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Some were born to lead. But many are just \u201caccidental managers.\u201d Take Dustin Moskovitz. The millennial cofounded Facebook with his Harvard roommate, Mark Zuckerberg, and went on to become the company\u2019s first CTO before leaving to found Asana, a project management platform, in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Again, Moskovitz led the startup (this time as CEO), taking the company public in September 2020 and growing it into the $3 billion company it is today, before stepping down last year. But looking back, he admitted the top job was never really for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just found it quite exhausting,\u201d Moskovitz told Stratechery in a 2025, adding he\u2019s really an introvert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like to manage teams,\u201d he admitted, adding it was never his intention to do so\u2014even after founding his second startup, Asana, with Justin Rosenstein. \u201cI\u2019d intended to be more of an independent or head of engineering\u2026 Then one thing led to another and I was CEO for 13 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result? Having to \u201cput on this face day after day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The CEO hoped putting on a mask would get easier as the company scaled and he could delegate more to focus on actually running the company from behind the scenes, but actually the opposite was true.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world just kept getting more chaotic\u2014the first Trump presidency and the pandemic and all the race stuff\u2014it made it just a lot less of the company building, being a CEO is a lot more reacting to problems and doing this sort of thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Like Moskovitz, nearly all bosses are \u2018accidental\u2019\u2014and it\u2019s actually the top reason they end up quitting<\/p>\n
Moskovirz isn\u2019t the first boss to admit he never intended to manage people. Like Gen Z, who admit they would rather remain individual contributors forever than climb the greasy pole, many managers before them have secretly thought the same.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In fact, research shows that as many as 82% of bosses are \u201caccidental\u201d\u2014they had zero training and were simply thrust into the role because they were at the functional or technical aspects of the job. So it made sense to promote them to show others how it\u2019s done, whether they actually want to lead or not. A quarter of them wind up in senior leadership roles.<\/p>\n
As a direct result of this, businesses end up with managers who aren\u2019t confident in their ability to lead, and who struggle to deal with the various challenges that come with managing people, leading both employees and struggling managers to resign.<\/p>\n
Gerrit Bouckaert, CEO of Robert Walters, a recruitment firm that works in 31 countries, said the trend of accidental management has become more \u201cpronounced\u201d in recent years\u2014all the while the demands of the job are only getting tougher.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, a manager\u2019s primary role was to keep employees motivated and productive,\u201d he previously told Fortune. \u201cIn today\u2019s world, they are required to drive the culture and inclusion in the team, lead on digital adoption, possess an innate ability to know if a member of their team is struggling mentally, and also be the bearer of bad news\u2014be it delayed promotions, or muted pay rises.\u201d<\/p>\n
A version of this story originally published on\u00a0Fortune.com\u00a0on\u00a0October 23, 2025.<\/p>\n
Read more career advice from Fortune\u2019s Orianna Rosa Royle:<\/p>\n
#Facebook #cofounder #CEO #exhaustinglike #bosses #intended #manage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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