18 ms·

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

239 points by hollaur 10y ago

uranian 10y ago
Because the skill to become a leader in this world has nothing to do with being competent. Some of the characteristics you need to become a leader are: be an excellent lyer, have a good pair of elbows, a desire for power and/or money, fit in the world of wealthy people that are in power, etc.. What do you expect from people with these characteristics? Competence?
ommunist 10y ago
Because "to lead" is their only scope. and since the number of seats is limited, its not about gender. Some men are just more equal.
sharkweek 10y ago
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 knowing that down the road I'm probably going to get "stuck" in my career when I'm not interested in moving up and running a team. It seems like a trend lately to praise the IC and promise them the moon and stars, but I think this is mostly lip service to keep them around.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  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.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    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.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      I would not call this trait of yours leadership, I would simply call it a personality trait. It, by itself won't make you a good leader. I'm still wrapping my brain around the concept, but I conceive of leadership as a broad collection of social skills oriented around driving an organization of people towards a goal. One needs vision, persuasion, strategy, a certain ability to see and work with the darker side of human nature, emotional maturity, and probably more. All of these need to be identified, worked on, and refined over the course of a lifetime. There's just so much to being a leader that it can literally be a life's work. It's so fascinating to watch different organizations being led by different people. Anybody can run an organization, effectively leading it is another thing entirely. You can see the leadership style of Donald Trump just doesn't work very well at all in the Office of the President of the United States, it's essentially causing a mutiny in the rest of the executive branch. Organizations are products of the people at the top, and develop inertia of their own. Leaders have to manage this inertia, Trump is used to operating very quickly, but the Executive Branch of the US Government is a massive ship to steer. Time will tell if Trump is up to the task of getting the ship in order.
- Bulkington 10y ago
  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...
- ktRolster 10y ago
  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.
- xjwm 10y ago
  I feel like the terms leadership and management are often used interchangeability in business, but they aren't the same thing. You can provide leadership without being a manager. In your case, it sounds like a team could benefit from your past experiences. You could easily mentor and teach others, and provide guidance for projects. That doesn't necessarily require performing traditional "management" functions. It would all hinge on what your corporate culture supports and expects from people in charge.
- VLM 10y ago
  Abandon the concept of a career and contract? That helps with ageism too. I'm not sure the concept of a career track exists outside management.
geofft 10y ago
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.
- Thrillington 10y ago
  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.
  - sebastos 10y ago
    Seems to me you're playing hide the ball a bit here. If it's the case that society conditions men to display confidence, then aren't we left to explain why _that_ might be the case? Why doesn't society condition women to be the more confident? How did we get here? The null hypothesis would probably be that innate gender differences created the current sociological environment, creating a chicken and egg problem. This reminds me of the argument that women's under-representation in STEM fields begins during childhood when we condition them with toys that don't encourage spatial reasoning. This claim leaves a gigantic dangling question of "Why are toy companies and parents so damn bad at understanding what little girls want to play with?" The literature supports the intuitive truth of the matter: girls and boys find their toy affinities on their own without much input from society. Incidentally, I think most people are morally taking the wrong tack when it comes to this kind of stuff. If you make a value judgment that having an affinity for leadership or spatial reasoning is Good, then you are no longer free to interpret the actual world without worrying that the data will show men are Better (or Worse). Why can't we accept men and women as they are, and stop pre-supposing equality of all measurements that we might consider desirable? If it turns out that men are naturally suited to taking leadership roles, who cares? It takes all kinds to make a functional society, and in the scheme of things, leaders are a tiny thread in that tapestry. I find the role of leader or mathematician to be equally valuable to artist, baker, carpenter, fashion designer, grocer, mother or father. Each of them is a valuable member of society that should earn a fundamental human dignity. In my view, admonishing women to pursue engineering is equally repugnant to demanding they avoid it! Let's encourage all of the women who find engineering or mathematics irresistible, but avoid fretting about the many who don't!
Animats 10y ago
Summary: "We commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence". See "Assholes, a Theory" (2014). Despite the title, this is a serious book and well worth reading. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/0804171351 https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/080417...
- gozur88 10y ago
  It's probably a pretty good strategy to use if you have nothing else to go on.
  - oblio 10y ago
    It's a good strategy to use even if you have something else to go on :)
ipnon 10y ago
Is "leadership" pure ideology?
- xjwm 10y ago
  I think leadership gets tagged with buzzwords like 'vision' and 'synergy' and gets made to look idealistic, but the skill of motivating people to work towards a shared goal is a very tangible concept.
pfarnsworth 10y ago
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 like an asshole, even when you are completely factual. It's sad but fascinating at the same time.
- trustfundbaby 10y ago
  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.
  - trhway 10y ago
    >if you're a minority or a woman for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it takes time.
    - jcranmer 10y ago
      The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon--arising only around the time of agriculture. Even subsequent to the development of agricultures, plenty of civilizations have practiced matrilineal succession, with no apparent cost to their dealings with neighboring societies (indeed, some even flourished at the expense of others--consider the Iroquois, for example).
      - deleted 10y ago
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trentnix 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle From the link: The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter and published in 1969. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."
- Kluny 10y ago
  I don't think you read the article.
Nomentatus 10y ago
