Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to be a leader when the vibes are off

chaoticgood.management

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 206 posts

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#2

Post by reb »

Great write up! I've found these techniques pretty effective in tricky times over the years, and they don't only apply to tech workplaces.

That said, they're very much geared toward "polishing shit" leadership. Getting yourself and the people you're responsible for through the hard times is a crucial skill. Getting them out and onto something better is important too, even if it can be tougher to square with the mandate middle managers work under.

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#4

Post by ajkjk »

Well, this advice is all tailored towards "how to keep your job and make your money as a leader when the vibes are off". But I and almost everyone else would prefer the question you're asking to be "how to start the revolution when the vibes are off"; explanations on how best to not fight the ways everything is going to shit are explanations of how to be complicit with it. For example, buying into the company message while privately criticizing it---good job advice, but morally, that's cowardice; it's pathetic; that's the behavior of a person who is trying to have their cake and eat it too, who's just there for the money; whose friendship is a lie. That's the spineless substitute for leadership we've come to expect in our disappointing world. "Yeah it sucks, it affects me negatively" in private only counts if you are also taking a non-infinitesimal stand against it in public; if your actual moral position comes out in favor of the right thing. Otherwise it is a lie, manipulating your employees to make them feel like they have a friend while not actually sticking up for them.

If everyone felt and acted morally then the place would be forced to improve. Or at minimum, to fire all of you, but they should be forced to actually do that, morally, and suffer the political and economic consequences of doing so. But for that to happen people have to be systematically standing up to them in the first place, saying "do better, or else".

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#6

Post by [deleted] »

ajkjk wrote: post #4

Well, this advice is all tailored towards "how to keep your job and make your money as a leader when the vibes are off". But I and almost everyone else would prefer the question you're asking to be "how to start the revolution when the vibes are off"; explanations on how best to not fight the ways everything is going to shit are explanations of how to be complicit with it. For example, buying into the company message…

[deleted]

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#7

Post by woah »

ajkjk wrote: post #4

Well, this advice is all tailored towards "how to keep your job and make your money as a leader when the vibes are off". But I and almost everyone else would prefer the question you're asking to be "how to start the revolution when the vibes are off"; explanations on how best to not fight the ways everything is going to shit are explanations of how to be complicit with it. For example, buying into the company message…

What are you going to do after the revolution? I'm going to lead poetry readings and design upcycled fashion

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#8

Post by ajkjk »

ajkjk wrote: post #4

Well, this advice is all tailored towards "how to keep your job and make your money as a leader when the vibes are off". But I and almost everyone else would prefer the question you're asking to be "how to start the revolution when the vibes are off"; explanations on how best to not fight the ways everything is going to shit are explanations of how to be complicit with it. For example, buying into the company message…

In fact I remember now that I have had a manager who followed this exact advice: they'd agree with you about what was right and wrong in private, but do nothing, or very little, in public. It was infuriating. I didn't quit over it, although I wish I had in hindsight; instead I stayed uninspired and frustrated and burnt out until the manager eventually cycled out for another. But my guess is the team was half as productive or less than it would have been if the manager had stuck up for them in public. There is really nothing as demoralizing as when none of the people with power stick up for you. Of course, they will say that they don't have power either---but that's the trick. Everyone up the chain says they have no power, they're just following orders; the decision making is abstracted from on high. It is always a lie: everyone has power; just, the power is proportional to the risk you take to use it. I should have threatened to quit over being treated better, and meant it, and the manager should have threatened to quit to their bosses over the same things, and everyone else up the stack.

(Of course, an organization where your only way of getting listened to is threatening to quit is already unimaginably toxic. A healthy organization has a moral code of its own: you should be listened to because you were mistreated, not because you had to threaten something to be heard. But this seems to be increasingly untrue in modern tech companies where everyone seems amoral and just does their job and tries not to rock the boat so they can get to their next stock grant.)

Re: How to be a leader when the vibes are off

#9

Post by ajkjk »

woah wrote: post #7
ajkjk wrote: post #4

Well, this advice is all tailored towards "how to keep your job and make your money as a leader when the vibes are off". But I and almost everyone else would prefer the question you're asking to be "how to start the revolution when the vibes are off"; explanations on how best to not fight the ways everything is going to shit are explanations of how to be complicit with it. For example, buying into the company message…

What are you going to do after the revolution? I'm going to lead poetry readings and design upcycled fashion

well since the revolution in question is one where the company you're working for becomes attendant to its employees' dignity, I imagine you would keep working the same job under a new CEO and board (the old ones being forced out by the revolution), but you would enjoy it a lot more and feel much more inspired to keep doing good work....
Post reply on HN