Growth From Within

A few days back I was at a friend's place and the discussion moved on to promotions in our respective organizations and the growth opportunities. The organizations prefer to grow people from within the ranks, to fill up the vacant position, to highlight growth avenues, to motivate employees and hence, to retain them. But, for people who are grown from the grass root level, have they been successful?

Agreed that the person who has worked his/her way up the ranks, is thorough with the processed, knows the system, knows the customer. But is s/he equipped with right skills to take up the leadership role, that is being offered. Most of the Government Organizations/ PSUs give promotion on the basis of your tenure in the organization. People keep on moving up the ladder. They handle teams, starting from one or two to tens or twenties. They probably understand the technicalities involved in the day to day work of their subordinates, but then leadership is not just that. Somewhere they are just not ready to manage the dynamics involved in handling people.

This is not the case with only Government organizations or PSUs. Many of the private sector organizations or the MNCs also tend to ignore this. They may keep on blowing the trumpet of growth avenues within the organization, in the name of 'Succession Planning' but what about training and mentoring? Have you prepared the person to handle the new role? Just because customers are happy with an employee does not mean that s/he can lead a team?

I feel rather than just promoting people in the name of growth and motivation, there has to be a proper growth route laid out, that is, succession planning. Organizations, of late, are realizing the importance, but still it has to go a long way. Till the time it gets applied to PSUs and Government set ups, I will not term it as a 'success'.