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Welcome to HN! You sound bitter.
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Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
71–80 of 167 posts
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#72One reason for incompetent leaders I've heard is the leader's leader chose him specifically for his incompetence. The leader shields himself with less competent direct reports so that it's unlikely that one of them would be able to take over his job.
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#73I would say that it's not that incompetent men become leaders. Certainly men are over-represented, but I would wager that woman leaders are no more competent on average. The truth is almost everyone is incompetent and leaders get more scrutiny.
Pursuant to the topic, though, leadership pays more and therefore is populated by sexist men hiring each other. Emergent properties.
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white, if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.
>if you're a minority or a woman for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it…
Anthropologists have studied hunter gatherer tribes for a long time and it is not as simple as those with the most confidence becomes leaders. For example, among the San people tribe leadership is shared by the elders. And anyone can become an elder by surviving til old age. In day to day tasks, such as during hunting, who leads the hunt is determined on a rotating schedule so that all men get to lead it from time to time.
Designated leaders probably didn't become the norm until about 4000 bc when early civilizations arose.
Another interesting tidbit noted by many anthropologists is that boasting is strictly forbidden. E.g if a tribesman catches a big prey, he must be humble and can not brag about how good of a hunter he is. It is different from the Western World, in which bragging is expected and necessary for leaders (case in point: Trump).
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to HN! You sound bitter.
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Your accusation of the education system being hampered by a "feminist agenda" that doesn't see Donald Trump's foundation of "truth, personal responsibility and perseverence" has collected you enough downvotes that no censorship is necessary.
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#76Because talking with confidence will go 90% of the way to convincing people that you know what you're talking about. So often I've worked with assholes who talk with such confidence that most people won't bother filtering the garbage coming from their mouths. They just believe it. It's almost eerie how effectively talking with confidence works. It's so effective that when you complain about these charlatans, YOU look…
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white, if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.
I don't think its a race issue so much as a physical appearance issue. Height, attractiveness, facial structure, body size. Certain people look "presidential" and they command a lot of automatic respect just based on appearance. There are plenty of minority people that have this quality. There are plenty of white males lacking this quality.
Look-ism is the huge issue that is almost never talked about. In most companies you could probably better judge how successful new hires will be just by how they look in a video of them talking vs a sample of their work or credentials.
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#77Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white, if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.
I don't think its a race issue so much as a physical appearance issue. Height, attractiveness, facial structure, body size. Certain people look "presidential" and they command a lot of automatic respect just based on appearance. There are plenty of minority people that have this quality. There are plenty of white males lacking this quality. Look-ism is the huge issue that is almost never talked about. In most compani…
Let's also not forget ageism, heightism, voice-ism (positive affect of rich voices).
Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white, if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.
I don't think its a race issue so much as a physical appearance issue. Height, attractiveness, facial structure, body size. Certain people look "presidential" and they command a lot of automatic respect just based on appearance. There are plenty of minority people that have this quality. There are plenty of white males lacking this quality. Look-ism is the huge issue that is almost never talked about. In most compani…
I think you're right. Minority, female, etc., are often just noisy proxies for what you call look-ism and I would also add normal-ism.