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.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  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.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    If you watch a high school cafeteria for one hour you know exactly why taller people are promoted to leadership. The same reason they tend to be whiter, a little better looking, more athletic. Interesting paradox: for Men, girth is actually good. Carry a few extra pounds, and it's good. For women - inverse. Skinny women earn more. Think of this: every single social interaction you have - with the guy at the watercooler, to meetings, to presentations - everyone is 'sizing each other up' subconciously. They are determining where they belong in the pecking order. Usually only from observable traits.
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      I agree. Unconscious bias is real. I was far shorter than average until about 15, and well taller than average thereafter. So I found out first hand, quite suddenly, just how much different other people's reactions were to me. When human growth hormone first became available, medically-short teens given it grew considerably and almost uniformly suffered from depression. There previous ways of interacting with people just didn't work anymore. (also from Keyes book)
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    Well, the data set is huge, so it's not coincidence. And it's unlikely that promotions cause people to grow. I was once at the opening of a Picasso exhibition where most of the people present were CEOs, and at the same place, I also attended the opening of a exhibition of Yousuf Karsh photos, where he was appeared. I'm tall, but I was nearly the shortest person in that large room both times. The only two times that's ever happened to me. As for causation, it's been experimentally tested and confirmed, with small groups picking leaders. There's a great old book retailing many remarkable such studies called "The Height of Your Life" by Ralph Keyes. It also discussed research showing that a substantial chunk of sex discrimination was actually height discrimination (see Sheryl Sandberg's remarkably high heels - she knows the score.) You said I should dig deeper - I've given you my bibliography, could you now favor me with yours?
amjaeger 10y ago
Article does not present and solutions to picking a good leader and avoiding the issues mentioned in the article. Unless the advice is "only elect female leaders" - which also seems broken.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  How about avoiding those with personality traits which the article says make incompetent people look competent: psychopaths, narcissists, risk seekers,the over-confident, the arrogant, the manipulative, etc.? Some women have these traits too, so discriminating by sex isn't the answer.
- deleted 10y ago
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k__ 10y ago
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.
- dba7dba 10y ago
  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...
sparrish 10y ago
It's because of the "Peter principle" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle "employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively"... that's at the "Leader" level for so many.
- Kluny 10y ago
  I don't think you read the article.
- mulmen 10y ago
  In a way I find the Dilbert Principle [1] more encouraging because it implies promotion is based on what will improve the overall productivity of the group. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle
battlebot 10y ago
Another backhanded dig at Trump, perhaps? Listen, Trump may be a lot of things, but he's not incompetent. And here's the most important thing that he is not: A drinker. He doesn't drink. That makes him different than pretty much every other politician in DC. The are all drunks and worse. And if you've ever dealt with a drunk, you know something very important: Alcoholics are all liars. That, above all, is the problem with our political leadership. Simply having strict drug and alcohol screenings in order to be elected would go a long ways towards cleaning up government and politics.
belorn 10y ago
As I often see in this kind of theory based articles, it is missing some basic experiments through which we can test and investigate the theory. So if the issue is the inability to discern between confidence and competence, it should be relative easy to create a experiment through a double blind study where 50% of the participants are trained in behaving confident around their peers. Then we the study observe, first through experimental environment and then through a longer life-time study, and see if the result differ. A question that arise is also how society treats men with below average confidence. Do they have higher or lower chance to be perceived as leaders compared to women with the same level of confidence? If they have less (a common theme in gender studies), we would again find a distribution where a minority portion of men are at top and have a higher chance than women to be leaders, with the majority of men below with a worse chance. This should also be fairly easy to test in an experimental setting.
- deleted 10y ago
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jondubois 10y ago
I find that confidence is really powerful, even among engineers (who you would think are rational). I noticed that some engineers can come across as extremely smart because they talk fast and can think fast - Also, they are really good at defending their ideas when put on the spot but if you dig deeper afterwards you might often find that while their solution is good, it's not the best one. It always takes time to come up with optimum engineering solutions - It's not something that just pops into your head in a millisecond whist having a casual technical discussion - No matter how smart you are. The history of software development (with all of its failed projects) is proof that even great engineers have difficult coming up with optimum ideas.
- sebastos 10y ago
  +1 for the fast-talking engineer phenomenon. I think quickness of thought is a fitness that can be exercised, mostly orthogonally to deep thought. We all eventually find someone who thinks and talks faster than ourselves, but indeed we also eventually become that person to another. If you find yourself feeling like you're 10 steps ahead, the best thing to do is give ample room for your conversational foil to express their thoughts. If they disagree, don't immediately assume it's because they haven't considered everything. You should go in with the good faith assumption that they intuitively see a corner case you haven't considered, and then work collaboratively with them to put their objection into words. After all, if there is a problem, it will rear its head eventually, whether or not you can "win" the argument!
  - dandersh 10y ago
    The most important thing is being open to the fact that you will be wrong. I've lost track of the number of times I have machine gunned out ideas/solutions only to have parts (or even all of it) picked apart by myself or others. Your final point is the most important. Ultimately the process should be about solving the problem in the best manner possible, not how person X thinks it should be solved.
stupidcar 10y ago
