Bad bosses as a phenomenon

[pbrower2a]

How many of us have worked for a crappy boss? Too many, according to psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, who explores how narcissists and megalomaniacs rise to the top and the ways we can escape bad bosses in his new book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and how to fix it).

Chamorro-Premuzic’s solution is two-pronged: Employees must be willing to leave companies with bad bosses at the helm, and managers must avoid promoting people who exhibit the traits of bad bosses. When HuffPost asked if that meant some larger course correction for us all, Chamorro-Premuzic didn’t flinch: “I’m explicitly, and vehemently, and passionately arguing that we should discriminate against incompetent men who want to become leaders,” he said.

The book’s headline-grabbing title came from an article of the same name that Chamorro-Premuzic wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 2013, as a response to Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In.

Sandberg’s thesis felt “over-simplistic, to kind of blame women for not being promoted more or showing off their ambition and broadcasting their drive,” according to Chamorro-Premuzic. So he set out to change the conversation around leadership.
“Instead of asking women to act more like incompetent men, we [should] actually improve our evaluation criteria and focus on actual talent,” Chamorro-Premuzic said. “I think positive discrimination done as early as possible can help us get there faster.”
When his Harvard article went viral, Chamorro-Premuzic recognized he could mine the topic more deeply. The result is a book that delves into the data and the psychology of why we often glorify style-over-substance leadership.

When Chamorro-Premuzic sat down recently with HuffPost’s Between You and Me, he talked about what he called the “Trump effect” on people’s perception of leadership in America and around the world. He suggested that our cultural understandings (or perhaps misunderstandings) can drive us to expect leaders to look and sound a certain way: narcissistic, over-confident, megalomaniacal and insecure.

“[It’s] how I would label the gap between what we look for in leaders and what we should look for,” Chamorro-Premuzic explained. “I mean, most of the people that are seen intuitively or unconsciously as leadership material, especially in corporate America, they look a lot like Donald Trump. They may be slightly less exaggerated versions of Trump, but they have a lot in common.”


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/discrimin...4614dd5efc

[pbrower2a]

I notice a huge difference in American business practice in seeking out potential bosses. In th eold days, most businesses promoted from within. It was rare, to be sure, but it happened: people could start in the mail room or on the shop floor and advance through the hierarchy of management. People of talent got recognized for such even if they came from modest backgrounds. To be sure, management salaries were themselves modest by current standards, and advancement was slow and steady. But it was possible, much unlike the sit6uation with the low glass ceilings of advancement in contemporary America.

The executive might be fifty years old and earning perhaps ten times what someone in the mail room or on the shop floor was getting. This executive was too old to splurge on sports cars or a trophy wife. So his house would be paid off and his kids were going to college. Fine.

But look what the company got. Its executives knew what was going on down to the shop floor or the sales route. Those executives (probably GI) could treat subordinates well because they knew whence they came.

[Eric the Green]

I've known bad male bosses of companies, and bad male and female bosses of non-profits.

[David Horn]

(03-07-2019, 03:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I notice a huge difference in American business practice in seeking out potential bosses. In th eold days, most businesses promoted from within. It was rare, to be sure, but it happened: people could start in the mail room or on the shop floor and advance through the hierarchy of management. People of talent got recognized for such even if they came from modest backgrounds. To be sure, management salaries were themselves modest by current standards, and advancement was slow and steady. But it was possible, much unlike the sit6uation with the low glass ceilings of advancement in contemporary America.

The executive might be fifty years old and earning perhaps ten times what someone in the mail room or on the shop floor was getting. This executive was too old to splurge on sports cars or a trophy wife. So his house would be paid off and his kids were going to college. Fine.

But look what the company got. Its executives knew what was going on down to the shop floor or the sales route. Those executives (probably GI) could treat subordinates  well because they knew whence they came.

