Comment by cornel_io

Who is going to hire someone to manage when they've never done it before, though? I certainly have never and would never taken a risk like that, it's hard enough to hire decent managers when you're looking at people who have proven histories, whereas when picking from internal candidates you at least have a sense of personality already and can guess who reports will trust.

I don't think I know any managers who didn't start doing it at a company they'd already been ICs at.