Fred Luthans and his associates asked: Do managers who move up most quickly in an organization do the same activities and with the same emphasis as managers who do the best job?
Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers.
They found that managers engage in four managerial activities.
Traditional management—Decision making, planning, and controlling
Communication—Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
Human resource management—Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training
Networking—Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders
The “average” manager:
32% traditional management activities
29% communicating
20% in human resource management activities
19% networking
Successful managers
Networking made the largest relative contribution to success.
Human resource management activities made the least relative contribution.
Effective managers
Communication made the largest relative contribution.
Networking the least
Successful managers don’t give the same emphasis to each of those activities as do effective managers.
Their emphases are almost the opposite.
This finding challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, vividly illustrating the importance that social and political skills play in getting ahead in organizations.
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