The people who campaign to be manager run the worst teamsWho is the best manager?

In an experiment with 555 participants, teams led by managers picked at random outperformed teams led by people who volunteered for the job, and the best managers were the ones who allocated resources well.

When companies pick a manager, the usual logic is: whoever wants the job and believes in themselves gets it. A team at the London School of Economics led by Ben Weidmann recruited 555 people and took that logic apart.

Wanting the job is a minus

Participants were grouped into teams of 12 to 18, each promoting one member to manager. They then worked together on questions needing numerical and analytical reasoning. The better a team shared out people and tasks, the higher it scored.

In half the teams the manager was drawn by lottery; in the other half it was the person who had said they were eager to manage and thought they would be good at it. The lottery winners ran better teams.

Sharing out the work is the real skill

The experiment tested other criteria too. The Peter Principle — you get promoted until you land in a job you cannot do — came out middling: better than a lottery, about level with picking emotionally intelligent managers. Intelligence opened a clear gap, and top of the table was economic decision-making ability.

That does not mean thinking commercially. It means taking the limited people and resources you have and putting them where they do the most good, handing each task to whoever can actually carry it. Managers who scored highest on that ran the best teams.

Everyone nods along to this. Now look at your own company and ask whether those are the people who get promoted.