The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

I know number of citations is far from perfect, but from a rough look at google scholar his papers (since he started as assistant professor) have been cited I am sure there is some kernel of truth in his claim of unfairness, and he seems like a genuinely great teacher, but denial of tenure seems more like a case of promising faculty (his publication record prior to his start at UB seems stellar) not living up to expectations?

Yes! So many people think because they are meek, everyone shall be meek, yet they are not the ones that achieve high performance. You might not be compatible with lower levels of performance when there are titles and honors given for meekly punching a ticket long enough and vis versa. I think he did exactly the right thing and would encourage others to do the same if an environment is compressing their thought and expression. Find your space, your people, and be great.

Working in a large organization straight out of college, I've learned the meaning of the phrase 'pay your dues.' When you get hired at a large organization, you're expected to fall in line for a while before you get entrusted with political clout. Many people chafe at this: why is someone of my caliber wasting his time doing low-level work in an obviously broken system when I could be making real change happen?

The naive and/or cynical answer is because the organization demands conformity: wouldn't want to hire a fresh thinker to derail our institutional gravy train! Let's burn them out by making them jump through an arbitrary and tedious series of hoops so they come out the other end too limp and tired to overthrow us! This interpretation is nonsense.

The informed answer is that this stage is an additional filtering process. Being a leader in a large organization requires politicking: coalition building, patience, tact, etc. Not every junior hire will develop these skills. Organizations that endow too much power in someone lacking such skills will inevitably suffer from unnecessary conflicts and (often) fruitless instability.

This post seems like the author is listing his accomplishments while stunned that they alone don't qualify him for tenure. However, I would wager anything that his potential to accomplish these sorts of things was obvious to the department from day one. If so, it likely influenced their decision to hire him in the first place. His achievement of this potential yielded little new information. Meanwhile, his ostentatious conflicts and overly vocal style likely did.

My personal assessment is he's clearly a brilliant and hard-working faculty member, but the rock-the-boat actions he boasts and the very fact that he wrote this post suggests that he lacks the soft touch of a leader. Tenure doesn't just mean being un-fireable, it means helping shape your institution, and a brilliant leader without a steady hand is more trouble than he's worth.

Your point is sound. So is his.

A change requires orientation, energy, and whatever RoI. This guy - as he describes himself subjectively - is all about engaging his own energy. Orientation is essential and is expected to come from managers (dynamics). Managers also choose a strategy that improves the RoI (kinetics). Engagement is nevertheless absolutely essential to make change happen IRL (work). That's a pity an agreement couldn't be found with his managers. It seems there's kinda misunderstanding going on here, that should have been managed appropriately.