http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/are-you-a-dysfunctional-manager/5943?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

1. Sponge. You listen and learn from everyone and every situation as you try to figure out how things work in the real world. Although you’re prone to saying dumb things and making stupid mistakes, you’re not in a position to cause any real damage. So, every time you fall you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try it again until you get it right.
2. Proof-of-concept. Believing you’re actually capable of accomplishing something besides making a complete idiot of yourself by promising the world and delivering squat, you set out to prove yourself worthy of the management title that, in all too many cases, you’ve already been granted. It’s sort of like being thrown into the deep end of the pool before you can swim. Cruel, but effective.
3. Delivery. Congratulations, you’ve somehow managed to deliver the goods and succeed in doing something that can credibly be viewed as a business success. In other words, you made money for somebody and, for that, got a pat on the head and a gold star. You’ve arrived.
4. Reset. A little full of yourself, you try a repeat performance using the same tricks that worked the first time and realize, too late, that you’re going to need a bigger playbook to consistently make it in the big leagues. Failure doesn’t sit well with you. In fact, it sucks. So you set out to make sure it never happens again.
5. Maturity. After a few iterations of the third and fourth stages, you finally get reality and realize that you’re just like everybody else. You succeed at some things, fail at others, and learn from everything. In fact, it’s not that much different from the first stage, except that experience has given you confidence and stability, for all that’s worth.