In a Quandary

Something perplexing came up at work this past week. It has to do with a gentleman in our department named SG. SG is one of two or three people who are being groomed for possible promotion to Manager. Having been identified as a candidate for promotion, SG has been put on what our company calls a "leadership development track" or LDT.

A person on the LDT is given additional responsibilities and accountabilities. He/she is assigned team lead responsibilities such as assisting the Project Manager in mentoring the newer team members, handing out work assignments, reporting on the results of a project, and leading meetings. That person is basically given one year to prove he/she is capable of moving up to the next rank.

It was through such meetings and through those mentoring sessions that some people, especially the experienced members of the staff, started questioning SG's grasp of the topics and issues we deal with on a daily basis. The reason for the suspicion and doubt is that whenever there were discussions of Financial concepts, even on ones considered the most basic by Finance professionals, it was observed that SG would often stay quiet. Or if he would say something, it was observed that he would simply regurgitate what another person had said. In short, he did not contribute much to technical discussions on issues, did not provide any additional insights or analysis that would have helped such discussions move towards a resolution.

SG has been with our department for close to two years. When he joined the team, the director who hired him told us that he had the requisite professional certification and credentials to do the job. He is a very likeable person and was found to be a hard worker. As with any other profession, once an employee asserts or claims that he/she has the required professional certification, his/her superior would naturally assume then that he/she possesses a certain degree of knowledge and expertise.

SG had been on my team on several engagements. I found him to be quite observant and a number of his observations eventually ended up on project reports I submitted to senior executives. He provided me with very good inputs on possible control weaknesses whenever we conducted ocular inspections of facilities.

But although I found him reliable, I always sensed that he seemed to have a certain level of discomfort or lack of confidence. I observed both discomfort and lack of confidence whenever he conducted interviews and meetings. At the time, I couldn't quite put my finger on what seemed to be the source of such discomfort. To address the problem, I had advised him spend more time studying the scope of a project before we went out on the field.

I had also noticed a certain "disconnect" in my discussions with him. Whenever I conducted one-on-one sessions to mentor or guide him on certain topics or observations, he would leave me with the impression that he understood perfectly everything that we had talked about. However, I would often find out later, to my frustration and disappointment, that he failed to understand critical points in our discussion.

Some people this week voiced to me their suspicion that SG may have misrepresented his professional credentials not only to us but also to people outside of our department. To a duly certified Finance professional, the topics and matters we deal with are not in the realm of rocket science. However, in our job, we need to arm ourselves with the professional knowledge and experience to be effective and credible champions of change. If he did misrepresent his credentials, something I'm still hoping that he didn't do, then that could partly explain his demeanor.

This is a delicate situation that requires a very sensitive approach. I've raised the matter with a superior and we've both agreed that it's going to be a topic for further discussion once I'm back in the office next week. This whole affair is a question about fairness. Would it be fair to the junior staff, from the standpoint of personal and professional development, if we require them to continue working under someone who may lack the credentials to provide credible technical guidance? Would it be fair to SG if we continue promoting him to a level of incompetence?

Firing him is certainly not an option and I don't believe that any of my superiors would even consider doing that. However, we would need to get our heads together to determine what would be the next steps to appropriately deal with this sensitive matter.