Bosses Overestimate Their Managing Skills

"Bosses who think they're the next Jack Welch might want to reassess their talent level. A new survey of 1,100 frontline managers suggests many are overestimating their skills, with surprisingly little self-doubt. Seventy-two percent said they never questioned their ability to lead others in their first year as a manager.

"It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People have blind spots about where they're weak," says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at consulting firm Development Dimensions International Inc., which conducted the survey in September. One problem: when workers become managers, they're often surrounded by employees who flatter them as a way of ingratiating themselves to their boss, said Stanford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of the book Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't."

Read the full WSJ article.