A dean of the Wharton School of Business apologized for educating an entire generation of business executives to do the wrong things.  He said they had not intended the result, offering examples of bad behavior by various companies over the years as teachable moments.  Unfortunately, the students learned that bad behavior pays off and is rarely punished.  Increased bad behavior grew from there

[pbrower2a]

(03-08-2019, 08:45 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-07-2019, 03:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I notice a huge difference in American business practice in seeking out potential bosses. In th eold days, most businesses promoted from within. It was rare, to be sure, but it happened: people could start in the mail room or on the shop floor and advance through the hierarchy of management. People of talent got recognized for such even if they came from modest backgrounds. To be sure, management salaries were themselves modest by current standards, and advancement was slow and steady. But it was possible, much unlike the sit6uation with the low glass ceilings of advancement in contemporary America.

The executive might be fifty years old and earning perhaps ten times what someone in the mail room or on the shop floor was getting. This executive was too old to splurge on sports cars or a trophy wife. So his house would be paid off and his kids were going to college. Fine.

But look what the company got. Its executives knew what was going on down to the shop floor or the sales route. Those executives (probably GI) could treat subordinates  well because they knew whence they came.

A dean of the Wharton School of Business apologized for educating an entire generation of business executives to do the wrong things.  He said they had not intended the result, offering examples of bad behavior by various companies over the years as teachable moments.  Unfortunately, the students learned that bad behavior pays off and is rarely punished.  Increased bad behavior grew from there

The original purpose of college education  -- liberal education -- was to improve the potential top leaders of society: clergy, the aristocracy, the professions, the military... college students learned Latin, but also that the Roman Empire was a decrepit, amoral society that collapsed of its own depravities. Being a good person is as essential to being a good leader as is knowing the tricks of the trade. The idea of spending time under some educational structure was to make sure that one believes in something valid, like responsibilities to others.

It is a myth that people can become pure nihilists believing in nothing. People who believe in supposedly nothing usually find one God -- themselves -- as an object of worship. Here is one nasty manifestation of believing only in self-gratification:

1. Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence!
   
2. Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams!
   
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-deceit!
   
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates!
   
5. Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!
   
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires!
   
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development," has become the most vicious animal of all!
   
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!
   
9. Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!
   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Bible

This is the sort of faith that to which the faithless gravitate. Sure, I am not a religious person, but if it takes some Deity to express some moral values that make life tolerable for vulnerable people (children, the poor, the infirm) then I am not going to get in the way of the expression of faith. The definitive atheist humanist, Bertrand Russell, recognized the need for principles beyond self-indulgence. Anton Szandor LaVey allegedly sought to free people from such principles.

It is arguable that abstinence creates capital, and that indulgence dissipates it. It is the sober society that can prosper in part because it has capital for investment and in part because sobriety precludes people from deluding themselves about the misery of their existence when life is rotten. The murky élan vital is practically a revival of the discredited concept of vitalism. One can be a good person without God or a bad person using God as a source for dubious power and authority. From my experience, hypocrisy is the norm and not the exception among most people because most of us must struggle to choose between Good and Evil -- and we are all flawed. The few non-hypocrites that there are are either literal saints or people proud of their wickedness.

Good reason exists for turning the other cheek -- really, walking out of or running away from dangerous situations in which fighting back is pointless. The problem with the gay-basher wasn't that I did not exude adequate expression of heterosexuality; it was that he thought it appropriate to beat up real or imagined gays because gays are... well, I don't swim in sewers. It's much like antisemitism which I have experienced because I fit three Jewish stereotypes well. One is a German-sounding surname, and the other two you have probably figured out by now. I've known Jews mostly as civilized, sophisticated, and moral people -- which is how I like to present myself anyway. I could never be a Nazi even if I likely have distant relatives who perpetrated the Holocaust. I have the surnames "Funk" and "Hess" among ancestral names, and my mother's maiden name is the original surname of a Hungarian general (of German origin) executed by Yugoslavia for mass murders of Jews and partisans. He was guilty.  

