Thanks for pointing this out. I agree with you that having managerial skills would be important to someone who manages people, and that many faculty in academia do need to manage people.
My point is not so much that nobody needs management skills, it's that not everybody needs management skills. Let me decide whether or not I will need those skills for myself. Perhaps I already have some management skills from an undergraduate education, or perhaps I simply have a natural talent for it. If I think that I need management skills, I will learn them - I have plenty of opportunities to take such courses or seminars, if I want. I'm an adult, you don't have to force me to do something because I might need it later, just tell me the facts and I will decide for myself.
But if I think that it would be a better use of my time to do something else, like collaborate with a researcher at another university on a new problem, let me decide that. I hope that whatever job I apply for decides whether or not to hire me based on my specific skill set.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: a PhD is not (or should not be) a certificate declaring you qualified for a job. Not for an academic job, nor an industry job, nor any other job. It is a certificate declaring that I am very knowledgeable in a specific subject, and that people better and wiser than me believe that I can do meaningful research in the future.
If I want to show people that I have other job skills, I must show them some other way. A PhD only verifies the above, it doesn't verify that I am a good teacher, a good manager, a good communicator, a friendly guy, or that I am in any other way competent. If a job wants skills that I don't have, they shouldn't hire me.
For your other point, I totally agree that this attitude keeps the salaries low. Unfortunately I don't know what should be done about it. Either we can lie, and pretend that we only enjoy our research to the extent that it pays the bills, and otherwise do not enjoy it, or we can actually try to stop enjoying our work. Either seems silly. You can't hide what you love, and if other people try to take advantage of the fact, well, so be it. In fact, I can understand the counter-argument: just because work is important, doesn't mean we should pay people more than the bare minimum they will accept. It's not fair, and it isn't right, but it is rather true.
My point is not so much that nobody needs management skills, it's that not everybody needs management skills. Let me decide whether or not I will need those skills for myself. Perhaps I already have some management skills from an undergraduate education, or perhaps I simply have a natural talent for it. If I think that I need management skills, I will learn them - I have plenty of opportunities to take such courses or seminars, if I want. I'm an adult, you don't have to force me to do something because I might need it later, just tell me the facts and I will decide for myself.
But if I think that it would be a better use of my time to do something else, like collaborate with a researcher at another university on a new problem, let me decide that. I hope that whatever job I apply for decides whether or not to hire me based on my specific skill set.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: a PhD is not (or should not be) a certificate declaring you qualified for a job. Not for an academic job, nor an industry job, nor any other job. It is a certificate declaring that I am very knowledgeable in a specific subject, and that people better and wiser than me believe that I can do meaningful research in the future.
If I want to show people that I have other job skills, I must show them some other way. A PhD only verifies the above, it doesn't verify that I am a good teacher, a good manager, a good communicator, a friendly guy, or that I am in any other way competent. If a job wants skills that I don't have, they shouldn't hire me.
For your other point, I totally agree that this attitude keeps the salaries low. Unfortunately I don't know what should be done about it. Either we can lie, and pretend that we only enjoy our research to the extent that it pays the bills, and otherwise do not enjoy it, or we can actually try to stop enjoying our work. Either seems silly. You can't hide what you love, and if other people try to take advantage of the fact, well, so be it. In fact, I can understand the counter-argument: just because work is important, doesn't mean we should pay people more than the bare minimum they will accept. It's not fair, and it isn't right, but it is rather true.