Board 8 > Do you think that managers are usually smarter than the workers below them?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Stereotypically this is true and i suppose many people believe it. Do you? What about in retail? What do you think there?
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It's not true and there's not even a stereotype about it
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foolm0r0n posted...

It's not true and there's not even a stereotype about it

foolm0r0n posted...

It's not true and there's not even a stereotype about it

oh no? there isn't? could've fooled me.
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Who is this?
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whirly
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redrocket_pub posted...

Who is this?

why is this so important to you?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-WPlvZguZ4
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Punnyz posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-WPlvZguZ4

stupid video you should know better
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Tenure = Intelligence so yes
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I mean, like, a manager is a manager because he knows the policies better and probably has much better experience and is qualified to be a leader


I don't know why you would think otherwise and where you got that its a stereotype that they're not. And its ESPECIALLY true in retail
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it is a stereotype many people have heard it before
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Punnyz posted...

I mean, like, a manager is a manager because he knows the policies better and probably has much better experience and is qualified to be a leader


I don't know why you would think otherwise and where you got that its a stereotype that they're not. And its ESPECIALLY true in retail

Eh. A lot of people in retail are only working there because of circumstance, the only requirement in getting to management level is staying there long enough to be promoted and being semi-competent. I mean I've worked at Walmart with literal PhD's working under managers who never got a degree, while searching for something that actually matches their skill level. I mean it's certainly not the norm and there are a bunch of people at the bottom level who could never be management... but at any retail establishment there are generally a bunch of pretty smart kids who could easily be management if they didn't think they were too good for it/had other priorities.
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i know in my industry(private aged care) the managers are only good at one thing, making budget. cutting staff and saving a buck like pros.


when it comes to medical knowledge, us, the people on the front line who actually deal with it everyday, have them covered.


and yes i do hate managers.
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I wonder if anyone that has been a manager will vote no?
Also, it says usually, it doesn't say every manager is smarter than every non-manager.
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You're right, Thunder sheep . I think I kind of misinterpreted the word smarter for knowledgeable in the topic title, just because you have a specialty in something doesn't make everyone else less intelligent. Didn't mean to imply that , My bad.


But I'm still confused by the rest of whirlys post tho
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I think it's less that people think managers = smart as people think workers = dumb.

Since some people think income is an accurate depiction of intelligence... I wish I was joking.
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I would argue that on average, managers are worse at their job than other employees simply because they're tougher to get rid of. A bad or even below-average employee gets cut pretty fast. It takes some major screwups for a manager to get ousted.
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Depends. Top management? Yes. Middle management? Usually no. People who are most obedient and willing to enforce top management's policy get those positions, as opposed to the smartest workers. Of course, a combination of the two would be ideal, but it rarely happens for obvious reasons (if you're smart, you can see the flaws in top management's policies, so you're less willing to enforce them).
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A manager is a manager because they have displayed traits of skill, experience, loyalty, etc. Doesn't mean they have a higher IQ, but they definitely have experience and know the business better than someone just starting.
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I was a manager at KFC when I was NINETEEN lmao

no chance
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A manager is a manager because they have been promoted to manager.

Remember, nepotism is all too common.
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5tarscream posted...

I wonder if anyone that has been a manager will vote no?
Also, it says usually, it doesn't say every manager is smarter than every non-manager.

holy shit this

why oh why don't many of you read more carefully?
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CedarPointcp posted...

why oh why don't many of you read more carefully?

Because clearly we aren't cut out for upper management
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Mobilezoid posted...

CedarPointcp posted...

why oh why don't many of you read more carefully?

Because clearly we aren't cut out for upper management

yeah? no shit
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More experienced, perhaps.
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Usually? I'd say no. At least, no more so than person A is smarter than person B. There's plenty of reasons a person can be promoted to manager over being smart: job competence, work ethic, duration of service, nepotism, luck, etc.

Plus, there's the theory that people will end up promoted to one level above their competence. Just because someone is good enough at the job to be promoted to manager, doesn't mean they'll be a good manager.
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JackMan posted...

Usually? I'd say no. At least, no more so than person A is smarter than person B. There's plenty of reasons a person can be promoted to manager over being smart: job competence, work ethic, duration of service, nepotism, luck, etc.

Plus, there's the theory that people will end up promoted to one level above their competence. Just because someone is good enough at the job to be promoted to manager, doesn't mean they'll be a good manager.

yeah i dig. But how much more do your managers usually make than you? 2? 3 times as much usually?
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That depends on whether or not I am the manager.
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CedarPointcp posted...

yeah i dig. But how much more do your managers usually make than you? 2? 3 times as much usually?

Where are you working? Managers are normally just a grade or two higher, so maybe 30-50% more? Not that income has any bearing on intelligence.
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At the Walmart I used to work at, there was this one guy who was poised to become manager even though he was unlikable, not inclined to take responsibility for his own actions, and made just as many mistakes, if not more so, than the rest of us. Instead of trying to communicate clearly, he just went "YOU HEARD ME" when I asked him to repeat something and refused to communicate anymore. To this day, I still don't know what he was trying to tell me from halfway across the storage area.

He was favored by the managers and he could do no wrong to them.

Meanwhile, the guy who was trying to get a college degree but was constantly getting screwed over by Walmart scheduling work during his tests (and refused to give him the day off because "they were going to be busy and needed him") and didn't make as many mistakes as the aforementioned guy was hated by the managers and constantly picked on for everything that went wrong.

