Aug 6, 2025
The management trap: Are you promoting potential or just ambition?
As leaders and HR professionals, we constantly face a critical decision: who should we promote into management? We look for drive, experience, and a desire to lead. But what if one of these key indicators—the simple desire for the job—is actually a poor predictor of success?
A recent, fascinating study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, co-authored by Harvard Professor David Deming, puts this common practice under the microscope. The findings are a wake-up call for any organization that wants to build genuinely effective teams.
The study’s most surprising discovery was that employees who most strongly desired to be in charge were, on average, less effective managers than those assigned the role randomly. As Deming notes in the paper, just because you want to be a manager doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at it. The research suggests this is often tied to overconfidence—a belief that they understand people and processes better than they actually do.
This creates a significant trap. In many companies, the path to management is paved by raising your hand the highest. But ambition doesn't equal aptitude. So, if a desire to lead isn't the right signal, what is?
The two skills that actually predict success
The study found that traditional metrics like personality, age, or experience weren't reliable predictors. Instead, success came down to two core capabilities:
Analytical & Problem-Solving Skills: The ability to think strategically, reason through complex situations, and find logical solutions.
Effective Resource Allocation: The practical skill of organizing a team, assigning tasks intelligently, and making sound decisions under pressure to maximize output.
In short, great managers are not just great talkers or cheerleaders; they are great thinkers and enablers. They possess a blend of analytical and interpersonal skills that allows them to create environments of psychological safety while steering the team toward concrete goals.
Cultivating skill, not just rewarding ambition
This research begs a crucial question: if these skills are the true drivers of performance, how do we cultivate them in our current and future leaders?
This is precisely where we focus our energy at Nelson Workshops. We believe that effective leadership is a set of practical, learnable skills. Relying on personality or ambition is a crutch; true development comes from focused practice in a safe environment.
Our workshops are designed to build the very competencies highlighted by this research.
In our Strategic Clarity & Execution Program, we equip teams with frameworks like Strategic Thinking: Crafting a Strategy and RAPID Decision-Making to hone their analytical and resource-allocation skills.
In The Resilient Leader Track, modules like Fundamentals of Coaching Conversations and Giving and Receiving Feedback build the essential interpersonal skills needed to apply analytical insights with empathy and clarity.
The Harvard study found that the best way to identify a good manager is to "make them manage." Our interactive, hands-on workshops provide that crucial practice ground. We go beyond theory to focus on real-world scenarios, allowing participants to experiment, make mistakes, and build the confidence and competence to lead effectively.
It's time to move beyond the management trap. Instead of simply promoting the most ambitious voices, let's focus on identifying and developing the quiet but effective "diamonds in the rough" who have the true potential to lead.
Ready to build a new generation of effective leaders? Explore our full Workshop Curriculum or our targeted Development Programs to see how we can help.