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How much of destructive/toxic leadership can be summed up as "puts self ahead of organization"? This post identifies 4 feelings that can lead to that. However,

How much of destructive/toxic leadership can be summed up as "puts self ahead of organization"? This post identifies 4 feelings that can lead to that. However, when I read the descriptions I picked up only two: - Arrogance: I know better than my team - Insecurity: I need to fight for myself b/c otherwise I'll lose my job / they'll realize I'm a fake Those cause the leader to put themselves ahead of their team / disregard the thoughts of their team. I suspect this condition is probably only made worse by the way our industry emphasizes the headstrong/autocratic facets of leaders (i.e. see how the media portrays Jobs, early Gates, Zuck, Dorsey, TK, Spiegel, etc.), convincing people to pursue positions of leadership for the wrong reasons: either that they finally will have final say or won't be able to be criticized. That becomes a refuge for the arrogant (wow, I'll finally have final say) and the insecure (wow, I'll finally not be able to be criticized). However, from what I can tell, leadership is more about: - Integrating other's thoughts: your job is ultimately to integrate thoughts, not necessarily to just choose your own (failing to do so results in the autocratic failure mode) - Requires vulnerability / sense-of-security: because how you integrate information/think--not just what you think--is a business asset, the business has more of a right to provide feedback there (failing to do so results in the deceptive failure mode) And something that should only be pursued / gifted once those have been worked through?

runawaybottle 6y ago
In a large organizations, your manager has legit deliverables he/she has to meet. Even if they try to be king shit it’s not going to matter. You only really need to analyze a startup team that is growing for the sake of growing. That’s really where the autocratic team leads will be a detriment to your mental health because they know why their team is growing, and don’t care for it. That’s where if such a person isn’t cool, you’ll get the decaying morale as a direct side effect of their entitlement, superiority and requisite insecurity. I’m going to say something ageist, even though I hate ageism. I don’t think most people are emotionally mature enough until their 30s. I think developers could be lagging in emotionally maturity by 5 years, in which case I don’t think your average developer is emotionally mature until 35. Team leads and managers need to be extremely emotionally mature, none of that ego and insecurity is useful. You need to be able to shoot someone down, and come right back and build that person back up. It takes a lot of maturity to do this and not devolve into picking favorites or hiring new people, or turning authoritarian and despotic.

runawaybottle 6y ago

In a large organizations, your manager has legit deliverables he/she has to meet. Even if they try to be king shit it’s not going to matter. You only really need to analyze a startup team that is growing for the sake of growing. That’s really where the autocratic team leads will be a detriment to your mental health because they know why their team is growing, and don’t care for it. That’s where if such a person isn’t cool, you’ll get the decaying morale as a direct side effect of their entitlement, superiority and requisite insecurity. I’m going to say something ageist, even though I hate ageism. I don’t think most people are emotionally mature enough until their 30s. I think developers could be lagging in emotionally maturity by 5 years, in which case I don’t think your average developer is emotionally mature until 35. Team leads and managers need to be extremely emotionally mature, none of that ego and insecurity is useful. You need to be able to shoot someone down, and come right back and build that person back up. It takes a lot of maturity to do this and not devolve into picking favorites or hiring new people, or turning authoritarian and despotic.