Lack of
social skills can derail career, May 4, 2008, 2D.
One of
the best Christmas presents that I ever bought for my son
was one that I happened to stumble upon several days after
Christmas. My son was intrigued with trains and had
repeatedly hinted at his wish for a toy train set for
Christmas. The train set that we found and had waiting for
him on Christmas morning turned out to be too small and
complicated for his five year old fingers to operate and we
ended up returning it to the store for a refund. We took
the refunded money with us to the toy section of a
department store where we found a section of deeply
discounted post-Christmas toys. Among the leftovers was
another train set. It was much bigger and easier for a
small child to operate. The engine gave off smoke and had a
light on the front, the train cars were easy to connect, and
the pieces of track snapped together very easily.
This
train set works great on the hard and level floors in our
house. Sometimes when the track is set up on a carpeted
floor, the wheels of the running train will catch on a joint
between the pieces of track and one or more cars will
derail. Derailments occur quickly and many times without
warning. They throw the train from its fast and steady
course into a sudden and awkward collapse. After a
derailment, the train is no longer able to continue its
journey without the operator investing considerable time and
effort to stop the engine, fix the track, reset the cars on
the track, reconnect the cars to each other, and restart the
engine. Derailments are very disruptive.
Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership in
Greensboro, North Carolina conducted a study that compared
twenty-one derailed executives with twenty executives who
successfully advanced to the tops of their organizations.
The derailed executives were intelligent, hard working,
successful in the technical aspects of their jobs, and
seemed poised for great things in their organizations.
However, as opposed to the successful executives, the
derailed executives reached plateaus in their careers, were
fired, or were forced to retire early. Something serious
happened to the derailed group to throw them off of their
tracks to success.
As cited
by Professor Richard Daft, the derailed managers were
“insensitive to others, abrasive, cold, arrogant,
untrustworthy, overly ambitious and selfish, unable to
delegate or build teams, and unable to acquire appropriate
staff to work for them.” The unsuccessful managers, despite
their intelligence, hard work, and success in their
technical fields, had their careers derailed by their lack
of people skills. The inability to effectively work with
and develop the trust and respect of coworkers is like a
bump in a track joint and can throw managers off track in
their careers.
Many
people take good people skills for granted, but they are
extremely important for managerial success. A failure to
develop people skills can derail a career—and a career is
much more difficult to put back on track than a toy
train.
<Back
to Articles Page