Nobody Wants to Be the Boss Anymore. Here’s Why, in Just 7 Words

Loudmouthbass

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Nobody Wants to Be the Boss Anymore. Here’s Why, in Just 7 Words
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New research shows only 30 percent of workers want to become managers. Here’s why, and what your organization can do about it.

Twenty years ago, getting promoted to manager was a major milestone. Today, it’s a punishment.

That’s according to recent research from LinkedIn. In a survey of over 10,000 LinkedIn users, nearly seven in 10 said they would leave their job if they had a bad manager. But only 30 percent said they want to become a people manager within the next few years.

So, why the change? Why doesn’t anyone want to be the boss anymore?

We could sum up the answer in seven words:

Nobody showed them how to lead effectively.

hahahahaha.....if you have to be shown "how to lead effectively" they selected the wrong person to be a boss.

I can sum up the answer in one word: MANAGEMENT
 
As someone who has been dodging a promotion for 3yrs now my thoughts: a 35% bump in pay, 10% being a bonus, for 100% more work doesn't compute to me. We have massive turnover in the next level up from me, so something weird is going on there, I actually expressed that to the boss of my boss when he was talking to me about a promotion, he said that's a fair assessment. Also I enjoy being "in the shit", I have an individual contributor field "manager" role, the next level up would be wfh and on phone calls and meetings all day which doesn't appeal to me.

I did the whole corporate HQ manager thing and was going nuts a few years in, I enjoy being back in the field problem solving rather than reacting to whatever is going on and sitting on calls all day sucking my soul out. Am I leaving pay on the table, sure, but I know thats not for me. I have been going back and forth on just quickly stacking cash and retiring early, but I don't know if I want to sacrifice my current sanity for that. Additionally the next level up is WFH, and the company has been calling people back to HQ. My fear would be taking a promotion, then being told to relocate, company is based on Minnesota, which is a non negotiable for me. That would double my cost of living and people are batshit insane up there, and it's away from my hobbies that bring joy to my life, so that means I would be job hunting.
 
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As someone actively in management, I can also sum it up in one word more accurately:
EMPLOYEES

If people would do their jobs, mine would be easy. But I'm constantly babysitting adults and I actually have a pretty darn good crew here. We have 2 roles we're trying to fill and I've observed and interviewed quite a few people and read hundreds of resumes over the past couple of years. The CNC machining world is not a big industry, so if someone says they've worked at another industry related company in the greater Charlotte area, there's about a 98% chance I know someone there and can have a candid phone call with them to get the rundown. We had one for an accounting position a couple months ago, and she claimed to have worked at a company for 5 years in VP position. Turns out she was a business analyst, was there less than a year, and was fired!

Another reason it has changed over the past 20 years (put on tin foil hat, starts sentence with "back in my day") is that most of the kids these days don't have any work ethic. And the ones that do are already snatched up, or are doing their own thing. The rest of em expect $25+/hr to start just to sit at a desk and play on their phones and do 1-2hrs of work over the course of a day, and they think they should be making $100k+ after doing it for 2 years. And its rubbing off on the older employees too.
 
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I've been with the same company for over 23 years. I've been in the same group the whole time. I've had 8 different managers over those years. I see what management here deals with. NOPE. I don't need the extra money. I also enjoy solving the problems and designing new parts. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Plus now I am getting close to the exit door.
 
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drkelly said:
I've been with the same company for over 23 years. I've been in the same group the whole time. I've had 8 different managers over those years. I see what management here deals with. NOPE. I don't need the extra money. I also enjoy solving the problems and designing new parts. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Plus now I am getting close to the exit door.
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Wow, I had 7 bosses in 5yrs :laughing:
 
I spent 8 or 9 years as a manager. It was a good role at first, but the position got worse and worse as time went on. I tried going back to being just an engineer. After a year or two of asking, I finally had to threaten to leave. So 6 years ago I was able to go back to just being an engineer and haven’t looked back. I learned a lot in management, but I’m glad I got out of it. I wouldn’t go back if they doubled my salary.
 
Shreddinlettuce said:
Salaried exempt = indentured servitude

when there’s no cap on responsibilities or hours and no incentive for doing extra work
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A spine fixes that problem.
 
Sounds like almost everyone in here has had terrible bosses. I've been in the corporate world for almost 19 years and all but the first 2 years have been salaried ("indentured"). My leaders have always valued work/life balance. There were days that I stayed late and came in early to finish a project, but they balanced out with the days I'd dip out for an appointment, eat breakfast at school with the kids, or leave early for a sporting event.

The last 4 years I've been in management and treat my employees with the same flexibility and understanding I've been given.
 
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At my place of employment, it's because I make more than my direct supervisor. I'm hourly and he's salary. It aint hard to do the math. We work right much over time. When we had a position to fill a couple years ago, the hiring manger brought it up to me and my peers to see if anyone was interested. We brought up the pay thing, more aggravation for less money, he said we'll what about the "prestige"? We all horse laughed him till he left the room. We were amazed he said it with a straight face. But I work at a kinda f'd up place that pays decent.
 
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LBarr2002 said:
Sounds like almost everyone in here has had terrible bosses. I've been in the corporate world for almost 19 years and all but the first 2 years have been salaried ("indentured"). My leaders have always valued work/life balance. There were days that I stayed late and came in early to finish a product, but they balanced out with the days I'd dip out for an appointment, eat breakfast at school with the kids, or leave early for a sporting event.

