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Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

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Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#11

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

vinceguidry wrote: post #7
sharkweek wrote: post #3

I have a confession to make - I'm not a particularly good leader. I don't like managing people, and I'm not terribly interested in learning how to do this. I have seen good managers in action, and have been under a few on occasion; I am not one of these people. I do, however, have some very solid skills and have deployed them repeatedly at the handful of companies I have worked at in the past. My main concern is know…

I'm fairly sure the idea of a natural leader is a myth. Just about everybody has to learn how to do it. Everyone starts out bad at it and they work and work and work until they're better, then everybody starts crowing about how natural they made it look. It has to look natural for it to be effective. This requires a lot of art.

I would say I'm a natural leader. I am constantly scanning for order and when I see chaos, I am forced to take charge. Otherwise if I recognize competent decision-making, I am content to observe and go along. I cannot help it, as this is a compulsion, and it has been a part of my personality for as long as I can remember.

I have often been praised for my charisma and my confidence, but therein lies the problem: because I cannot allow dysfunction to perpetuate, I sometimes butt into situations where it is not my business, or I act impulsively because something must be done. But this problem can also be compounded because the people around me who cede leadership for the sake of ensuring action can sometimes get absorbed into my confidence and charisma, believing my conviction to be equivalent to the validity of my decisions, and thus enabling poor decisions that may as well turn out to be worse than no decisions.

I see where these problems with incompetent leaders arise even when they are not intentional. At best, one can hope that these leaders are capable of recognizing and humbly accepting their own limitations.

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#12

Post by Bulkington »

sharkweek wrote: post #3

I have a confession to make - I'm not a particularly good leader. I don't like managing people, and I'm not terribly interested in learning how to do this. I have seen good managers in action, and have been under a few on occasion; I am not one of these people. I do, however, have some very solid skills and have deployed them repeatedly at the handful of companies I have worked at in the past. My main concern is know…

I am a good leader, trained by a father who--I kid you not--had his children up before dawn to listen to the same motivational/management how-to tapes he listened to. Only, perhaps because of this, I have no interest in a management gig, mainly because (money aside) I'd rather be coding/writing/producing, and doing it well, than overseeing the production of others. And I've moved to larger companies as a producer because I also had successful managment experience at smaller orgs. But now I'm topped out--and to not accept the next level is a career DNR. I'm demonstrably good, but am I 3x salary better than a replacement? Good luck making that case. Meet the new boss...

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#13

Post by Thrillington »

geofft wrote: post #4

The more I read about this sort of thing (and read comments on these articles), the more I'm told that there are, in fact, innate gender differences, and the PC crowd is censoring important discussions. I'm starting to believe it, and I think that this article is an excellent example of the sort of politically-incorrect research we need to pay attention to.

This article doesn't even begin to posit "innate gender differences"

It shows a correlation in confidence displayed to gender, but social conditioning of either confidence display or confidence interpretation are as good an explanation as any innate differences. It's even supported by some research, so it's actually a stronger hypothesis than yours.

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#17

Post by ktRolster »

Nomentatus wrote: post #10

Research shows a very strong correlation between mere height and who ends up at the very height of corporate leadership. It's an ape thing, not a competence thing.

That is one of those "correlation is not causation" things. You need to dig deeper to find the actual causation. One of the best CEOs I've known was quite short.

For example, it could be that growing up tall gives you more confidence (because you are better at sports all the time), and more confidence makes it easier to rise in corporate leadership. But we don't know for sure until we study it more.

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#18

Post by trustfundbaby »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #8

Because 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.

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#19

Post by ktRolster »

sharkweek wrote: post #3

I have a confession to make - I'm not a particularly good leader. I don't like managing people, and I'm not terribly interested in learning how to do this. I have seen good managers in action, and have been under a few on occasion; I am not one of these people. I do, however, have some very solid skills and have deployed them repeatedly at the handful of companies I have worked at in the past. My main concern is know…

It's more likely you will get stuck under incompetent leadership, as your understanding of how to run a team increases, and eventually you'll be so frustrated, you'll agree to be the manager.

Re: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)

#20

Post by dba7dba »

k__ wrote: post #15

Also, decision making often works good if you don't know or care about the implications of your decisions. So the dumber you are, the easier it is to make a decision, which are needed in leadership.

Thing is when you are dealing with so many uncertainties, you can't speak with certainty.

Dumber people can't grasp all the variables involved in the decision making, so things look more black and white to them.

But smart people do grasp all the nuances and complexity involved. And their eyes can distinguish all 50 shades of gray or whatever, and thus they can't speak with uncertainly.

Best leader would be one who can grasp all of the variables, make a decision, and speak about it while hiding the feeling of uncertainty.

And this is why so many politicians are liars... They are not dumb. But they just get better at hiding and lying about true intentions...

We just can't win...

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