One of the most interesting facts in Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order was that the most primordial form of human social groupings, small bands of hunter gatherers, are organised along egalitarian and democratic lines, without any recognisable leader. There may be an individual who the other members of the band listen to more than others, but only due to their proven experience and wisdom. And there is no concept of authority, e.g. the ability to enforce a decision upon people against their better judgement. More complex forms of social organisation and hierarchy are inventions, and relatively recent ones. I suspect that is why they so often display these kinds of dysfunctions. As a species, we haven't yet evolved the skills necessary to behave optimally in situations where we have to engage in constant non-violent negotiations with strangers over issues of power, authority, friendship, employment, sex, etc. Instead, we try to create institutions that enforce an optimum solution, but this produces a circular problem, because these institutions are prey to the same dysfunctions.
- ue_ 10y ago
  Anyone interested in organising along these principles might look at anarcho-primitivism or even anarchism. Recommended reading is Bakunin (What is Property?), Kropotkin (The Conquest of Bread) and pretty much anything by Emma Goldman.
- omalleyt 10y ago
  Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. Therefore, when the best hunter in the group brought home a large animal, he shared it with all. Likewise, there were few physical possessions or need for such, and so these were shared too. But egalitarian? Not a chance. Studies show that even modern hunters expend enormous energy and risk their lives hunting over the real prize: access to mates.
  - undersuit 10y ago
    >Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. The diversity of cured meats around the world makes this statement suspect. I don't see an agrarian society taking time to discover how to cure meat... why would they, grain stores easier. Yet every culture has various kinds of preserved meat; Pemmican, European sausages, Kiviak, Hongeohoe, etc.
justin_vanw 10y ago
I would say that it's not that incompetent men become leaders. Certainly men are over-represented, but I would wager that woman leaders are no more competent on average. The truth is almost everyone is incompetent and leaders get more scrutiny.
- Shubley 10y ago
  That's actually a good point. Everyone is incompetent; we just don't have a way of filtering that in our leaders. Possibly because the people selecting those leaders are incompetent too. It's incompetence all the way down.
  - tejasmanohar 10y ago
    This is a great example of Peter Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle). "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."
- rhizome 10y ago
  Pursuant to the topic, though, leadership pays more and therefore is populated by sexist men hiring each other. Emergent properties.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    >Pursuant to the topic, though, leadership pays more and therefore is populated by sexist men hiring each other. Is there any evidence this is true?
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Occam's Razor points to The Iron Law of Oligarchies/Institutions much more than "bad luck."
      - gozur88 10y ago
NTDF9 10y ago
>> In other words, what it takes to get the job is not just different from, but also the reverse of, what it takes to do the job well Did it take this long to figure out that most processes in the world don't select the people for the job? Think about the following: - SAT score based admissions (numbers matter) - Tech Job interviews (number of problems solved, mistakes made, time taken to solve matters) - Data driven Quarterly metrics and performance reviews (stupid metrics matter) - Running for Presidency (Count of votes matter) - Winning at WoW (Kills matter) I can easily see most of these processes as a game. It involves a "System" and "Scoring in that system". The ones who win the game don't necessary do post-game activities better, unless the system selects for that. I don't know...don't they teach this in MBA classes anymore?
id122015 10y ago
They become micromanagers not leaders. Its a political problem. When voting is rigged it happens that those who get benefits vote for those incompetent. And those incompetent promise free benefits to obtain votes. Vicious circle.
- mulmen 10y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with this. Are you saying all voting is rigged? Also not all incompetent managers are micro-managers, I have had problems with managers that are uninvolved as well. It may be possible for a candidate to gain votes by promising free benefits (or even non-free benefits) to their constituents and then actually grant those benefits. I would not describe that situation as a problem because that's exactly how representative democracy is supposed to work. I don't see how rigged voting implies incompetence or that incompetence implies rigged voting. Also, I nave never seen a business setting that had elections, rigged or not. In the cases where I have been faced with incompetent managers their constituents (employees/reports) would have voted them out at the nearest opportunity. Is this the rigged system to which you refer?
  - id122015 10y ago
    There are a lot of facts that need to be explained but I'll try to tell you the ideas in a few paragraphs. I cant summarise a whole stack of books in such a short time. Representative Democracy: Do you understand by that a contract between people where those who never paid a cent in tax but receive free benefits have the right to vote ? Maybe that will answer the question about how incompetent managers raise to the top. Business Have you not heard about how the leader of Mozilla? or some other company has been voted out because he expressed his ideas about sexuality ? Or are you not familiar with how a company traded by shares is GOVERNED by a board of directors ? Cisco founder has been fired, thats an example of how elections work in a business. Maybe you should watch The Office movies to understand how and why incompetent people are given manager positions. Its a comedy and the main actor plays very well the incompetent manager. There are also some serials where voting is involved but the manager does all he can do go his own way.
holladollas 10y ago
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- rhizome 10y ago
  Welcome to HN! You sound bitter.
  - holladollas 10y ago
    .
    - mustacheemperor 10y ago
      Your accusation of the education system being hampered by a "feminist agenda" that doesn't see Donald Trump's foundation of "truth, personal responsibility and perseverence" has collected you enough downvotes that no censorship is necessary.
      - deleted 10y ago
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    - grzm 10y ago
      "Hacker News" is a bit of a misnomer. Submissions need neither be for hackers (in the strict, "person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data" sense) or even current. From the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Edit to add: HN also strongly values civil, constructive discourse. Given some of your other comments, I suspect what you're interpreting as censorship is the community reacting to the tone and language of your comments. Also, while there has been plenty of politics on HN recently (for a variety of reasons), HN isn't primarily for ideological discourse: HN members are likely reacting to that, as well. I get the impression that this isn't your first account on HN. If that's the case, I hope you can find HN to be productive for you as part of the community with this new account.
eachro 10y ago
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
- gentleteblor 10y ago
  This. Too many people are sure of too many things. Too sure of religion, political ideology, techno purity. Too sure of the absence (or presence) of the many -isms that plague us. HN is a perfect example. At least i think so. I'm not sure.
