Inc.com reports on a Korn/Ferry survey in Most Employees Believe They Can Outperform Their Bosses. I don’t think the results are all that surprising:
Seventy-three percent of executive-level employees believe they would do a better job than their current boss, according to a new survey.
…While a majority of executives admitted they would like to be at the top of the ladder, few indicated that they were actually dissatisfied with their boss. In fact, 42 percent of respondents rated their boss’s performance as either “excellent” or “above average,” while an additional 23 percent rated their boss as “average.” Only 11 percent of respondents rated their boss’s performance as “poor.”
I suspect these results are fairly consistent every year. I know I have been in positions where I was positive I could outperform my boss (whether that belief was accurate or not is a different story).
The article does contain one very important piece of advice (my emphasis):
For bosses, the survey results may serve an indication that employees feel they aren’t being utilized to their full potential, according to Griesedieck. “It’s really about recognition, and feeling like the boss is doing something to make sure you are developing in your job,” he said.
That is one of the keys to retaining strong employees. In our day-to-day sourcing activities, we always ask candidates why they are looking for a new opportunity. The vast majority of answers involves some form of desiring a more challenging position. Granted, candidates often use this statement as a standard answer. However, when you drill down on the topic, you do find that most of the candidates do have some variation of that desire.
If you have strong employees you wish to retain, make sure you are keeping the communication channels open and are career-pathing them up to the next level. If you ignore this approach, you put your top performers at risk to an eager employment market.