There was someone that had developed the theory of why so many people in management within the corporate world always seem to be so incompetent. As for myself, I’ve run into more incompetent people in high positions than ones that actually were competent. The theory was that people are promoted into positions until they become incompetent. The study that was performed showed that when a person demonstrated that they were competent in the position they were hired into, then they were promoted into another one. If they are, or become competent in the position they were promoted into, they are promoted again. They keep getting promoted until they are no longer competent. Hence, most people in higher positions are typically incompetent people. And very rarely do people ever get demoted anymore, possibly for costs and legal reasons. So those incompetent people remain in those positions.
My opinion is that I halfway agree with this. Not everyone is continuously promoted at a corporation. What I mean is, most people that do receive that big promotion into middle management or a senior level, usually have seen their last promotion whether they are very competent or not in their new position. Of course, the secret is that their new position is more than likely easier than the position they were promoted from. The higher you go at the corporation I work for, the easier your job becomes until it gets to the point where you only go to work once a week for a meeting and you spend the rest of your time on the golf course. But those types of positions are reserved for certain people only. There is no working your way to the top when it comes to those lucrative executive positions.
My own explanation of why so many management level people seem to be so incompetent is simply because of how they were hired into their position to begin with. You can assume that everyone within your company knows somebody. Well, people typically go to places where they know they will succeed. Meaning, the vice president at your company has an old life long college frat buddy, who in turn has a son, who in turn he tells to go apply at XYZ company because he is guaranteed to have strings pulled for him. A connection such as this would never be revealed or known, but many of these types of connections exist, and that’s how a good portion of people get their positions. While there are people who have earned their way to higher levels, there are plenty more who really got their through various connections. Everybody knows somebody. Those somebodies go to where they know they will get “in”.
Now, that is one theory, and I believe that theory can account for a good number of people. Another theory to add to that is what it takes to make it to a higher level on your own. So what kind of person would it take that is incompetent, but doesn’t have all the inside connections? It would take a person who applies for any job opening internally that they are incompetent for. A person that is constantly trying to rub elbows with anyone higher up. In other words, a person that is a socio-path. That’s right. A socio- path is the perfect person that can climb their way to higher levels through lying, going out of their way to be friendly with upper management, stabbing people in the back, and talking their way to the top. This type of personality is the type that can climb to higher levels with no skill level at all. That is another reason why a lot of people in higher levels are incompetent. They have crazy, socio-pathic personalities that will do anything to get to the top and have no problem treating any employee below them like crap. Because they are socio paths. These are people who to your face can demonstrate very much kindness and generosity, but will step on your head to get to where they want. I see it go on all the time, and I witnessed one man at a previous company I worked at make it all the way to a top management position of an engineering department with no college degree. It was all done with a relentless attitude, constant brown nosing, lying, and stabbing people in the back. The guy was a true socio-path. Unfortunately, these people’s personalities enable them to succeed and they end up in a position that they have no business being in.
My last theory simply is, that once one person that is incompetent makes it into a high position, they of course will hire other incompetent people because they have no idea what it takes to perform any of the jobs below them. So they usually hire someone that meshes with their own personality, of which of course would be another socio-path. So the scary thing is, it would be safe to assume that this world is run by socio-paths. Being a socio-path is what it takes to start wars and kill people over money and oil, it’s what it takes to lie on national TV, it’s what it takes to promote policies that hurt and demoralize a country, it’s what it takes to write $50 billion checks at the expense of the American tax payer for things such as AIDS in Africa that already have a shelved cure, and will therefore, never end anyways.