tempVariable 10y ago
I've seen incompetent leaders promote other incompetent people to serve them as their ideals are congruent. As in - they don't question the status-quo to make things better and alas their numbers grow stronger. It takes a good concerted effort to take this type of nepotism on.
TommyXin 10y ago
Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to back up what he is saying. How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since when does competence make you a good leader? Author believes CEOs should be selected by having them take a competence and personality test... Trying to act and plan for an uncertain future as a CEO will make any human (male or female) seem incompetent.
- jldugger 10y ago
  > Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to back up what he is saying. HBR is a practitioner's magazine; it's purpose is less to offer the evidence and more keep readers abreast of research and thinking in the field. Did feel the citations in the article were insufficient? There seems to be a number of them for any interested reader to follow up on. For example: http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf > How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since when does competence make you a good leader? Maybe there's some angle I haven't considered, but competence at being a good leader is basically the same thing as being a good leader. Unless you actively set out to be a bad one I suppose. As for measuring, it gets mushy fairly quickly when looking at meta-analysis. You'll want to dig one level deeper to get an understanding of that; I'll pass personally ;) > Author believes CEOs should be selected by having them take a competence and personality test... Virtually all publications aimed at practitioners are rife with conflict of interest, and HBR is no different. The author is the CEO of an assessment company.
vmarsy 10y ago
One reason for incompetent leaders I've heard is the leader's leader chose him specifically for his incompetence. The leader shields himself with less competent direct reports so that it's unlikely that one of them would be able to take over his job.
donovanm 10y ago
Reminds me of how when you say you dont know everything about XYZ language/framework to an hr person or recruiter they look at you like incompetent. Meanwhile saying that you knew everything about XYZ language/framework to a technical person would have them thinking you're incompetent.
Girlang 10y ago
What a horrible sexist premise! What about Meg Whitman or Marissa Meyer?
tilt_error 10y ago
Why are you bringing politics onto this forum?
bootload 10y ago
"confidence and competence." There is an overlap of confidence and competence. For instance I'd rather be in a situation where a leader is projecting confidence because they've encountered a situation before. One way to evaluate this is asking yourself, "have they done this before?". [0] That question breaks down when novel situations arise. This is where relevant experience matters. Sometimes though, you may have to "fake" your way to allow a team to succeed in a difficult situation. This is why I believe that good leaders will be competent in their area of expertise, recognise when they are not and be open to alternatives. This isn't confidence. This is belief in oneself, team and leadership to succeed. Belief and competence is a better description of leadership. Reference [0] "The curse of confidence" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745
talkingtab 10y ago
Along the way I have seen way too many BIG men with DEEP voices who are dumber than oxen and are CEO's. My own thought is that both men and women defer on some level to their physical aspect and to their self-confidence. But boy they can be dumb. Sigh. Not saying all.
snarf21 10y ago
I think the main gender bias is that a lot of the powers that be think women will be less decisive and worry about people's feelings too much. They want someone to drive the success the company needs. But this quickly falls to our natural tendency to trust the common denominator. So they hire and promote people that think, look and act like them because it's easy and (at worst) they feel they'll be able to easily make adjustments with someone so similar. Just look at sports and all the coaches who go around the carousel with minimal consistent success. One other thing people forget is that a lot of times, promotions are a reward for past behavior, not an endorsement of their abilities. A lot of high performing individuals make horrible managers but it is the only way to acknowledgement past value added. Additionally, these new managers feel like they deserve the promotion and now want to coast a little. Of course, they fall into the same trap as above and usually treat all the subordinates as they see their self and never learn how to manage or lead. As a manager, I see the job as helping your team create maximum business value. Of course, none of this is easy and why so many companies are so completely screwed up. You look around and you see so few CEOs who make a difference over random chance. Most who are this top 0.001% are extremely confident and decisive (but also manipulative aholes). This is also why there can be so much opportunity for disruption. The incumbents are stuck in a quicksand of their own making and everyone has embraced self preservation over value creation. Promoting more woman won't fix that. You need leaders that have the will and dedication to create a culture of ownership, transparency and autonomy.
Mikeb85 10y ago
In general, leaders seem incompetent because their decisions are scrutinized to no end. Often though, they're forced to make a decision in a limited amount of time with imperfect information. Also, one thing I've found after managing people, running businesses, etc..., is that it's more important to make a decision than it is to make the right decision. If you try something and fail, it's easy enough to pivot to another idea. If you make the right choice in the first place, great. If you consult everyone and take too long to make a decision, you're fucked.
clueless123 10y ago
A good artist or technician spends most of his time executing and polishing his craft. A politician spends most of his time executing and polishing his image. Given this, guess who would climb higher faster ?
dlwdlw 10y ago
Many executives cultivate this ignorance. When you kill someone accidentally its manslaughter, when it's purposeful it's murder. A person is dead either way, but the punishment for incompetence is lesser than that for malice. By cultivating ignorance and incompetence in key areas, people can dodge the consequences of risky or unethical behavior yet still receive the benefits by nature of being the "leader"
camus2 10y ago
Why single out men? incompetence doesn't have a sex.
Taylor_OD 10y ago
Act confidently and get lucky a couple times? After that its management / leadership position easy street.
amai 10y ago
The only fair solution: The leader of a group should be selected by random. The probability that the least competent will be selected is then inverse proportional to the size of the group.
- GFischer 10y ago
  Has been proposed before, and it was the preferred and traditional Athenian method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition Would definitely be very interesting, I wouldn't mind trying it.
squozzer 10y ago
It's possible too that the people who are actually good at doing are too valuable to promote (Captain Kirk Syndrome.)