The last 4 years I've been in management and treat my employees with the same flexibility and understanding I've been given.
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I had the same experience as you for many years. 17 years with a major corporation, last 6 in a management role. Last 2 years I was there our corporate hr made a lot of changes. They stopped letting me allow my guys to occasionally clock in a little early so they could leave in time to make it to something. They could no longer occasionally work a few hours over on mon-thurs so they could leave at 11 on Friday. It was all in the name of fairness and equality. Don't miss the corporate life one bit.
 
LBarr2002 said:
Sounds like almost everyone in here has had terrible bosses. I've been in the corporate world for almost 19 years and all but the first 2 years have been salaried ("indentured"). My leaders have always valued work/life balance. There were days that I stayed late and came in early to finish a product, but they balanced out with the days I'd dip out for an appointment, eat breakfast at school with the kids, or leave early for a sporting event.

The last 4 years I've been in management and treat my employees with the same flexibility and understanding I've been given.
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At my current employer my 7 bosses have been pretty good to great, and I like the company. I just don't want to lead people and enjoy being a lone wolf in the field and interacting with my direct boss for 30mins a week. My prior employer not so much, it was a hellscape of toxic shit.
 
jeepinmatt said:
On one hand I’m with ya. On the other hand that can be a great way to go straight to the bottom of the promotion or raise list. Greatly depends on the situation.
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Very true. I spent a while at the bottom of the list because I knew how to say no. Then the yes man GM got canned and things have gotten better.
 
jeepinmatt said:
The rest of em expect $25+/hr to start
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To be fair, $25/hr today is equal to around $10/hr in 1990. So yeah if you got out of school in 1990 and started in a profession making $10/hr, and now that same profession you get out of school and only make $15/hr does make for atleast a decent conversation to be had about what should the starting pay actually be? Is it right to only be $15/hr, should it have only been $6/hr in 1990? Is inflation ok to just accept? Should the businesses have raised their pay to match inflation to keep everyone with the same buying power? Idk the answers to it all but I do know almost everyone would like to have more money so I can't fault them for wanting it, but also if they don't do anything to earn more money then it shouldn't just be given to them either just for the heck of it.
 
LBarr2002 said:
Sounds like almost everyone in here has had terrible bosses.
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I've had some good ones and some bad ones. I had one boss that wanted me to talk to him every day. He was a micromanager. I was absolutely miserable and thought I might have to leave. He ended up getting moved from a group manager to a project manager role. I also had another boss where we would go 3-4 months without speaking to each other just because nothing needed to be said. The different management styles are wild. My most recent boss made it almost 3 years and went back to his old job as a project manager. I don't think he was happy in the job. The GM job is currently posted, and the acting manager is a young Mexican woman who is really good. She is a natural leader. I hope she applies for the job and gets it.
 
Effective Leadership is something you have. Understanding it and why it works is the key. If the company doesn't have the foresight to implement education for their managers to understand this and to select the right people for management, that is the problem. I've enjoyed management. the most rewarding thing is to teach those skills to others and watch them grow. I've had several people reach back out to me and thank me for teaching them and showing them the skills to lead others.

Add to that, poor leadership from the top will kill a business. That's what I'm going through right now at the company I came back to. Their lack of leadership knowledge or ability to accept that they don't have it or adopt it, is killing the business. They can't maintain a company over that $5M mark because of it.
 
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drkelly said:
I've had some good ones and some bad ones. I had one boss that wanted me to talk to him every day. He was a micromanager. I was absolutely miserable and thought I might have to leave. He ended up getting moved from a group manager to a project manager role. I also had another boss where we would go 3-4 months without speaking to each other just because nothing needed to be said. The different management styles are wild. My most recent boss made it almost 3 years and went back to his old job as a project manager. I don't think he was happy in the job. The GM job is currently posted, and the acting manager is a young Mexican woman who is really good. She is a natural leader. I hope she applies for the job and gets it.
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My current boss is good. He falls into the "if I have to talk to you, something is wrong" category. We'll chat every few weeks but it's mostly just catching up on what's going on with the company or family or what not.
 
$100,000 salary today was worth $54,000 in 2000.

You really need to change positions/companies pretty regularly to beat inflation and stagnation. Piddly little 2-2.5% yearly raises ain't shit when inflation averages 2.3%/year (prior to Biden).

And 'Management' is a tough ceiling to break through. Once you get Manager on your resume, a LOT of better paying opportunities open up.
 
One reason I hated being a manager was the Director I worked under.

In my annual review one year he gave me an “area for improvement”: He said “when I ask you questions about what your people are working on, you can answer 3 or 4 questions deep, but if I go 5 or 6 questions deep, you have to go ask them”.

I was pissed about that. There’s no reason he needed to know things to that level of detail.

So I started a scorecard. If he asked me a question and I answered it, I got a point. If he asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to, he got the point.

The next year during my review, he didn’t say anything about it, so I brought it up at the end. I showed him the scorecard and showed him I was kicking his ass. His response “I could tell you improved.”
 
jeepinmatt said:
Another reason it has changed over the past 20 years (put on tin foil hat, starts sentence with "back in my day") is that most of the kids these days don't have any work ethic. And the ones that do are already snatched up, or are doing their own thing. The rest of em expect $25+/hr to start just to sit at a desk and play on their phones and do 1-2hrs of work over the course of a day, and they think they should be making $100k+ after doing it for 2 years. And its rubbing off on the older employees too.
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We start people at 27 and still can't find any good ones...
 
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