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"Joe's a star salesman. He'll make a great sales manager."

"Sarah gets along with everyone. They'll love her as a boss."

"Tom is the smartest guy in the room. He'll make a great manager."

You hear statements like that when it's time to decide who's going to be asked to make the move from individual contributor to boss. Companies analyze whether a person is a star performer, or a "people person," or is really smart.

Usually they don't even think about the things that will actually give you an idea of whether a person will make a successful boss. Here are three questions to ask about anyone you're considering for a move to a boss's job.

Will he or she make decisions? When you're an individual contributor, it's easy to pass any decision up to your boss. But when you're the boss, you need to be willing to decide.

Does he or she talk to other people about their performance or behavior? That's the supervision part of the boss's job and many bosses are so uncomfortable with it that they avoid it, which only makes things worse. We can teach you techniques to do this well, but you have to show up willing to do it.

Does he or she like helping others succeed? This is huge. A boss's jobs are to help the team succeed (accomplishing the mission) and help the team members succeed (caring for the people).

Unlike what they say in those financial ads, in this case past performance is an indicator of future behavior. If your candidate hasn't done them while an individual contributor, there's not likely to be a magical transformation after promotion.

Boss's Bottom Line

You can make things easier and more effective at promotion time if you give your people opportunities to demonstrate whether they can and will do they'll need for success as a boss.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.