239 points by hollaur 10y ago

Because the skill to become a leader in this world has nothing to do with being competent. Some of the characteristics you need to become a leader are: be an excellent lyer, have a good pair of elbows, a desire for power and/or money, fit in the world of wealthy people that are in power, etc.. What do you expect from people with these characteristics? Competence?

ommunist 10y ago

Because "to lead" is their only scope. and since the number of seats is limited, its not about gender. Some men are just more equal.

sharkweek 10y ago

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 knowing that down the road I'm probably going to get "stuck" in my career when I'm not interested in moving up and running a team. It seems like a trend lately to praise the IC and promise them the moon and stars, but I think this is mostly lip service to keep them around.

vinceguidry 10y ago
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.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  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.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    I would not call this trait of yours leadership, I would simply call it a personality trait. It, by itself won't make you a good leader. I'm still wrapping my brain around the concept, but I conceive of leadership as a broad collection of social skills oriented around driving an organization of people towards a goal. One needs vision, persuasion, strategy, a certain ability to see and work with the darker side of human nature, emotional maturity, and probably more. All of these need to be identified, worked on, and refined over the course of a lifetime. There's just so much to being a leader that it can literally be a life's work. It's so fascinating to watch different organizations being led by different people. Anybody can run an organization, effectively leading it is another thing entirely. You can see the leadership style of Donald Trump just doesn't work very well at all in the Office of the President of the United States, it's essentially causing a mutiny in the rest of the executive branch. Organizations are products of the people at the top, and develop inertia of their own. Leaders have to manage this inertia, Trump is used to operating very quickly, but the Executive Branch of the US Government is a massive ship to steer. Time will tell if Trump is up to the task of getting the ship in order.
Bulkington 10y ago
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...
ktRolster 10y ago
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.
xjwm 10y ago
I feel like the terms leadership and management are often used interchangeability in business, but they aren't the same thing. You can provide leadership without being a manager. In your case, it sounds like a team could benefit from your past experiences. You could easily mentor and teach others, and provide guidance for projects. That doesn't necessarily require performing traditional "management" functions. It would all hinge on what your corporate culture supports and expects from people in charge.
VLM 10y ago
Abandon the concept of a career and contract? That helps with ageism too. I'm not sure the concept of a career track exists outside management.

geofft 10y ago

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.

Thrillington 10y ago
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.
- sebastos 10y ago
  Seems to me you're playing hide the ball a bit here. If it's the case that society conditions men to display confidence, then aren't we left to explain why _that_ might be the case? Why doesn't society condition women to be the more confident? How did we get here? The null hypothesis would probably be that innate gender differences created the current sociological environment, creating a chicken and egg problem. This reminds me of the argument that women's under-representation in STEM fields begins during childhood when we condition them with toys that don't encourage spatial reasoning. This claim leaves a gigantic dangling question of "Why are toy companies and parents so damn bad at understanding what little girls want to play with?" The literature supports the intuitive truth of the matter: girls and boys find their toy affinities on their own without much input from society. Incidentally, I think most people are morally taking the wrong tack when it comes to this kind of stuff. If you make a value judgment that having an affinity for leadership or spatial reasoning is Good, then you are no longer free to interpret the actual world without worrying that the data will show men are Better (or Worse). Why can't we accept men and women as they are, and stop pre-supposing equality of all measurements that we might consider desirable? If it turns out that men are naturally suited to taking leadership roles, who cares? It takes all kinds to make a functional society, and in the scheme of things, leaders are a tiny thread in that tapestry. I find the role of leader or mathematician to be equally valuable to artist, baker, carpenter, fashion designer, grocer, mother or father. Each of them is a valuable member of society that should earn a fundamental human dignity. In my view, admonishing women to pursue engineering is equally repugnant to demanding they avoid it! Let's encourage all of the women who find engineering or mathematics irresistible, but avoid fretting about the many who don't!

Animats 10y ago

Summary: "We commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence". See "Assholes, a Theory" (2014). Despite the title, this is a serious book and well worth reading. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/0804171351 https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/080417...

gozur88 10y ago
It's probably a pretty good strategy to use if you have nothing else to go on.
- oblio 10y ago
  It's a good strategy to use even if you have something else to go on :)

ipnon 10y ago

Is "leadership" pure ideology?

xjwm 10y ago
I think leadership gets tagged with buzzwords like 'vision' and 'synergy' and gets made to look idealistic, but the skill of motivating people to work towards a shared goal is a very tangible concept.

pfarnsworth 10y ago

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 like an asshole, even when you are completely factual. It's sad but fascinating at the same time.

trustfundbaby 10y ago
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.
- trhway 10y ago
  >if you're a minority or a woman for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it takes time.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon--arising only around the time of agriculture. Even subsequent to the development of agricultures, plenty of civilizations have practiced matrilineal succession, with no apparent cost to their dealings with neighboring societies (indeed, some even flourished at the expense of others--consider the Iroquois, for example).
    - deleted 10y ago
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trentnix 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle From the link: The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter and published in 1969. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

Kluny 10y ago
I don't think you read the article.

