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Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

entropicthoughts.com

251–258 of 258 posts

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#251
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The insight is that there is no possible stable structure for human society

that’s what you should take away

there is no solution there’s no answer

the insight is that you should stop working on the problem because it’s intractable

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - Performance reviews are important legally, it's the only company IP you're entitled to take with you when you leave etc, so this is where you can have evidence of specific projects etc. Also - If you write the PR you want to get and give to your manager, the burden of effort falls on the manager to correct it where they disagree. If your manager writes it, the burden of effort falls on the manager to comprehensi…

> Performance reviews are (...) the only company IP you're entitled to take with you when you leave etc, so this is where you can have evidence of specific projects etc. Wait what? I never heard about this in nearly two decades of working. Is this jurisdiction specific or a general case? You'd think this would be no. 1 thing advice given to new joiners, or given by career couches, or given in all these threads where…

> Wait what? I never heard about this in nearly two decades of working. Is this jurisdiction specific or a general case?

It was a surprise to me too!!! I heard this from my employment attorney in Massachusetts USA.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#253
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say something like this it usually means “I don’t want to dictate your job to you. You’re here because you’re smart, ambitious, and capable. We’ve talked at length in team settings and 1:1 about our goals. What do you think are the problems that need attention, and what solutions do you propose?” The anti-pattern I’ve seen from some folks is that they never want to propose solutions because then it’s someone e…

> When I say something like this it usually means… Yes, exactly. This isn’t “do my job for me”, this is “do the job you have, and solve the problems you should be able to solve”. It’s also, at times, “pointing at fires is junior shit - find a fire extinguisher while you call 911.”

I love the way you phrased this.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#254
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

I don't know man. I agree that transfer of resources are always mixed with incentives and power asymmetries, no questions about that. But "corrupted" (as opposed to "risks of being corrupted") is a word that means in my parlor "illegitimate and norm-breaking".

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#255
post #248
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't matter what I consider a conflict. The fact is someone went to their boss with a conflict because it rose above their threshold of what a conflict is. If one of the parties involved feels there is a conflict in need of mediation, then there is a conflict in need of mediation. Very likely the issue is that the second party didn't realize what they said would cause conflict, which is exactly why the boss should be talking to them.

No one is saying that the boss should be looking for and trying to mediate "conflicts" no one wants them to resolve.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#256
post #255
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It doesn't matter what I consider a conflict. The fact is someone went to their boss with a conflict because it rose above their threshold of what a conflict is. If one of the parties involved feels there is a conflict in need of mediation, then there is a conflict in need of mediation. Very likely the issue is that the second party didn't realize what they said would cause conflict, which is exactly why the boss sho…

I’m pretty sure the top comment thread was edited because I can’t figure out what we’re debating.

I think the original comment said something to the effect of “employees shouldn’t ever resolve their own conflict, their boss should do it for them”.

I was only trying to illustrate that there are some people out there who are incredibly sensitive and will make a conflict out of the color shoes you’re wearing. Sometimes it’s good to empower an employee to speak their mind about their coworkers hideous color shoes, no need to force boss man to relay the message.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#257
Really cool blog. I have been thinking about this recently as I was a center piece of our startup, and to me the hardest part of giving away responsibilities has been 2 phase: firstly that suddenly I feel like I am not in control, and second that people are spending time on things they don't like and because of that we are not leveraging their true potential/string sides (moneyball).

Curious to hear what other think about that - should you leave people focus only on their strong sides, or they should still help out with e2e things.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#258
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

You should look up something called the "Rehn–Meidner model:"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehn%E2%80%93Meidner_model

Sounds similar to what you're asking for.

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