Who are the responsible? Those who exploit power with impunity (like Donald Trump) or those who believe that they have responsibilities to people living in undue hardship? In view of what we do to other creatures -- raising them as meat, caging them in zoos, hunting them as 'sport', exploiting them in circuses and similar spectacles, and killing them if they become nuisances -- does one want to see other humans as equals of animals? Speaking of Nazis -- they saw their human victims as beasts of burden at best, vermin to be extinguished at worst. I see nothing wrong with people developing a bond with a dog or a horse, but I see everything wrong with seeing people as 'lice' and gassing them with a substance infamous as an insecticide.


The classical Seven Deadly Sins (anger, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, and hubristic pride), to which I would add cruelty, cowardice, and deceit, are as deadly and dehumanizing as ever, even if our technology and economic means have changed the ways in which they make life awful or precarious. In view of the failure of our commercial enterprises and government bureaucracies to rein in the worst tendencies in human nature, maybe it is best that there be churches that try to improve human nature. 

.................


The early MBA model assumed that its graduates were some elite that had earned its entitlement to live far better than the worker who, in a climate of economic inequality and insecurity but dictatorial management would develop resentments that would make him wholly unsuited to responsible positions. The MBA grads would become an elite in their own right, something like a Soviet-style nomenklatura that lives very well without having to own the means of production. Bureaucratic power within a bloated for-profit entity has shown itself as a tool of exploitation, and bureaucratic elites in bloated organizations can be as exploitative as slave-owning planters.

In the meantime, the American economy did badly in starting new businesses in manufacturing. It was easier to import than to manufacture, so marketing flourished and production withered. Warehousing replaced assembly-line work. If one can get TVs made more cheaply in Mexico than in Fort Wayne, then the Fort Wayne plant shuts down.

It is unfortunate that the MBA experience did not look to the human realities of the boss-worker relationship. It may be unlikely from someone so secularist as I am to suggest that more religion would have made better executives -- but the MBA programs forced upon us some of the most soulless people who were not outright criminals. Who needs ethical values when one can live like a prince? Well, there is a good reason for universities popping up in medieval Europe. There is meaning and purpose in life beyond material indulgence and sensual delight.

We had other problems, including the loss of entrepreneurialism that made possible the small-scale businesses, veritable cottage industries that could bring prosperity a small town in the Midwest prosper. One thing is certain: MBA programs were generating bureaucratic elites capable of treating workers badly and seeing such as acceptable, and not generating small-scale entrepreneurs. Maybe the generational cycle will do for us what it has done in the past, compelling us to make the hard efforts for low yields that people must accept beyond immediate sustenance) in the long term. We will see people shamed, discredited, and ruined for bad behavior no matter how much cover they have in institutional power and personal wealth.

[Hintergrund]

Satanism? Get real. Many bosses are shitty assholes, but there's no reason to think Satan was involved.

[pbrower2a]

(03-23-2019, 08:20 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: Satanism? Get real. Many bosses are shitty assholes, but there's no reason to think Satan was involved.

I used Anton Szandor LaVey's genteel Satanism as an expression of much that is wrong in a narcissistic life. I'm not talking about people who simply do such disgusting things as torture-killings of helpless creatures as sacrifices to a horrible entity or seek to collaborate with demons who would destroy the world.

I see cruelty as a source and cause of much evil. I distinguish cruelty from 'tough love' that might be necessary for weaning people away from destructive habits. It is not mercy to facilitate alcoholism, drug use, sloth, compulsive gambling, or wasteful spending.

I was taking a swipe at Donald Trump by comparing his philosophy of life to the genteel Satanism of the late A S LaVey.

So what is my antithesis to LaVey?

1. I recognize abstinence as often necessary for greater, and more satisfying indulgence.
2. The spiritual life, to the extent that it creates meaning in life, is a desirable thing.
3. All purported wisdom needs tests to establish its validity.
4. Kindness offers its own rewards.
5. Vengeance is a desperate act best done rarely and only when all alternatives are ruled out.
6. The 'psychic vampires' obviously excluded, responsibility is an essential part of personal growth and development.
7. The privileged position of Humanity is essential to a good world for ourselves.
8. (first of all, I don't put all human foibles into one catch-all category of 'sin'; 'sin' includes such a minor offense as overeating and the perpetration of genocide) -- all of the classical descriptions of 'sin' imply their potential for destructiveness.
9. An entity intent on turning all persons into slaves or destroying Humanity is something from which to run.