Nomentatus 10y ago

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.

ktRolster 10y ago
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.
- edblarney 10y ago
  If you watch a high school cafeteria for one hour you know exactly why taller people are promoted to leadership. The same reason they tend to be whiter, a little better looking, more athletic. Interesting paradox: for Men, girth is actually good. Carry a few extra pounds, and it's good. For women - inverse. Skinny women earn more. Think of this: every single social interaction you have - with the guy at the watercooler, to meetings, to presentations - everyone is 'sizing each other up' subconciously. They are determining where they belong in the pecking order. Usually only from observable traits.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    I agree. Unconscious bias is real. I was far shorter than average until about 15, and well taller than average thereafter. So I found out first hand, quite suddenly, just how much different other people's reactions were to me. When human growth hormone first became available, medically-short teens given it grew considerably and almost uniformly suffered from depression. There previous ways of interacting with people just didn't work anymore. (also from Keyes book)
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  Well, the data set is huge, so it's not coincidence. And it's unlikely that promotions cause people to grow. I was once at the opening of a Picasso exhibition where most of the people present were CEOs, and at the same place, I also attended the opening of a exhibition of Yousuf Karsh photos, where he was appeared. I'm tall, but I was nearly the shortest person in that large room both times. The only two times that's ever happened to me. As for causation, it's been experimentally tested and confirmed, with small groups picking leaders. There's a great old book retailing many remarkable such studies called "The Height of Your Life" by Ralph Keyes. It also discussed research showing that a substantial chunk of sex discrimination was actually height discrimination (see Sheryl Sandberg's remarkably high heels - she knows the score.) You said I should dig deeper - I've given you my bibliography, could you now favor me with yours?

amjaeger 10y ago

Article does not present and solutions to picking a good leader and avoiding the issues mentioned in the article. Unless the advice is "only elect female leaders" - which also seems broken.

DonaldFisk 10y ago
How about avoiding those with personality traits which the article says make incompetent people look competent: psychopaths, narcissists, risk seekers,the over-confident, the arrogant, the manipulative, etc.? Some women have these traits too, so discriminating by sex isn't the answer.
deleted 10y ago
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k__ 10y ago

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.

dba7dba 10y ago
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...

sparrish 10y ago

It's because of the "Peter principle" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle "employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively"... that's at the "Leader" level for so many.

Kluny 10y ago
I don't think you read the article.
mulmen 10y ago
In a way I find the Dilbert Principle [1] more encouraging because it implies promotion is based on what will improve the overall productivity of the group. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle

battlebot 10y ago

Another backhanded dig at Trump, perhaps? Listen, Trump may be a lot of things, but he's not incompetent. And here's the most important thing that he is not: A drinker. He doesn't drink. That makes him different than pretty much every other politician in DC. The are all drunks and worse. And if you've ever dealt with a drunk, you know something very important: Alcoholics are all liars. That, above all, is the problem with our political leadership. Simply having strict drug and alcohol screenings in order to be elected would go a long ways towards cleaning up government and politics.

belorn 10y ago

As I often see in this kind of theory based articles, it is missing some basic experiments through which we can test and investigate the theory. So if the issue is the inability to discern between confidence and competence, it should be relative easy to create a experiment through a double blind study where 50% of the participants are trained in behaving confident around their peers. Then we the study observe, first through experimental environment and then through a longer life-time study, and see if the result differ. A question that arise is also how society treats men with below average confidence. Do they have higher or lower chance to be perceived as leaders compared to women with the same level of confidence? If they have less (a common theme in gender studies), we would again find a distribution where a minority portion of men are at top and have a higher chance than women to be leaders, with the majority of men below with a worse chance. This should also be fairly easy to test in an experimental setting.

deleted 10y ago
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jondubois 10y ago

I find that confidence is really powerful, even among engineers (who you would think are rational). I noticed that some engineers can come across as extremely smart because they talk fast and can think fast - Also, they are really good at defending their ideas when put on the spot but if you dig deeper afterwards you might often find that while their solution is good, it's not the best one. It always takes time to come up with optimum engineering solutions - It's not something that just pops into your head in a millisecond whist having a casual technical discussion - No matter how smart you are. The history of software development (with all of its failed projects) is proof that even great engineers have difficult coming up with optimum ideas.

sebastos 10y ago
+1 for the fast-talking engineer phenomenon. I think quickness of thought is a fitness that can be exercised, mostly orthogonally to deep thought. We all eventually find someone who thinks and talks faster than ourselves, but indeed we also eventually become that person to another. If you find yourself feeling like you're 10 steps ahead, the best thing to do is give ample room for your conversational foil to express their thoughts. If they disagree, don't immediately assume it's because they haven't considered everything. You should go in with the good faith assumption that they intuitively see a corner case you haven't considered, and then work collaboratively with them to put their objection into words. After all, if there is a problem, it will rear its head eventually, whether or not you can "win" the argument!
- dandersh 10y ago
  The most important thing is being open to the fact that you will be wrong. I've lost track of the number of times I have machine gunned out ideas/solutions only to have parts (or even all of it) picked apart by myself or others. Your final point is the most important. Ultimately the process should be about solving the problem in the best manner possible, not how person X thinks it should be solved.

stupidcar 10y ago

One of the most interesting facts in Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order was that the most primordial form of human social groupings, small bands of hunter gatherers, are organised along egalitarian and democratic lines, without any recognisable leader. There may be an individual who the other members of the band listen to more than others, but only due to their proven experience and wisdom. And there is no concept of authority, e.g. the ability to enforce a decision upon people against their better judgement. More complex forms of social organisation and hierarchy are inventions, and relatively recent ones. I suspect that is why they so often display these kinds of dysfunctions. As a species, we haven't yet evolved the skills necessary to behave optimally in situations where we have to engage in constant non-violent negotiations with strangers over issues of power, authority, friendship, employment, sex, etc. Instead, we try to create institutions that enforce an optimum solution, but this produces a circular problem, because these institutions are prey to the same dysfunctions.

