How Brilliant Careers are Made (and Unmade)

"Getting things done through others—the essence of leadership—requires a combination of technical skills (being proficient in areas important to the success of the business), intrapersonal skills (especially strong self-management skills, which are driven by self-understanding and self-control), and interpersonal skills (the ability to develop and foster strong relationships and gain the enlistment of others). People may derail due to a lack of technical, job-related skills, but more common reasons have to do with intrapersonal or interpersonal issues that impede them from enlisting people to accomplish goals. A revealing part of my research included conducting a survey of one hundred derailed managers and then executing follow-up interviews with a subset of the derailed population. My research found that 'a lack of self-awareness' and 'difficulty working with others' were the top two reasons that these one hundred people experienced a career derailment event."