The following answers originally appeared in Quora for the question:Why do most managers add no value to their teams?
针对这个问题，以下是在Quora网站上征集到的答案。
Answer by Michael O. Church, programmer
回答者：迈克尔oOo丘奇，程序员
This answer may be more general than what you’re looking for, but there are a few things that come to my mind about what makes management such a mess in most companies.
与你所期望的（具体答案）相比，这个回答可能比较笼统，但在我看来这也是为什么大多数公司的管理一团混乱的症结所在。

1. The Power Paradox.The people who want power the most are the last people in the world that you want getting it. The fiercer the competition you set up for people to acquire power, the worse people you’ll have doing it.
1.权力悖论。最想获得权力的人就是这个世界上你最不愿意看到他掌权的人。在筛选负责人的过程中，竞争越激烈，挑选出来的人就越差劲。
2. Their bosses.Most managers have a (perhaps surprising) lack of power themselves and are forced to manage up, and treat their subordinates like crap because they’re badly incentivized.
2.他们的老板。大多数经理都没有足够的权力（这也许让人感到意外），他们只能向上级汇报；由于激励方法有误，他们都不把下属当人看。
3. Hard to measure.It’s hard to measure the quality of people management, as opposed to more objective deliverables.
3.难以衡量。与更具体的可实施任务相比，很难衡量管理的质量如何。
4. Conflicts of interest.In most companies, people managers and project or group managers (or tech leads) are the same person. Related to (3), this is problematic. Managers often restrict mobility because they need to keep their projects or groups staffed and to hit deliverables, even though optimal people management might call for a transfer.
4.利益冲突。在大多数公司，对人、项目、团队（或者技术）的管理都由同一个人负责。鉴于上述第三条原因，这种做法有问题。经理往往会限制人员流动，因为他们的项目或团队需要人手，需要完成任务，即使人事管理优化方案可能需要进行人员调动。
5. Seems unnecessary.When people management is done extraordinarily well, managers almost become invisible. People are unaware of the things that are not breaking around them.
5.看似多此一举。如果管理做得特别好，大家都感觉不到经理的存在。一切进展顺利，人们就会觉得理所当然。
Answer by Cliff Gilley, product manager
回答者：克里夫o吉利，产品经理
I would say that I generally agree with the premise – that there is a large percentage of managers who do not contribute to the success or growth of their teams. But I would say that, quite honestly, it’s not always their fault. It’s often the case that people are promoted into management because they demonstrate that they can perform the daily tasks that they’re asked of efficiently and effectively – that somehow their performance as an individual contributor alone “qualifies” them to lead a team.
我要说我基本同意这种说法，大部分经理都没有为其团队的成功或成长做出贡献。但我也要坦率地指出，这并不总是他们的错。通常情况下，他们之所以能够晋升到管理岗位，是因为此前他们展现了高效而出色地完成分内工作的能力。从某种意义上说，他们作为个体贡献者的表现使他们有了领导团队的“资格”。
And this, quite simply, is not the case. There are certain skills and talents that one must have to be an effective leader and a good manager. And these aren’t always innate abilities – but we in the business world just expect someone to be promoted and hit the ground running. It’s rare, especially in small companies, for a manager to get any real training or education in how to manage a team – and when they then get promoted later, the person who steps into their shoes has no mentor to help them out; what you eventually wind up with is an entire organization that lacks any real understanding of or appreciation for actual leadership capabilities.
很明显，这样做并不合理。要成为出色的领导者和经理，就必须具备某些能力和才干，而且这些才能并不全是天生的。但身处商业世界，人们就是希望这些得到提拔的人立即具有管理才能。经理很少得到关于团队管理方面的培训和教育，尤其是在小公司。在他们再次得到升迁后，其继任者就会求师无门，得不到帮助。这种情况最终会导致整个企业都对领导能力缺乏理解。
How this winds up displaying itself is in the very ineffectual behaviors that you apply there – when someone is in a position of authority, but doesn’t know what to do, the last thing they want is to show that they’re uncertain. So they overcompensate, sometimes massively. Anyone who asks a question is challenging their authority; every single status report has to be detailed down to the roots, so that they don’t ever say “let me check on that” to the Exec team; they’re unable to delegate authority and responsibility because they simply can’t trust other people, who may be capable of doing their job better than they are.
最后的结果就像问题所描述的那样，是一种非常无能的行为，处于领导岗位的人不知道该如何管理，他们绝不想表现出自己没把握的状态。所以他们就会出现过度补偿的行为，有时候甚至很严重。别人问个问题就被视为对他们权威的挑战；每份报告都得追根溯源，极其详细，这样他们就不用对高层说“让我来查一下”；他们无法分派权力和责任，因为他们不信任别人，而别人可能比他们更胜任管理工作。
And, once they’re in that position of authority, the worst case is that they begin to think they deserve it – and that they deserve more authority and more power, not because they’re good at their job anymore, but because they’re “the manager” and that’s how it works. Contrary to how things work in reality, it’s just not good business to place people in positions of leadership without a history of leadership success or the training to help them be effective leaders.
此外，他们当上领导后，最糟糕的是他们认为这是自己应得的，而且应该获得更大的权力，这次不是因为他们工作出色，而是因为他们是“经理”，本来就该这样。与实际情况相反的是，把没有成功领导经验，也没有在有效领导方面受过培训的人放到管理岗位上绝对不划算。
Answer by Mike Dugas, statistician and entrepreneur
回答者：迈克o杜加斯，统计师兼创业者
First, let’s define what makes a manager a manager. A manager has one unique, defining characteristic- namely, the right to tell others, i.e. their subordinates, what to do. Put another way, managers have the right to make decisions regardless of what their subordinates want or say.
首先，让我们看看一个人怎样才能成为经理。经理们都有一个决定性的特质，那就是他们有权告诉别人（比如自己的下属）该做什么。换句话说，他们有权做决定，无论下属怎么想或者怎么说。
The only way for a manager to add value is to either be better at the decision making than their subordinates or be able to coach their subordinates by possessing and conveying needed knowledge to their subordinates.
经理提升团队价值的唯一途径是他们做出比下属更高明的决定，或者掌握所需的知识，并且能把这些知识传授给下属。
But here’s the reality of companies today. There are many layers of managers between the doer and the CEO. In order for this organizational structure to work, every layer must have a manager better than the people below her. But we know this can’t possibly be true. A great example comes from so called “knowledge workers” who often are capable people who can make good decisions given access to the right information. Instinctively, or unconsciously, managers know this to be true, so oddly most engage in preventing access to the needed knowledge (they become gatekeepers) in order to justify the great wisdom they bring to decisions.
然而，如今企业的实际情况是，在一线员工和首席执行官之间有许多中层经理。为了让这样的企业结构顺利运转，各个层次的经理都必须比下一级人员能干。但我们都知道，实际上不可能如此。“知识工作者”就是一个非常好的例子，他们往往都很有能力，掌握恰当信息后，都能做出很好的决定。出于本能或潜意识，经理们知道这一点，奇怪的是大多数经理都会阻挠别人获得所需的知识（从而变成了“守门员”），只是为了证明自己的决定非常英明。
So we need to ask the question: do we need managers? Is, in fact, the organization structure that says to some “you can tell these people what to do and you have control over their compensation” make sense?
所以我们不禁要问，我们需要经理吗？如果提升一个人当经理，就是赋予其指挥权和酬劳控制权，这样的企业结构合理吗？