ue_ 10y ago
Anyone interested in organising along these principles might look at anarcho-primitivism or even anarchism. Recommended reading is Bakunin (What is Property?), Kropotkin (The Conquest of Bread) and pretty much anything by Emma Goldman.
omalleyt 10y ago
Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. Therefore, when the best hunter in the group brought home a large animal, he shared it with all. Likewise, there were few physical possessions or need for such, and so these were shared too. But egalitarian? Not a chance. Studies show that even modern hunters expend enormous energy and risk their lives hunting over the real prize: access to mates.
- undersuit 10y ago
  >Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. The diversity of cured meats around the world makes this statement suspect. I don't see an agrarian society taking time to discover how to cure meat... why would they, grain stores easier. Yet every culture has various kinds of preserved meat; Pemmican, European sausages, Kiviak, Hongeohoe, etc.

justin_vanw 10y ago

I would say that it's not that incompetent men become leaders. Certainly men are over-represented, but I would wager that woman leaders are no more competent on average. The truth is almost everyone is incompetent and leaders get more scrutiny.

Shubley 10y ago
That's actually a good point. Everyone is incompetent; we just don't have a way of filtering that in our leaders. Possibly because the people selecting those leaders are incompetent too. It's incompetence all the way down.
- tejasmanohar 10y ago
  This is a great example of Peter Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle). "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."
rhizome 10y ago
Pursuant to the topic, though, leadership pays more and therefore is populated by sexist men hiring each other. Emergent properties.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >Pursuant to the topic, though, leadership pays more and therefore is populated by sexist men hiring each other. Is there any evidence this is true?
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Occam's Razor points to The Iron Law of Oligarchies/Institutions much more than "bad luck."
    - gozur88 10y ago

NTDF9 10y ago

>> In other words, what it takes to get the job is not just different from, but also the reverse of, what it takes to do the job well Did it take this long to figure out that most processes in the world don't select the people for the job? Think about the following: - SAT score based admissions (numbers matter) - Tech Job interviews (number of problems solved, mistakes made, time taken to solve matters) - Data driven Quarterly metrics and performance reviews (stupid metrics matter) - Running for Presidency (Count of votes matter) - Winning at WoW (Kills matter) I can easily see most of these processes as a game. It involves a "System" and "Scoring in that system". The ones who win the game don't necessary do post-game activities better, unless the system selects for that. I don't know...don't they teach this in MBA classes anymore?

id122015 10y ago

They become micromanagers not leaders. Its a political problem. When voting is rigged it happens that those who get benefits vote for those incompetent. And those incompetent promise free benefits to obtain votes. Vicious circle.

mulmen 10y ago
I'm not sure I agree with this. Are you saying all voting is rigged? Also not all incompetent managers are micro-managers, I have had problems with managers that are uninvolved as well. It may be possible for a candidate to gain votes by promising free benefits (or even non-free benefits) to their constituents and then actually grant those benefits. I would not describe that situation as a problem because that's exactly how representative democracy is supposed to work. I don't see how rigged voting implies incompetence or that incompetence implies rigged voting. Also, I nave never seen a business setting that had elections, rigged or not. In the cases where I have been faced with incompetent managers their constituents (employees/reports) would have voted them out at the nearest opportunity. Is this the rigged system to which you refer?
- id122015 10y ago
  There are a lot of facts that need to be explained but I'll try to tell you the ideas in a few paragraphs. I cant summarise a whole stack of books in such a short time. Representative Democracy: Do you understand by that a contract between people where those who never paid a cent in tax but receive free benefits have the right to vote ? Maybe that will answer the question about how incompetent managers raise to the top. Business Have you not heard about how the leader of Mozilla? or some other company has been voted out because he expressed his ideas about sexuality ? Or are you not familiar with how a company traded by shares is GOVERNED by a board of directors ? Cisco founder has been fired, thats an example of how elections work in a business. Maybe you should watch The Office movies to understand how and why incompetent people are given manager positions. Its a comedy and the main actor plays very well the incompetent manager. There are also some serials where voting is involved but the manager does all he can do go his own way.

holladollas 10y ago

rhizome 10y ago
Welcome to HN! You sound bitter.
- holladollas 10y ago
  .
  - mustacheemperor 10y ago
    Your accusation of the education system being hampered by a "feminist agenda" that doesn't see Donald Trump's foundation of "truth, personal responsibility and perseverence" has collected you enough downvotes that no censorship is necessary.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - grzm 10y ago
    "Hacker News" is a bit of a misnomer. Submissions need neither be for hackers (in the strict, "person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data" sense) or even current. From the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Edit to add: HN also strongly values civil, constructive discourse. Given some of your other comments, I suspect what you're interpreting as censorship is the community reacting to the tone and language of your comments. Also, while there has been plenty of politics on HN recently (for a variety of reasons), HN isn't primarily for ideological discourse: HN members are likely reacting to that, as well. I get the impression that this isn't your first account on HN. If that's the case, I hope you can find HN to be productive for you as part of the community with this new account.

eachro 10y ago

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

gentleteblor 10y ago
This. Too many people are sure of too many things. Too sure of religion, political ideology, techno purity. Too sure of the absence (or presence) of the many -isms that plague us. HN is a perfect example. At least i think so. I'm not sure.

tempVariable 10y ago

I've seen incompetent leaders promote other incompetent people to serve them as their ideals are congruent. As in - they don't question the status-quo to make things better and alas their numbers grow stronger. It takes a good concerted effort to take this type of nepotism on.

