Transparent leadership beats servant leadership • Hacker News Board

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#241

Post by azemetre » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 1:27 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #237

azemetre wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about the idea of workplace democracy? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy

I think it’s a weak form of a mutual cooperative - which unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to defeat a state-billionaire backed corporation in the market.

I guess I don't know what you prefer, I'm guessing anarchy in the academic sense?

But I want to add, that workplace democracy would be turning the billionaire owned companies into democracies themselves. That is the goal of economic democracy at least, changing the fiefdoms into democracies can't be a worse system.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#242

Post by divan » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 1:27 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #232

divan wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at sports federations (especially in Europe, not in US). They're primarily funded by membership fees, some survived over century, and while they have some governance issues (like conflict of interest due to wearing two hats – regulatory function and event organiszing one), it would be a strong claim to say that they're corrupted by their roots/nature.

In fact one of my close friends is a co-owner of the Kraken Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires - like the amount of discussion around who is the owner is a significant portion of sports reporting The only exception I know off the top of my head I believe is the Packers are community owned but even then I would be skeptical as to how the power dynamics play out in practice

> Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires

My question was about sports federations, and not about leagues and commercial clubs (and definitely not in US). Take FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) for example, or smaller European national and regional federations.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#243

Post by divan » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 1:28 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #231

divan wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ask sources of funding are corrupted What does it mean, exactly? (I assume it's a typo - s/ask/all/, "all sources funding are corrupted")?

Yes its a typo - should’ve been “all”

> all sources of funding are corrupted

Still, what does it mean? Why all sources of funding are "corrupted"?

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#244

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #241

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a weak form of a mutual cooperative - which unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to defeat a state-billionaire backed corporation in the market.

I guess I don't know what you prefer, I'm guessing anarchy in the academic sense? But I want to add, that workplace democracy would be turning the billionaire owned companies into democracies themselves. That is the goal of economic democracy at least, changing the fiefdoms into democracies can't be a worse system.

I don’t prefer anything

At the most basic biological level the human species can’t organize action larger than a few hundred people in any kind of coherent way.

There are no coherent organizations that are larger than a few hundred people.

It is a biological impossibility for the human species to maintain long lasting (thousands of years) groups that can have social structures that last long enough to encode genetic fitness changes at the rate of environmental change.,

We do not have the ability to comfortably maintain coherent heirarchies, and subordinated structures, around a coherent epistemological grounding.

Humans are not eusocial.

I just fundamentally don’t see any future for the species level organization whatsoever

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#245

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

divan wrote: post #243

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes its a typo - should’ve been “all”

> all sources of funding are corrupted Still, what does it mean? Why all sources of funding are "corrupted"?

That means there does not exist a mechanism for one person or group, who has excess resources to reliably transfer those resources to another group in a way that does not have an implied return or reward function of some sort to the giver

Because of the nature of this transactional process it corrupts any possible transfer of power

So consolidated power in any form, is not equitable and the state of physics doesn’t allow for another regime. It’s a munchausen trilemma

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#246

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

divan wrote: post #242

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact one of my close friends is a co-owner of the Kraken Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires - like the amount of discussion around who is the owner is a significant portion of sports reporting The only exception I know off the top of my head I believe is the Packers are community owned but even then I would be skeptical as to how the power dynamics play out in practice

> Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires My question was about sports federations, and not about leagues and commercial clubs (and definitely not in US). Take FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) for example, or smaller European national and regional federations.

You could point to any organization smaller than 1000 people is being reasonably coherent I don’t think that this is relevant for the context we were discussing the Amish also doing a pretty good job and maintaining stable community but they are irrelevant

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#247

Post by jjk166 » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #218

jjk166 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a manager is handling (almost) all disputes of all sorts, then they will fundamentally lack authority to enforce an outcome on a real dispute. They simply are too involved because resolution requires you to take some sort of side. Bullshit. Being a routine mediator makes you a better mediator when big things come up, not a worse one. It means you are in tune with the particular needs and idiosyncrasies of the pe…

Bad mediators meditate everything. Good mediators focus on the intractible.

Exactly the opposite.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#248

Post by cj » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #188

chowells wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handling negative feedback on a PR is a necessary skill for a developer. A manager should only get involved if it becomes hostile. Negative is very far from hostile.

Handling negative feedback doesn't involve going to anybody - neither the manager, nor the person who gave the PR. Someone giving negative feedback is not supposed to be a conflict in need of resolution. We are talking about a situation where there is a conflict that needs to be resolved, ie that it has already become hostile. If they are going to their manager, and then the manager, rather than convincing them that…

> We are talking about a situation where there is a conflict that needs to be resolved

You’re overlooking the fact that your threshold for what a “conflict” is might be different from the next person’s.

There’s no universally “correct” way to label whether something is a conflict or not. People have varying perceptions.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#249

Post by divan » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 11:39 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #246

divan wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires My question was about sports federations, and not about leagues and commercial clubs (and definitely not in US). Take FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) for example, or smaller European national and regional federations.

You could point to any organization smaller than 1000 people is being reasonably coherent I don’t think that this is relevant for the context we were discussing the Amish also doing a pretty good job and maintaining stable community but they are irrelevant

What context are you discussing? Parent comment talks about "all organisations".

You know what, forget it. I thought you have some interesting/insightful framework and thoughts about power/structures in organisations and happy to share it.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#250

Post by ep103 » Sun, Dec 07, 2025, 12:32 AM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #241

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a weak form of a mutual cooperative - which unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to defeat a state-billionaire backed corporation in the market.

I guess I don't know what you prefer, I'm guessing anarchy in the academic sense? But I want to add, that workplace democracy would be turning the billionaire owned companies into democracies themselves. That is the goal of economic democracy at least, changing the fiefdoms into democracies can't be a worse system.

I have always been in favor of changing the definition if incorporation to ensure that over time ownership transfers slowly but increasingly to the employees of the corporate entity. How that would work, though, would require detailed thought by experts more knowledgeable than i :)