When did Ford move to the People Leader / Individual contributor model? And how did they categorize existing employees at the time? Did anyone get a say in their label?
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I remember talking with one of my LL6 peers who was on the IT Leadership Program (ITLP) on the way to an LL5. We were talking about PRs one day and my peer told me that they had never done a PR before. So you are on your way to an LL5 position having NEVER managed people? Whaaaaat????
Oh, I remember Smart Design. I became an IC because we were a small group with a few direct reports each. We stacked GSRs under a few people leadrs and the rest of us got IC. We ended up completing PRs by WebEx (back then) because their people leader had no involvement at all (and rightfully so), so I would just take over the keyboard and. mouse to update.
Never understand why someone would want to bring themselves closer to those responsibile for failure and suffering (management). You're not making a difference. You make a difference by leaving. Thats the best way to change things at Ford. Leave.
All the people leaders around me became individual contributors after 2 years due to re-org and attrition with no backfills. Really glad I didn't take that route. This company is toxic as he-l and they only know how to punish you for doing the right thing. If you are still here just work on your skills so you can join another place that is less toxic. Don't worry about the id--ts still calling themselves people leaders, they will soon find out one way or another.
People really should consider not going into management Ford. It's almost like if you choose to go into a LL6+ role at Ford you have accepted that you have nowhere else to go and you'd like to / have to stay. Unfortunate. Best advice is to bide your time, make preparations to leave (be laid off or fired - which is more likely), and never look back.
Ford was not forthcoming with this reclassification, particularly at the LL6 level. There is now a huge disparity in competence. You have LL6 who have 15+ years with the company who know their stiff, then a ton of newly minted LL6 who are incompetent. For a while in 2020-2022, they were giving out LL6 & LL5 titles like candy, hence all the unqualified ones. The worst situation is when you have competent LL6 ICs reporting to the newly hired / promoted incompetent LL5 PLs. Pretty sure competent LL6 ICs with more than 15 years have been blacklisted from being promoted to LL5 PLs as a means of controlling or compressing salaries. Company is messed up.
Don't give a cr@p what they call me as long as they keep paying until I'm done with them. Less visibility the better. Got work to do.
That happened in the "smart redesign" from the Hackett era. Boston Consulting made up a rule that all people leaders needed at least 6 direct reports in order to justify their position. Individual contributors, like TS's, were exempt. Some people leaders were reclassified to individual contributor to protect them if they had too few direct reports.