37 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said the Best Managers Never Actually Want to Be Managers. Science Says He Was Right

When Jobs died, the company had 40,000 employees. Hundreds of managers were employed by Apple since Jobs only interacted with a small number of employees.

The early process of recruiting and hiring managers can be found in Here's Jobs.

We're going to be a big company, we thought. So let's hire "professional managers." We went out and hired a bunch of professional management, and it didn't work at all.

They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.

I made the same mistake when filling a production supervisor position.

One candidate had been in the department for 15 years. He had a lot of skills. He trained new employees well. He was fun to be around. He had never held a formal leadership position. The team that got the plant ISO certified was led by the other.

A good manager can manage anywhere, so I promoted the professional manager.

A good manager is good at managing. He made sure rules were followed. People were made to follow processes. He filled the role by creating development plans and conducting performance evaluations.

He didn't do what he was supposed to do.

You know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager, but decide they want to be a manager, because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them. 

I didn't need anyone to manage what we did. I need someone who is frustrated by our productivity. Someone is annoyed by our quality. A person was annoyed by the fact that very few shop floor employees were being promoted to higher-level roles.

The only way to make sure the crew achieved what it was capable of was to have a manager. I don't need a production supervisor, I need someone who knows how to get product out the door more effectively and efficiently.

Leadership skills could be learned by him. Great leaders aren't born.

His employees would have missed his lack of managerial skills. According to a study published in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, having a boss who is able to get the job done is the most positive influence on job satisfaction.

You are more likely to be happy at work if your boss can do your job.

If you're going to make a promotion decision, make sure you consider the great individual contributor who wants to get things done, even if he isn't a manager.

Success comes down to what you do.