Thank You, I Won’t Be a Manager: Why Are Employees Increasingly Refusing to Move Up the Career Ladder?

“For a long time, an unwritten rule prevailed in the labor market: a successful career inevitably leads to a managerial position. For an ambitious specialist, moving up the career ladder often meant increasing responsibility – from team or department head to director. However, today, organizations are facing a different trend: employees who are pursuing a career increasingly no longer want to associate it with management and refuse the opportunity to take a managerial position.

 

Why do people no longer want to become managers? Is this a temporary phenomenon or a sign of a fundamental transformation of work culture? Paulius Avižinis, an expert in leadership and organizational development, head and consultant of OVC Consulting, and Brigita Taralė, a coaching specialist, mentor and lecturer in leadership training, will talk about this as the largest conference of personnel management professionals “HR Week Lithuania” approaches.

Leadership is no longer just about promotion

 

One of the fundamental changes that is causing the decreasing desire to take on leadership is the changing perception of leadership itself. For a long time, it was customary for companies to promote the best specialist in their field to the position of team leader. However, today it is increasingly understood that being a great engineer, salesperson or analyst does not in itself guarantee success in leading people.

 

As P. Avižinis notes, today's employees are less and less willing to take on leadership positions, and this is especially noticeable among representatives of Generation Z. According to him, there are many reasons, but a changed attitude towards leadership plays an important role.

 

“The attitude towards leadership is changing not only as a career opportunity – it is increasingly understood that it is a separate profession. As in any other field, only a part of people want to choose this specific profession, where the main competence is working with people. If you were an excellent specialist in your field, becoming a manager actually means changing your profession, so this requires personal motivation and a real desire,” says P. Avižinis.

 

At the same time, organizations themselves are changing – they are creating more opportunities to achieve professional and financial success without becoming a manager. P. Avižinis points out that today it is possible to have a long and financially rewarding career without leaving your specialty.

 

“A much wider gradation of professional steps has appeared in organizations. People can choose to continue their career in their profession, assuming less responsibility for others, or to make a cardinal change and start working with people. The latter choice means significantly greater responsibility, which is far from always reflected in a proportionally higher salary,” emphasizes the interviewee.

Growing expectations and the risk of burnout

 

When it comes to why people no longer want to lead, it is worth looking not only at the motivation of the employees themselves, but also at how the role of the manager is changing. B. Tarale suggests looking at this phenomenon from another angle – raising the question not about the lack of ambition of employees, but about why the position of the manager itself is becoming less attractive.

 

“I would say that in general this question should be rephrased: what happened to the role and duties of the manager that made this position so unattractive? If we look at it from the organizational side, we would see that the role of the manager has fundamentally changed. When working with middle management, I see that it is shrinking, and more and more managers are experiencing symptoms of burnout. This is because expectations for them are growing at an incredible rate,” observes B. Tarale.

 

According to her, today a manager has to combine two different directions of expectations. On the one hand, the organization expects speed, efficiency, cost optimization and better financial results. On the other hand, employees' expectations of their managers and the organization itself are also changing.

 

According to B. Tarale, employees today are increasingly speaking boldly about work-life balance, psychological well-being, adequate remuneration, opportunities to grow and improve their competencies.

 

"Thus, the manager finds himself in a situation where he has to reconcile fundamentally conflicting interests: the pressure of the organization to achieve maximum productivity and the team's desire to work at a calmer, more sustainable pace," says the specialist.

"Crown" placed too early and the burden of responsibility

 

Another challenge that can complicate the path of a manager is insufficient preparation for a new role. Although it is increasingly understood that leadership requires specific competencies, in practice organizations do not always pay enough attention to developing them.

 

According to B. Tarale, a successful specialist and a good manager require different competencies. However, there are still cases in organizations where the transition of a specialist to a managerial position is seen as a natural next career step, without always sufficiently assessing how many new skills he will need.

 

We often see that a person is simply put on a “crown” and at the same time a lot of new responsibilities fall on him, but far from all organizations invest in ensuring that new managers are truly prepared for this role. Coming in less prepared, they face with huge challenges – emotional tension, enormous workload and various daily dilemmas of a manager”, – emphasizes the lecturer of leadership training.

 

P. Avižinis agrees with her, drawing attention to how the very approach to a career has changed over time. According to him, it was much more difficult to refuse an offered managerial position in the past. Therefore, some people became managers not because they really wanted it or felt ready for it, but because for a good specialist, a managerial position was considered almost a self-evident next career step.

 

Today, the situation is changing – employees are bolder in drawing their professional boundaries and are more open about saying if they do not want to choose a managerial career.

 

“Now we see a more realistic, more adequate picture – by not pushing people where they do not belong, the right step is being taken. And for those who nevertheless choose this path, it is necessary to provide the opportunity to learn to work with people, just like learning any other profession”, – the interviewee is convinced.

Managers will be needed, but their role will change

 

The declining desire to become managers also coincides with deeper structural changes in the organizations themselves. P. Avižinis points out that not only the attitude of employees towards management is changing, but also the way responsibility and decision-making power are distributed in companies.

 

“The power of the traditional, autocratic manager in the organization is inexorably shrinking. More and more decisions are made not individually, but using collective intelligence. The administrative burden of managers is also growing, and decision-making power is often transferred to even higher structural levels,” the specialist says.

 

At the same time, in organizations, more and more responsibility and decision-making freedom can be given to the employees themselves.

 

“There is a shift towards granting decision-making powers as broadly as possible – not only at the manager level, but also to specialists themselves. This is changing the usual roles. Alongside the manager or “playing coach”, strong, independent specialists are emerging who can take responsibility for their area of ​​activity without constant supervision from the manager,” says P. Avižinis.

 

B. Taralė adds that although some companies may successfully move towards more autonomous, self-organizing teams, the need for managers should not be expected to disappear completely. However, in order for people to choose these positions, according to her, it is not enough to simply try to change their attitude towards management – ​​the manager’s work itself must also change.

 

“First of all, it is necessary to change the content of the role itself. Specialists see existing managers as examples – their anxiety, burden of responsibility, overtime and worries. Therefore, any change in attitude must start with how the manager’s work is organized and what he or she should actually be responsible for,” she says B. Taralė.

Answers to future challenges – in the professional community

 

As employee expectations and the role of the manager itself change, organizations have to look for new answers: how to align employee needs with business goals, how to prepare a new generation of managers and what leadership competencies will be needed in the future? These and other relevant HR management topics will soon be discussed at the conference “HR Week Lithuania”.

 

Both speakers emphasize that such events are important not only for professional knowledge, but also for the opportunity to meet other professionals in this field, share experience and establish contacts.

 

“Such events provide an opportunity to gain new insights and even see seemingly well-known topics from new, unexpected angles. Informal communication, meetings with like-minded people are no less important – it is precisely at such moments that new ideas and solutions are often born”, says B. Taralė.

 

P. Avižinis, who will present a new report on the topic of leadership at the conference, also emphasizes the importance not only of the content of the event, but also of the professional community that has formed around it.

 

“HR Week” has already become a tradition of the HR professional community. Here we maintain continuity, because the established relationships continue to develop. I look at such conferences not only as an opportunity to receive professional food in terms of content, but primarily as very precious community traditions that unite us all,” the expert summarizes.

 

“HR Week” will be held on September 10–11 at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center LITEXPO, Vilnius. Find more information about the speakers and topics of this year’s conference “HR Week Lithuania” here. The main conference partner is “Labbis”, major conference partners are “If” draudimas and “Work in Lithuania”.”