LaVey is about getting away with bad behavior.

[beechnut79]

The reason there are a lot of bad bosses is obviously because they know they can get away with us because, thanks to right to work and at will legislation, they know that the law is on their side. When unions were stronger they usually had to have a just cause to fire somebody, even if you weren’t union. While some unions may have gone too far in protecting those they probably shouldn’t have, the axis now has been tilted too far the other way. We need to move towards a model where an employer would need a just cause to fire somebody. Yet no one is talking about this.

[sbarrera]

(09-03-2020, 10:13 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: The reason there are a lot of bad bosses is obviously because they know they can get away with us because, thanks to right to work and at will legislation, they know that the law is on their side. When unions were stronger they usually had to have a just cause to fire somebody, even if you weren’t union. While some unions may have gone too far in protecting those they probably shouldn’t have, the axis now has been tilted too far the other way. We need to move towards a model where an employer would need a just cause to fire somebody. Yet no one is talking about this.

I see you brought this up in a different thread, pointing out that 'at will' is a uniquely American phenomenom. It ties into the idea of the U.S. being at heart an entrepreneurial, commercial society. I want to add another idea, which I recently encountered because I have been getting into personality types, which is that personalities who aren't people-oriented (colloquially, "assholes") tend to rise to the top in the corporate world. This could be exacerbated by the above feature of American life. However I should note that people-oriented personalities make the best middle managers, so there should be plenty of good bosses according to theories of personality type.

[pbrower2a]

(09-03-2020, 10:13 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: The reason there are a lot of bad bosses is obviously because they know they can get away with us because, thanks to right to work and at will legislation, they know that the law is on their side. When unions were stronger they usually had to have a just cause to fire somebody, even if you weren’t union. While some unions may have gone too far in protecting those they probably shouldn’t have, the axis now has been tilted too far the other way. We need to move towards a model where an employer would need a just cause to fire somebody. Yet no one is talking about this.

Over the last forty years we have had an ethos that requires mass poverty for maximal growth in the economic gain of elites -- landowners (both big farmers and urban landlords), tycoons, and executives. Plenty of low-paying jobs have been created, and the educational system seems dedicated to preparing people for such work. Consider No Child Left Behind: it effectively homogenizes the K-12 experience for kids so that they will be well prepared to be retail clerks, warehouse workers, fast-food workers, low-level mechanics, cleaners, and agricultural workers. So anyone who graduates from K-12 education can get a job, but that job has poverty as a reward. Teachers are teaching to the test, and whatever isn't necessary for the test gets shoved aside.

Obviously this level of teaching and education is well suited to churning out people who do cr@ppy jobs and have no idea of what to do with their lives off the job. There is no room for culture -- or any advanced learning. I'm not going to deny that we need plenty of retail clerks, warehouse workers, fast-food workers, low-level mechanics, cleaners, and agricultural workers, and that plenty of people can never legitimately aspire to anything more complicated in life. On the other hand, Man does not live by bread alone, and vegetating in front of the idiot screen while eating chips and drinking mass-market beer because one has no idea of anything better to do except to visit relatives and maybe take a trip to an amusement park every couple of years isn't what someone with any imagination and intelligence would want to do. 

An aside: I have gone to some mass-market retailers of electronics to audition some stereo speakers (mine are now 25 years old)... and all that those places will let me listen to is country (which seems to sound alike whatever one plays it on) or rap (which isn't music). I had a neat trick, which was to use a work for string quartet (two violins, a viola, and a cello) which sounds as if it would offer little total variety... of course that group of instruments is the proportion of the bulk of the symphony orchestra. I listen (as if you hadn't guessed) to huge amounts of classical music, and if a string quartet does not sound good on a pair of speakers, then what else will sound good? 

