> I don't know how many people on HN have served and heard of Rickover? But I'm pretty sure most people on HN could not function in a Rickover style management context. It gets things done, but it's not terribly polite about going about getting them done.
I have never served. I am a Millennial. I prefer Rickover's management style. I thankfully had some of the earliest managers in my career who /had/ served under Rickover and applied this management style.
Some of the things I found very comforting under this management style is:
1. Everyone would be held accountable and managers would be held accountable for their subordinates
2. Everyone was expected to actually know their job, and not just hand wave away things. It's okay to say "I don't know", but it's never okay to bullshit.
3. Outcomes trump platitudes, which means it's absolutely okay to point out the emperor has no clothes.
I've had a very successful career considering my origins, and I attribute a lot of that success to that fact I hold myself strongly accountable in a way that is rare, both in my generation /and/ in older generations. Managers trust me, even in dysfunctional organizations, because I am razor sharp about what I do know, what I reasonably believe/assume, and what I do not know, and I have no qualms whatsoever about speaking the truth to anyone, regardless of title or position. The only times I've ever been reprimanded/fired or otherwise faced career challenges with my behavior were in organizations that were participating in unethical and arguably illegal activities, otherwise I've found that nearly everyone appreciates honesty and accountability, even if it's few and far between in their larger organization.
I think you'd find that for all the ink shed about the necessity of politeness and niceness, that the kindest thing to nearly everyone in the workforce is to be honest to them, both to their face and when they are not present, and to hold them accountable in a fair and even-handed way. Being kind is not being nice, and telling the truth is not always polite, but it makes a team, organization, and the outcome (product) better when people act in this way and that is incontrovertible. Almost everyone prefers to be part of a winning team, a team that produces high quality outcomes, and can clearly point to their contributions to that outcome because they took ownership of their work, accountability for it.
The fact we /don't/ act in this way towards people in younger generations is, in my opinion, one of the reasons there's so many mental health problems and dissatisfaction with life in early adulthood. Nobody feels ownership over anything, and they feel as if they have no control over their own life or anything that surrounds it, just floating along in misery. Taking accountability is the first step to taking control, and having the deep knowledge about the things you do every single day is something that builds a confidence born out of competence that nobody can challenge unjustly. So many people in tech completely lack both competence and accountability, so it is no surprise to me that they suffer deeply due to this.