And being Walmart, things just go wrong as a matter of course because the whole thing is a mess and people think that just having a computer manage everything is an intelligent idea.

I've met good, smart managers before, at least on the customer side of things. Most of them didn't last long and got replaced by unlikable, haughty persons.

So no, I'm not inclined to believe that managers are usually more intelligent than workers. If anything, I think intelligence is usually an anti-requirement for the position.
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BowserCuffs posted...

A manager is a manager because they have been promoted to manager.

Remember, nepotism is all too common.

this. in my workplace its all who you know not what you know. so many wives and sons of the top brass find themselves in important positions
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Depends on the workplace really.
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if your employees are dumber than you you've done a bad job of hiring

your employees SHOULD be as smart as you can find
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I think it's more likely that a manager is smarter than their staff versus the other way around. Would anyone really presume the opposite?
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Maybe a bit more often than the reverse, but not significantly often.
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Tom Bombadil posted...

Maybe a bit more often than the reverse, but not significantly often.

Totally agreed.
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I don't know about smarter, but I think we can all agree that managers are always better people than their subordinates. Otherwise the market wouldn't have chosen to reward them with higher pay.
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Usually yes. They're just asked to be intelligent in something other than what the employees are doing.

Managers require a different set of skills than their workers so it’s difficult to compare them. Your most knowledgeable worker may not be a good manager.
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CedarPointcp posted...

yeah i dig. But how much more do your managers usually make than you? 2? 3 times as much usually?

Around 80% as much right now
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I think it's more likely that a manager is smarter than their staff versus the other way around. Would anyone really presume the opposite?

I don't think smarter/not smarter plays into it. A manager has skills in managing. An employee has skills in performing the job itself. The roles prioritize different skillsets, and in most cases I think if you switched them they would suffer when trying to accomplish the others' role.

However, I do think managers on average perform worse at their specific job than others do simply because it's harder to get rid of them if they're not qualified enough.
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But in most cases, a manager began as a staff who was seen as competent enough in their duties to warrant a promotion. Of course that does not directly correlate with smarts, but neither does being a staff in the first place.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

But in most cases, a manager began as a staff who was seen as competent enough in their duties to warrant a promotion. Of course that does not directly correlate with smarts, but neither does being a staff in the first place.

This may have been true in the past, but the environment has changed. Companies are much less likely to promote from within - they tend to hire people from outside the company that have prior managerial experience. Both because it's more of a sure thing, and because making one of your best employees a manager makes no sense because you want them doing what they're already doing. Why make your best coder a manager? He should be coding.

Additionally, while managers should be people with strong leadership, social, and organizational skills...it often doesn't pan out that way. It's much easier to get higher-ups to notice you if you are social enough to build a rapport with them, even if your actual managerial skills aren't that great. Then they get promoted to manager, and once they do, getting rid of them is hard. Bad managers can make any of their shortcomings seem like the fault of the employees, because higher-ups already trust them more. Without going into details (to protect the people involved), I've seen this firsthand.

Even the very top isn't safe from this. There's a lot of CEOs out there that are grossly incompetent, but since they're CEOs they're extremely safe. Even if they leave the company, they cut themselves a bonus and get hired by a different company because they have prior experience being a CEO. I'm not exaggerating -- this happens quite often.
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Xeybozn posted...

I don't know about smarter, but I think we can all agree that managers are always better people than their subordinates. Otherwise the market wouldn't have chosen to reward them with higher pay.

I actually legit can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. I want to say it is?
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Intelligence isn't really the yardstick here. How the person must think in their position is completely different between managers and employees. Managers are being constantly forced to see big picture, to delegate, to deal with overarching budgetary concerns that the average employee is not privy to nor responsible for upholding. If they are bogged down in hands-on minutiae, they will not be able to perform their job effectively. Employees under the managers are primarily responsible for details and execution.

This is what leads employees to think of managers as 'stupid' because they don't have immediate recall of all the details - they don't have to. That's your job, not theirs. They just need to ensure that the machine in general is running smoothly.

Emotional intelligence is also a factor that needs to be considered. Someone who is not very book smart can still win a managerial position because of who they know or how they make others feel at work - or they can pretend to be a supervisor and boss their coworkers around long enough to be promoted. I've seen both.
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I think a manager could step down and learn the staff's job better/more quickly than the other way around. There are exceptions like when a staff is being groomed for a management position. But if hypothetically a manager and staff suddenly switched, I think the former manager would be more successful.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

I think a manager could step down and learn the staff's job better/more quickly than the other way around. There are exceptions like when a staff is being groomed for a management position. But if hypothetically a manager and staff suddenly switched, I think the former manager would be more successful.

This is extremely untrue for any job that isn't like, retail.
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KamikazePotato posted...

EndOfDiscOne posted...

I think a manager could step down and learn the staff's job better/more quickly than the other way around. There are exceptions like when a staff is being groomed for a management position. But if hypothetically a manager and staff suddenly switched, I think the former manager would be more successful.

This is extremely untrue for any job that isn't like, retail.

I'm not sure why you think that. I'm at a CPA firm and I definitely stand by what I said in my case (I'm a middle manager for what it's worth).
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They are entirely different skill sets. Most managers aren't going to be able to code, or speak a foreign language, or play professional sports, or any number of things their employees are specialized to do.
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