The idea, I suppose, is that most of us are expected to live cr@ppy lives so that a few people can live like sultans. We are to share crowded apartments, watch or listen to numbingly-awful entertainment, eat cr@ppy food and drink cr@ppy beverages... in the name of prosperity. If that is what is meant by prosperity, then I'm ready to go back to the 1950's. If you think that the 1950's were conformist, then think of how ugly the reality is now.  OK, kids with talent in the K-12 system might as well train for something better and develop a knack for finding individual happiness -- except that the system has such low, rigid glass ceilings that the system must waste such talent. So maybe you watch PBS on television instead of more vapid entertainment. 

The system is good at creating equality among the proles -- equality at a very low level, and as long as the proles don't see the pleasure palaces of the very rich they may have the illusion that they are living in an equitable world. Reality is anything but equitable.  

OK... dull-normal people might be perfectly happy vegetating in front of the idiot screen while getting obese on chips and mass-market beer as a reward for doing mind-numbing, soul-crushing toil. But I see a pattern in one entity that demands that workers live such a life. I occasionally see them on break -- taking some puffs on a cigarette. How awful!

That sort of equality suggests something characteristic of 1984...and, yes, at least one part of the political spectrum uses plenty of Newspeak to pretend that life is wonderful when it is in fact miserable. But one is obliged to smile.  

End of rant.

[sbarrera]

pbrower, you cranky old Boomer, are clearly disappointed with the culture that came out of the Awakening/Unraveling. As an Xer who grew up on junk food and bad TV, I think there is much to be praised about modern culture. I think there is a lot of excellent TV, film and music being made these days. I greatly appreciate the mutli-faceted nature of the current cultural landscape. And the foodie trend has given us a lot more food options, it's not all procssed food in stores these days. In fact, I have been eating more healthily in the pandemic because I prepare all meals at home now.

I will concede that it is more difficult for those who are poor, who can't afford higher-end food or a lot of options for entertainment. But there is a contingent of middle-class people left in our society who are not miserable and enjoy a diverse and rewarding culture.

That's my counter-rant.

[pbrower2a]

(09-05-2020, 02:09 PM)sbarrera Wrote: pbrower, you cranky old Boomer, are clearly disappointed with the culture that came out of the Awakening/Unraveling. As an Xer who grew up on junk food and bad TV, I think there is much to be praised about modern culture. I think there is a lot of excellent TV, film and music being made these days. I greatly appreciate the mutli-faceted nature of the current cultural landscape. And the foodie trend has given us a lot more food options, it's not all processed food in stores these days. In fact, I have been eating more healthily in the pandemic because I prepare all meals at home now.

No denial on cinema and television. On the other hand, one needs pay cable to get it.  If one must rely upon network TV one sees schlock that HBO would not touch. I'm not really complaining about pre-packaged entrees in stores. If one is to have any diversity in cuisine, then zapping something in the microwave may be better than some awful alternative.   

  

Quote:I will concede that it is more difficult for those who are poor, who can't afford higher-end food or a lot of options for entertainment. But there is a contingent of middle-class people left in our society who are not miserable and enjoy a diverse and rewarding culture.

That's my counter-rant.

Maybe I need to become less full of myself and start appreciating country or rap. Naw.

[Eric the Green]

(09-05-2020, 02:09 PM)sbarrera Wrote: pbrower, you cranky old Boomer, are clearly disappointed with the culture that came out of the Awakening/Unraveling. As an Xer who grew up on junk food and bad TV, I think there is much to be praised about modern culture. I think there is a lot of excellent TV, film and music being made these days. I greatly appreciate the mulii-faceted nature of the current cultural landscape. And the foodie trend has given us a lot more food options, it's not all processed food in stores these days. In fact, I have been eating more healthily in the pandemic because I prepare all meals at home now.

I will concede that it is more difficult for those who are poor, who can't afford higher-end food or a lot of options for entertainment. But there is a contingent of middle-class people left in our society who are not miserable and enjoy a diverse and rewarding culture.

