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would definitely benefit a lot from learning about psychology and leadership That's a significant chunk of the MBA curriculum. Of course you don't have to get

would definitely benefit a lot from learning about psychology and leadership That's a significant chunk of the MBA curriculum. Of course you don't have to get it from there, but if you look at who teaches in business schools, quite a few of the professors specifically research those subjects. the reason is that their management style tend to be demotivating and offputting What about it is demotivating and offputting? The typical complaint I hear isn't about their leadership skills, it's about a lack of technical expertise or lack of appreciation for subject matter expertise. As an example, I've seen some of Harvard Business School's materials, and their curriculum definitely teaches to seek technical expertise.

watwut 8y ago
> That's a significant chunk of the MBA curriculum. Of course you don't have to get it from there, but if you look at who teaches in business schools, quite a few of the professors specifically research those subjects. I am mostly judging it from results of MBA managers. It seems that highly motivated happy teams are rather exception then rule. This kind of psychological knowledge seems to lead to manipulative behavior that most eventually figure out in the span of months and consequently leads to lack of trust, demotivation. > The typical complaint I hear isn't about their leadership skills, it's about a lack of technical expertise or lack of appreciation for subject matter expertise. As an example, I've seen some of Harvard Business School's materials, and their curriculum definitely teaches to seek technical expertise. As general as both complains are, they are closely related to leadership skill, they are not independent of it. The "no appreciation for subject matter expertise" is euphemism for "experts under their leadership are unable to use their skill and knowledge and are treated without respect and without regard". It means that project is running into the same problems again and the leader does not care, because problems are not affecting him right now and experts are effectively talking to a wall that smiles back. Lack of technical expertise means that experts are forced to implement decisions they know will lead to problems and then get resentfulness when those problems happen and they are blamed for it. It means you work around the manager and not with manager. It means that you have to keep secrets and manage manager, because manager cant be trusted. I don't know what exactly those schools teach, so I can not say what exactly is wrong with it. But I had managers that I respect to this day, not all of them were technical and they seemed to be able to work around lack of technical knowledge better then mba I have seen. Mba are good at creating illusion of well run project for upper management. That absolutely has value, especially in corporation, but is not really leadership skill and is not same as actually run the project well.

watwut 8y ago

> That's a significant chunk of the MBA curriculum. Of course you don't have to get it from there, but if you look at who teaches in business schools, quite a few of the professors specifically research those subjects. I am mostly judging it from results of MBA managers. It seems that highly motivated happy teams are rather exception then rule. This kind of psychological knowledge seems to lead to manipulative behavior that most eventually figure out in the span of months and consequently leads to lack of trust, demotivation. > The typical complaint I hear isn't about their leadership skills, it's about a lack of technical expertise or lack of appreciation for subject matter expertise. As an example, I've seen some of Harvard Business School's materials, and their curriculum definitely teaches to seek technical expertise. As general as both complains are, they are closely related to leadership skill, they are not independent of it. The "no appreciation for subject matter expertise" is euphemism for "experts under their leadership are unable to use their skill and knowledge and are treated without respect and without regard". It means that project is running into the same problems again and the leader does not care, because problems are not affecting him right now and experts are effectively talking to a wall that smiles back. Lack of technical expertise means that experts are forced to implement decisions they know will lead to problems and then get resentfulness when those problems happen and they are blamed for it. It means you work around the manager and not with manager. It means that you have to keep secrets and manage manager, because manager cant be trusted. I don't know what exactly those schools teach, so I can not say what exactly is wrong with it. But I had managers that I respect to this day, not all of them were technical and they seemed to be able to work around lack of technical knowledge better then mba I have seen. Mba are good at creating illusion of well run project for upper management. That absolutely has value, especially in corporation, but is not really leadership skill and is not same as actually run the project well.