TommyXin 10y ago

Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to back up what he is saying. How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since when does competence make you a good leader? Author believes CEOs should be selected by having them take a competence and personality test... Trying to act and plan for an uncertain future as a CEO will make any human (male or female) seem incompetent.

jldugger 10y ago
> Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to back up what he is saying. HBR is a practitioner's magazine; it's purpose is less to offer the evidence and more keep readers abreast of research and thinking in the field. Did feel the citations in the article were insufficient? There seems to be a number of them for any interested reader to follow up on. For example: http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf > How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since when does competence make you a good leader? Maybe there's some angle I haven't considered, but competence at being a good leader is basically the same thing as being a good leader. Unless you actively set out to be a bad one I suppose. As for measuring, it gets mushy fairly quickly when looking at meta-analysis. You'll want to dig one level deeper to get an understanding of that; I'll pass personally ;) > Author believes CEOs should be selected by having them take a competence and personality test... Virtually all publications aimed at practitioners are rife with conflict of interest, and HBR is no different. The author is the CEO of an assessment company.

vmarsy 10y ago

One reason for incompetent leaders I've heard is the leader's leader chose him specifically for his incompetence. The leader shields himself with less competent direct reports so that it's unlikely that one of them would be able to take over his job.

donovanm 10y ago

Reminds me of how when you say you dont know everything about XYZ language/framework to an hr person or recruiter they look at you like incompetent. Meanwhile saying that you knew everything about XYZ language/framework to a technical person would have them thinking you're incompetent.

Girlang 10y ago

What a horrible sexist premise! What about Meg Whitman or Marissa Meyer?

tilt_error 10y ago

Why are you bringing politics onto this forum?

bootload 10y ago

"confidence and competence." There is an overlap of confidence and competence. For instance I'd rather be in a situation where a leader is projecting confidence because they've encountered a situation before. One way to evaluate this is asking yourself, "have they done this before?". [0] That question breaks down when novel situations arise. This is where relevant experience matters. Sometimes though, you may have to "fake" your way to allow a team to succeed in a difficult situation. This is why I believe that good leaders will be competent in their area of expertise, recognise when they are not and be open to alternatives. This isn't confidence. This is belief in oneself, team and leadership to succeed. Belief and competence is a better description of leadership. Reference [0] "The curse of confidence" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745

talkingtab 10y ago

Along the way I have seen way too many BIG men with DEEP voices who are dumber than oxen and are CEO's. My own thought is that both men and women defer on some level to their physical aspect and to their self-confidence. But boy they can be dumb. Sigh. Not saying all.

snarf21 10y ago

I think the main gender bias is that a lot of the powers that be think women will be less decisive and worry about people's feelings too much. They want someone to drive the success the company needs. But this quickly falls to our natural tendency to trust the common denominator. So they hire and promote people that think, look and act like them because it's easy and (at worst) they feel they'll be able to easily make adjustments with someone so similar. Just look at sports and all the coaches who go around the carousel with minimal consistent success. One other thing people forget is that a lot of times, promotions are a reward for past behavior, not an endorsement of their abilities. A lot of high performing individuals make horrible managers but it is the only way to acknowledgement past value added. Additionally, these new managers feel like they deserve the promotion and now want to coast a little. Of course, they fall into the same trap as above and usually treat all the subordinates as they see their self and never learn how to manage or lead. As a manager, I see the job as helping your team create maximum business value. Of course, none of this is easy and why so many companies are so completely screwed up. You look around and you see so few CEOs who make a difference over random chance. Most who are this top 0.001% are extremely confident and decisive (but also manipulative aholes). This is also why there can be so much opportunity for disruption. The incumbents are stuck in a quicksand of their own making and everyone has embraced self preservation over value creation. Promoting more woman won't fix that. You need leaders that have the will and dedication to create a culture of ownership, transparency and autonomy.

Mikeb85 10y ago

In general, leaders seem incompetent because their decisions are scrutinized to no end. Often though, they're forced to make a decision in a limited amount of time with imperfect information. Also, one thing I've found after managing people, running businesses, etc..., is that it's more important to make a decision than it is to make the right decision. If you try something and fail, it's easy enough to pivot to another idea. If you make the right choice in the first place, great. If you consult everyone and take too long to make a decision, you're fucked.

clueless123 10y ago

A good artist or technician spends most of his time executing and polishing his craft. A politician spends most of his time executing and polishing his image. Given this, guess who would climb higher faster ?

dlwdlw 10y ago

Many executives cultivate this ignorance. When you kill someone accidentally its manslaughter, when it's purposeful it's murder. A person is dead either way, but the punishment for incompetence is lesser than that for malice. By cultivating ignorance and incompetence in key areas, people can dodge the consequences of risky or unethical behavior yet still receive the benefits by nature of being the "leader"

camus2 10y ago

Why single out men? incompetence doesn't have a sex.

Taylor_OD 10y ago

Act confidently and get lucky a couple times? After that its management / leadership position easy street.

amai 10y ago

The only fair solution: The leader of a group should be selected by random. The probability that the least competent will be selected is then inverse proportional to the size of the group.

GFischer 10y ago
Has been proposed before, and it was the preferred and traditional Athenian method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition Would definitely be very interesting, I wouldn't mind trying it.

squozzer 10y ago

It's possible too that the people who are actually good at doing are too valuable to promote (Captain Kirk Syndrome.)