My colleague said today : "I'm a better General than I am an Emperor ". Meaning?

[Paula Sims]

Hello all,
I was speaking with a colleague today about our upcoming year end assessments and our goals for 2023. As we are both new employees at this company, I said I'm still learning what's possible and where I would like to go (management, technical specialist, etc). He said: I could do both but I'm a better General than I am an Emperor. I took that to mean he'd rather be a hands on technical specialist, training others and getting his hands dirty intech and code than lead a team in strategy. I thought that was an interesting comment. We are both in our mid 50s and have been in the workforce for over 30 years.

How do you interpret that comment? He really is an excellent data analyst and programmer and can see connections that most people would never see. Think A Beautiful Mind without the schizophrenia/bipolar. Is he shooting himself in the foot by limiting himself or just has good insight into his strengths?

Thanks for your thoughts

Paula

[Haggard Celine]

1. I think you're right.

He's a doer and an analyst, but he doesn't want to be in charge. I'm sort of the same way. It's great that the guy knows his strengths and weaknesses. People like him are wonderful employees.

[Chainfire]

2. He or she may be taking the less political path. It may be sound judgement.

My daughter made the same kind of decision as a geologist, however, after a few years on the job, she is being nudged into management anyway, and it looks better to her now then at the beginning.

[meadowlander]

3. Not wanting to go into management isn't "limiting yourself".

I've been asked to take management/people leader training courses before and have turned them down repeatedly. I enjoy doing my work, not dealing with other peoples' bullshit. You get to a certain point and half of your time is taken up with recruitment, one on one check ins, endless HR driven upper management meetings, dealing with your direct reports personal issues and feelings, etc.

I don't consider it limiting to say that's not what I want to be spending the majority of my work day doing. Why the assumption that anyone who recognises that they aren't a charismatic leader or a people person or someone who enjoys blue skies strategic thinking instead of rolling their sleeves up is not achieving their theoretical full potential?

There's lots of ways to be happy at and good at your job and the more people that are self-aware enough to recognise what's a good fit for them or not the better.

[cachukis]

4. The most important person on a boat/ship is the first mate.

The first mate can Captain, but may not necessarily be first mate.
One cannot manage well without a first mate and if you want to be the captain you best have a good first mate.
Captaining takes on the big picture, mating takes on the function.
Had a glorious conversation with my wife's extended family, in law's son, who graduated to develop his own string quartet.
He could play the virtuoso, but chose to play second fiddle. Why, I asked? Second fiddle keeps the tempo allowing the virtuoso to capture the audience. The audience will not appreciate that experience without a smooth backdrop.
I asked what was the key to that? Breathing, was his reply.
We all have to breathe together to make the strings sing.
The quartet is famous now. Calidore Quartet.

[keithbvadu2]

5. Some people recognize what stage they hold in the Peter Principle... which observes that people

Some people recognize what stage they hold in the Peter Principle...

which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=peter+principle

They would rather be in a position of accomplishment and success than go on to:::

The Dunning-Kruger effect refers to the seemingly pervasive tendency of poor performers to overestimate their abilities relative to other people-and, to a lesser extent, for high performers to underestimate their abilities.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=dunning-kruger+effect

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Some organizations limit the ability to stay safe in a lower position.

The military has developed an 'up or out' policy so that you cannot be a career private and retire at 20 years.

For their investment in you (money and training), they have a reasonable expectation that you will develop upward.