That video makes me miss the Navy. So many smart and talented people.
The company I work for... and every one before that... does, more often than not, promote from within. My current CEO, CFO, Treasurer, Business Unit CFO's, are all fairly tenured employees. Yes, occasionally a sales leader will be brought in from outside, but that's because they have tons of valuable experience to bring to their organization. I'm sure it does happen, where you get some green MBA grad who's put in a position of leadership at a company because his dad, or some political connections, but that's mostly Hollywood crap.
Having said that, promoting from within has its challenges when it comes to implementing an empowered workforce (as in the video). When you're known in your organization as an expert on something, that's usually what gets your recognized and singled out for promotion. However, as a manager, or director, your tools are not your ability to do things, but rather your ability to get other people to do things. This can be really hard for some people to digest. You have to be able to let go of what may have been your core strength. You have to be able to trust your team and realize that your job is different now. It can really be a hard adjustment for some. We have a few individuals in my org who fall in this category. A VP for example who still finds himself very heavily "fingers-on-keyboard", creating his own technical reports participating in detailed project requirements meetings, etc. These people are often labeled as micro-managers, but you usually find out that it's because they're unwilling to move on. This often limits their ability to get their head out of the weeds and provide the direction their team needs. On my own team, I've been promoted a few times and I was given my shot at management quite a few years ago because I was really good at what I did. I knew this would be a challenge for me. I have always been known as a "technical guy" who was good at figuring things out and solving problems. Fortunately, I had put people on my team that are also really good at what they do. I trust them and they trust me. They're very creative problem solvers. So, my job is to make sure that we're working on the things that we should be working on. Things that are adding value to the company and moving our department forward. And as much as possible, getting ahead of changes or at the very least, keeping up with the changes within our company. And the only way for me to do that, is to empower my team to come up with and implement solutions.
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