By default, a senior is considered to be more experienced, knowledgeable, and overall having more capabilities than their junior. As the employees gain more and more work together in the same team, the gap between their talent reduces, as the knowledge gain at a higher level takes more time to acquire. Sometimes, there may not be a gap at all, but the number of years or a degree can keep the employee in the back seat. Also, there are cases where juniors overtake their senior counterparts.
All these circumstances play a major role in defining office politics. As the gap between a junior and a senior reduces, the senior might start becoming insecure in the team setup. Sometimes, the senior may bring a significant difference, but it may not be visible through the quantitative scales used in Corporates. Considering that the senior generally take home more salary, the equal performance or caliber of the senior and junior can become a threat to the senior’s position in the company, unless the senior himself has the required capabilities to move up the ladder. As a result, the senior tends to prove that he is actually better, a scenario that constantly increases the friction in the teams.
An alternative strategy followed by the senior is by not sharing enough knowledge with the junior so that there is a visible gap in knowledge and performance. Even though this look like a good strategy, it leads to many negative outcomes during the course of time. This may include:
A) The employees may be demotivated due to a lack of sufficient exposure to move to higher roles. Even though some of them may adjust to this situation, others quit the job, which makes the senior’s life difficult in the future.
B) In the long run, the team become mediocre and may not adjust to the advanced needs demanded by clients, and they may be failed by the competition
C) The succession plan of the company, and its developmental strategies are deeply affected.
Overall, this strategy even though employed by many managers in companies, it does create an impact. Along with him, his team slowly becomes redundant and may pose threat to their jobs. So rather than making the entire team redundant, just see how you can upscale your talent. Further, companies need to educate the team members about this kind of scenario and the value of the inputs given by the seniors, even though looks minimally significant. Also, the top-level management should always see the value added by the seniors and orient them in the right direction, so that the negative steps are not taken by the seniors.
What are your thoughts?