save a bunch of management/âboard time.
⊠and no: maybe Carolâs concerns were legitimate and Bob was just very convincing, but not actually right. Fade to: Bob becomes CEO and the org is thriving but itâs not really following the original mission anymore.
Iâm guessing Steve Jobs wanted people to convince him if (and only if) they were right. âRightâ meaning not just factually correct but probably also whatever Steve thought was good (whatever that was).
So maybe if Bob was more politically skilled and also aligned with the mission of the organization? But aw geez now weâre back to how itâs hard to hire people aligned with the org. Hmm, that would probably cruxy too. Not sure how to measure it.
Sure, those other things are also ways in which I would say that Bob is underqualified, not overqualified.
Ahâmaybe your post is making the point âif they would make a good senior hire, it seems fine to hire them in a junior positionâ. Maybe I was getting confused by the term, Iâve seen people labelled âoverqualifiedâ when they are above average on a few dimensions but not all of them.
Iâd have a harder time steel-manning a counterpoint to that. Maybe something about it not being stimulating enough so risking turnover⊠but that doesnât hold much water in my mind.
This really matches my experience. As a high skill worker (software engineer at a FAANG), I strongly view top down proposals without team buy-in as a leadership failure.
If your idea is good, you should be able to convince the team that it is good and ought to be implemented (contributing to the implementation yourself is going to win you big favor points). Going over the teamâs head to force the solution by forcing the HR team to accept the proposal in the example is going to burn bridges. Maybe itâs necessary if the proposal is incredibly important, but mandating a solution on a team after pushback should generally be viewed as an organizational failure to mourn.