I like how you mention that upbringing gives a head start in these positions.
The majority of my bosses were incompetent as hell from a technical or project management perspective and I always wondered how they could be in these leadership positions. And I have a feeling it's knowing the culture of management and the terminology, communication style, and hierarchy enough to build trust with those leaders above them. I had a pretty rough childhood and have always struggled with fitting in with this managerial group and wonder if partly because of that upbringing.
Right. Presumably that your bosses held those positions while being incompetent, meant that no one else in the company was able to convince the higher-ups that the company would make more money if they were managers instead.
My upbringing only ever emphasized two approaches, do your job and be a good line employee, or own your own business and be your own boss It's only recently in my career, within the past 5 years, where I had a manager want to groom me and started showing me how companies work.
One of the fun ways of looking at things, is that a manager can only get promoted once they have nothing left to do. They need to delegate out all of their tasks and responsibilities, and once they have none left, they can start taking on new tasks and responsibilities at the next level above and get seen for promotion. That then also means that the fastest way for you to get promoted is to make your boss get promoted, so take as much as you can off of her plate, which then also has the dual effect that when her position opens up, you, being the one who's doing the majority of her title's responsibilities, would be the natural fit to slide right in to that promotion. Of course, it's not enough just to do all the work, you also want to make sure everyone knows that you're the one doing all the work and that everyone wants to vote for you to become the new boss.
The majority of my bosses were incompetent as hell from a technical or project management perspective and I always wondered how they could be in these leadership positions. And I have a feeling it's knowing the culture of management and the terminology, communication style, and hierarchy enough to build trust with those leaders above them. I had a pretty rough childhood and have always struggled with fitting in with this managerial group and wonder if partly because of that upbringing.