That's my counter-rant.

Your opinion is noted. I am glad you are eating better. Thank goodness for small mercies indeed. 

Myself, I generally don't see any reason to think much of current culture. For one thing, the only thing available now on broadcast TV are programs from decades ago, or lousy reality TV. In the past, culture was available without having to sign up and pay extra for every show. That to me in itself is very poor culture, regardless of my income. That's not culture to me. And from what little I have surmised about what's on pay TV, it doesn't impress me. Movies don't impress me. It's all too violent and superficial. Current popular music is generally abominable, and has been for over 30 years. At its best, it is just OK. There are exceptions, in my opinion, but the exceptions prove the rule. My challenge stands: show me any pop music since the mid-1970s that equals or surpasses the one in my signature line. Of course, my opinion is final on that one    Overall, I think the 21st century basically remains to begin, culturally OR politically. It is a big fat ZERO. Let's hope it finally starts in 2021.

Unlike Brower though, I am certain that the high point of pop music was the mid 1960s, or the stretch of years from 1963 to 1973, from folk classics, early Motown and surf to The Who's Quadrophenia, which encompassed the period. All this does not make me miserable, necessarily, because there's good culture to be found, but it is only on the fringes, and not what most people are familiar with or even understand at all. There are some good documentaries and non-fiction books around, and for all I know some good fiction ones too. And there's always living in the past! Remember, ours is the only epoch in which we have access to all of it, from every civilization. Too bad it does not inspire us to rise to its standard. We are too cynical, too practical and conservative, and way too materialist. There is no great culture without divine inspiration.

Disagreement is expected

[Eric the Green]

(03-07-2019, 02:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: How many of us have worked for a crappy boss? Too many, according to psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, who explores how narcissists and megalomaniacs rise to the top and the ways we can escape bad bosses in his new book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and how to fix it).

Chamorro-Premuzic’s solution is two-pronged: Employees must be willing to leave companies with bad bosses at the helm, and managers must avoid promoting people who exhibit the traits of bad bosses. When HuffPost asked if that meant some larger course correction for us all, Chamorro-Premuzic didn’t flinch: “I’m explicitly, and vehemently, and passionately arguing that we should discriminate against incompetent men who want to become leaders,” he said.

The book’s headline-grabbing title came from an article of the same name that Chamorro-Premuzic wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 2013, as a response to Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In.

Sandberg’s thesis felt “over-simplistic, to kind of blame women for not being promoted more or showing off their ambition and broadcasting their drive,” according to Chamorro-Premuzic. So he set out to change the conversation around leadership.
“Instead of asking women to act more like incompetent men, we [should] actually improve our evaluation criteria and focus on actual talent,” Chamorro-Premuzic said. “I think positive discrimination done as early as possible can help us get there faster.”
When his Harvard article went viral, Chamorro-Premuzic recognized he could mine the topic more deeply. The result is a book that delves into the data and the psychology of why we often glorify style-over-substance leadership.

When Chamorro-Premuzic sat down recently with HuffPost’s Between You and Me, he talked about what he called the “Trump effect” on people’s perception of leadership in America and around the world. He suggested that our cultural understandings (or perhaps misunderstandings) can drive us to expect leaders to look and sound a certain way: narcissistic, over-confident, megalomaniacal and insecure.

“[It’s] how I would label the gap between what we look for in leaders and what we should look for,” Chamorro-Premuzic explained. “I mean, most of the people that are seen intuitively or unconsciously as leadership material, especially in corporate America, they look a lot like Donald Trump. They may be slightly less exaggerated versions of Trump, but they have a lot in common.”


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/discrimin...4614dd5efc

Totally agree. I think I posted the paragon of the boss in our world today. We defer to them, bend over backward to please their selfish cravings, on pain of being banished. And this applies to churches and non-profits, corporations and small business, and government, especially of the Trump variety. Here is Donald Trump personified in all his power and glory.

[pbrower2a]

Well, it looks as if the worst boss in America has been fired.