Why the path in the company often gets stuck in the maturity phase

The growth path of a person within any organisation, from the small workshop to the large multinational, tends to mirror the parable of the 'shop boy': at first he performs simple and repetitive tasks, then imitating 'the master' and assimilating the 'rules of the game' he conquers increasing spaces of autonomy. When he matures, he begins to make decisions, negotiate with customers, and himself become the guide of 'new apprentices'.

Simplifying and schematising, we can identify three phases of professional development at work: learning, maturity, managerial transformation. In the first you learn, in the second you experience autonomy, in the third you become a leader.

Stage 2, that of maturity, is a sore point in many companies. Entrepreneurs and managers complain that the 'grown-ups', although autonomous and competent in their sphere of activity, fail to make the managerial leap. One could construct a veritable anthology of hasty diagnoses: 'They are not yet ready', 'They lack personality', 'They do not take a position', 'They do not take risks', 'They do not know how to go beyond the task', 'They do not know how to handle stress', 'They do not know how to communicate the value of their work', 'They do not know how to impose themselves'. These phrases in the perception of those who utter them have a bitter aftertaste because they represent the realisation that they have bet on the wrong horse. Hence frustrations, misunderstandings and deep crises of mutual trust: the company no longer believes in me, I no longer believe in the company and those who lead it. A dynamic that not infrequently even becomes a Shakespearean tragedy when it is projected into the scenario of the generational transition within family businesses.

Returning to our outline and assuming that this feedback from the 'big bosses' is well-founded and relevant, one can indeed see a widespread criticality in the transition from stage 2 of maturity to stage 3 of managerial transformation. This is a physiological barrier where the growth ambitions of many professionals run aground. The more cynical comment that it is part of the game, that the job of manager is not for everyone, that there is a kind of natural selection. Only rarely, however, are there such abundant reserves that if someone fails to make the leap into the managerial dimension, there is immediately next to him a colleague ready to make up for it. Often, therefore, the 'mature apprentice' who does not turn into a leader represents a real handbrake for the team and/or organisation.

From this perspective, companies rather than belatedly diagnosing poor aptitudes are called upon to rethink phase 1 of the professional development of their resources, that of learning the trade and the rules of the game. It is there that the approach to work of future managers takes shape. It is there that the leadership inclination deficit has its roots.