ABSTRACT
A rank-and-file job, however skilled, will not give the worker the knowledge needed for a supervisory job; nor will it give him an opportunity to demonstrate his ability for supervisory work. The first-line supervisor, the foreman, occupies the key position in the problem of opportunities. As a member of the management team, however junior, the foreman needs a completely different set of qualifications: knowledge of organization, knowledge of technical processes, understanding of policies. The ability required for this job is intellectual ability rather than skill. The foreman's job may have become so unlike that of the worker as increasingly to exclude promotion to it from the ranks and to require recruitment of specifically trained men from the outside. In practice, the ladder of promotion tends to be broken. The chances for promotion in the industrial enterprise, though greater than in any previous system, are still very small.
