[GenWintergreen]

On a tangential note, there's another quality that struck me as (paradoxically) expected and surprising.

In my prior role, I worked as an analyst on a sales desk at a large investment bank -- a group in which "talking with confidence" really was 90% of the job.

The head of the desk had been one of the best salesman in the industry, and had (fairly) received compensation to reward that. However, that didn't quite translate into leadership skills (in my opinion), and I felt our team suffered heavily for that.

It's a split take on "one ends up at the job one is least qualified for", but a result I presume must happen when the culture at an organization such as a large bank promotes a top individual producer to management solely on the basis of his/her individual production.

[__derek__]

Absolutely. This is why it's essential for an organization to offer career advancement along both management and individual contributor tracks. Moving a highly effective contributor to a management role exacts two costs: the loss of a high performer and the addition of a bad manager (with the knock-on effects that that has on the people that person manages). Yet most companies only have one tool for recognizing achievement: jobs in management.