Donato BlandolinoWhat looks like competence is often a self-created bottleneck. How to recognise that you are the limit on your own organisation, and how to remove it.
In many factories, there is a manager who knows every machine, every process, every figure. They are proud of it. And every morning, their team waits for them to make the decisions.
What looks like competence is actually a bottleneck. And it is self-created.
The pattern: no one is allowed to be better than the boss
The thinking behind this is old and can be found wherever positions matter more than results: you do not bring in anyone who is better than you. The risk of losing your own position seems too great.
In industry, this thinking does not work. A production manager needs better planners than they ever were themselves. A head of procurement needs better buyers. An engineering manager needs better design engineers. A head of IT needs better SAP specialists.
Leadership does not mean being the best in your field. Leadership means bringing the best people together and giving them the room to be better.
The cost of the self-created bottleneck
Anyone who only hires employees whose professional skills are inferior to their own is not building an organisation. They are setting their own limits. And the cost is measurable.
Decisions drag on because everything goes through one desk. Projects sit idle for six months because no one but the boss is allowed to assess them. Investments come too late because the one person who could decide has no time. And the best people leave because they realise that their expertise is not wanted here, merely tolerated.
The insidious part is that, from the outside, the organisation looks well managed. The manager is always informed, always immersed in the details, always consulted. The fact that this is precisely the problem only becomes apparent when they are on holiday for two weeks and nothing moves forward.
How to recognise whether you are the bottleneck
Three honest questions are enough.
How many decisions from the past week could your team have made without you, and how many did they actually make without you? The gap between those two figures is your bottleneck.
When did someone on your own team last disagree with you on a professional matter, and what happened afterwards? If disagreement is rare, it is rarely because there are no counterarguments.
And the toughest question: when did you last hire someone who is clearly better than you in their field? Anyone who cannot give an example from the past two years is hiring against the wrong criterion.
How to remove the limit
The way out is uncomfortable, but simple to describe.
Change the hiring criterion
Not “fits beneath me”, but “takes the department beyond my own level”. This requires self-confidence, because a strong specialist will do things differently and know more about some things. That is exactly why they are being brought in.
Move decisions to where the expertise lies
If you have hired a better planner, you must also let them plan, including making the decisions that follow. Delegation without decision-making authority is not delegation.
Redefine your own role
A manager’s value is measured not by what they solve themselves, but by what their team solves without them. The strongest companies emerge where every specialist is better in their field than their manager.
Why this is not a side note for us
At SMART iNTERIM, we fill key roles and assemble teams for transformation programmes. One principle applies: we do not place yes-men. We place experts who solve problems, even if their professional expertise exceeds that of the person engaging them.
This is occasionally uncomfortable for the client, and that is precisely where the value lies. An interim expert who merely confirms what the organisation already thinks provides expensive reassurance. One who knows better and says so makes a difference.
Because egos do not lead transformations. Competence does. And whether a manager surrounds themselves with the best people or protects themselves from them is ultimately not a question of expertise, but of personality. Personality First.
When did you last hire someone who is better than you in their field?
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About SMART iNTERIM
SMART iNTERIM Management supports manufacturing companies through operational transformation and fills key roles with people who make a tangible difference: from plant and production management through supply chain and SAP specialists to interim assignments at executive management level. We come from hands-on experience, not from a distance. Headquartered in Switzerland, with a branch in Dubai.
