Why the People Who Want to Be Managers Are Usually the Worst at It, According to Science

Why It Matters

The findings challenge traditional promotion practices, urging firms to prioritize cognitive ability over self‑selection when hiring managers, which can boost productivity and reduce costly turnover.

Key Takeaways

• Good managers' output equals total output of their entire team
• Higher fluid intelligence predicts superior managerial performance
• Self‑selected managers underperform compared to randomly assigned ones
• Personality and demographics have minimal impact on managerial success
• Economic decision‑making ability is critical for effective management

Pulse Analysis

The University College London study provides rare experimental evidence that a manager’s contribution can match the sum of all their reports’ productivity. By assigning managers and teams to identical tasks, researchers stripped away confounding factors such as team skill level or individual work output. The result was a clear signal: managerial input is not a marginal overhead but a core engine of performance, especially when the manager possesses strong fluid intelligence and sound economic decision‑making skills.

For talent‑acquisition leaders, the research upends the conventional wisdom that ambition and interpersonal charm are sufficient indicators of managerial potential. Cognitive assessments that measure abstract reasoning, problem‑solving speed, and financial judgment now appear more predictive of on‑the‑job success than personality inventories. Companies that integrate such metrics into promotion pipelines can expect higher team efficiency and lower turnover, as they avoid elevating self‑selected candidates who may lack the analytical rigor required to balance time, cost, and human resources effectively.

Beyond hiring, the study fuels the broader debate on organizational design. If a single manager can generate output equal to an entire workforce, firms might reconsider flat structures or excessive layer reduction that risk losing this high‑value function. At the same time, the data suggests that replacing managers solely for cost‑saving could erode productivity gains. Future research will likely explore how to scale these findings across industries and whether technology‑augmented decision tools can amplify a manager’s innate intelligence, further reshaping the economics of leadership.