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> Further, note the importance of impulse control in the most effective senior leaders. An alternative pattern of traits identified by McClelland was 1) a high

> Further, note the importance of impulse control in the most effective senior leaders. An alternative pattern of traits identified by McClelland was 1) a high need for power, 2) a low need for affiliation, and 3) a low degree of impulse control, which he called "conquistador syndrome." [17] Leaders who exhibit this pattern may enjoy some success, but their self-aggrandizing displays of power limit their effectiveness at senior levels, as McClelland and his colleague David Burnham concluded in a summary of their research It may limit their effectiveness, but that doesn't mean they can't win. There is no shortage of extremely visible role models who exhibit "conquistador syndrome", and their influence across society is creating a cohort of small business owners and professional people managers I've started calling the "petty bourgeoisie" -- members of the upper middle and lower upper classes who are, well, petty. As a direct result of these personalities winning out time and time again, American society is starting to develop a distinct "Après moi, le déluge" feel.

leetrout 4y ago
I am glad it isn't just me. I feel like it has gotten worse in the past 4-5 years but it could just be me getting older and getting tired of the bullshit.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It's really hard to discern societal trends for this reason, when every individual and observer goes through constant change themselves.
api 4y ago
They seem to often be successful when the goal is to disrupt or compete with a very moribund but entrenched industry. A few recent examples: Travis Kalanick vs the Taxi medallion cartel, Elon Musk vs a space industry that stopped innovating after Apollo (and to a lesser extent getting EVs over the adoption hump), Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs. In all cases you have industries very set in their ways dominated by strong but stolid and conservative personalities and a lot of innovation being held back. All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. They have to execute well enough to do that. It doesn’t have to be excellence, but it often looks like excellence against a backdrop of mediocrity. Take SpaceX for example. Old school NASA in the 50s and 60s or Lockheed Skunk Works in the same era were far more innovative. SpaceX looks superhuman today against the backdrop of an industry that had totally gone out to pasture. Apple paired good industrial design with what is basically a polished consumer grade analog of a Linux desktop and looked revolutionary against ugly metal cans and chunky laptops running Windows. The iPhone was a bit higher on the innovation scale but also wasn’t wholly original, but damn did it cook when compared to flip phones. But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down. We don’t get to see how Jobs would fare today because the torch was passed to Tim Cook, a solid operator. Musk is floundering with Tesla now that the EV market is full of strong competitors and it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together. Kalanick’s Uber is a money bonfire but people still love it because Taxis suck.
- duhast 4y ago
  Can you give me some examples of SpaceX innovations that disrupted the industry? Here are some of my issues with SpaceX marketing: 1) Cost to NASA/DoD seems to be similar to ULA. 2) SpaceX continues to fly expandable boosters for missions above LEO and for heavier payloads. Reusable boosters have lower lift and range and require extensive refurbishment between missions. Upper stage is not reusable. 3) SpaceX hasn't flown a single mission into deep space or Mars despite this being the stated goal of the company. In the same time, others have flown multiple rockets to Mars and to other planets. We have multiple rovers roaming the surface of Mars and satellites orbiting other planes all while SpaceX has contributed nothing to these efforts. I personally see SpaceX contributions to the industry are mostly incremental: 1) Booster reusability to LEO and for light payloads. 3) Human rated capsule for space station resupply missions. 3) High quality video content from launches. 4) Increased interest in space exploration at the expense of unrealistic expectations in relation to cost and timelines.
  - varjag 4y ago
    It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to call booster reusability "incremental".
    - duhast 4y ago
      Care to elaborate?
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Depends on how much demand for those low orbit launches there is. A non-zero portion of those launches is Starlink, so basically in-house demand. Yes, I'd call that incremental. Which doesn't mean it is not impressive, because it is. The main point so, IMHO, is that prices for comparable launches are not so much cheaper using SpaceX. Kind of like those Ryan Air 19.99 tickets. Sure, there are some, but on average the price difference is much smaller than people think.
      - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
cycomanic 4y ago
I have another theory. I'd argue more people are getting attention/becoming famous because of monetary success, i.e. being rich (and I don't have a good theory why that is). The assholes/jerks aspire much more for attention and thus are much more visible. The ease of getting attention nowadays also plays a significant role.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  I think it's something else. After all, people with large amounts of capital having attention and power is not new; the world's dominant economic and political system has been grounded in an ideology of capital for at least half a century, and in the Anglo world far longer.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > the world's dominant economic and political system has been grounded in an ideology of capital for at least half a century As opposed to what less dominant but still significant systems?
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      > As opposed to what less dominant but still significant systems? The cold war ended roughly half a century ago; I'm rounding. (To be clear: no love lost for the soviet system, but "an ideology of capital" it decidedly wasn't.)
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        The USSR's economy still revolved around money and allocating money. It was just the government allocating it rather than individuals.
        varjag 4y ago
        And in our Soviet passports we all had "No True Scotsmen" under "nationality".
daniel-cussen 4y ago

leetrout 4y ago

I am glad it isn't just me. I feel like it has gotten worse in the past 4-5 years but it could just be me getting older and getting tired of the bullshit.

HPsquared 4y ago
It's really hard to discern societal trends for this reason, when every individual and observer goes through constant change themselves.

api 4y ago

They seem to often be successful when the goal is to disrupt or compete with a very moribund but entrenched industry. A few recent examples: Travis Kalanick vs the Taxi medallion cartel, Elon Musk vs a space industry that stopped innovating after Apollo (and to a lesser extent getting EVs over the adoption hump), Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs. In all cases you have industries very set in their ways dominated by strong but stolid and conservative personalities and a lot of innovation being held back. All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible. They have to execute well enough to do that. It doesn’t have to be excellence, but it often looks like excellence against a backdrop of mediocrity. Take SpaceX for example. Old school NASA in the 50s and 60s or Lockheed Skunk Works in the same era were far more innovative. SpaceX looks superhuman today against the backdrop of an industry that had totally gone out to pasture. Apple paired good industrial design with what is basically a polished consumer grade analog of a Linux desktop and looked revolutionary against ugly metal cans and chunky laptops running Windows. The iPhone was a bit higher on the innovation scale but also wasn’t wholly original, but damn did it cook when compared to flip phones. But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down. We don’t get to see how Jobs would fare today because the torch was passed to Tim Cook, a solid operator. Musk is floundering with Tesla now that the EV market is full of strong competitors and it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together. Kalanick’s Uber is a money bonfire but people still love it because Taxis suck.

duhast 4y ago
Can you give me some examples of SpaceX innovations that disrupted the industry? Here are some of my issues with SpaceX marketing: 1) Cost to NASA/DoD seems to be similar to ULA. 2) SpaceX continues to fly expandable boosters for missions above LEO and for heavier payloads. Reusable boosters have lower lift and range and require extensive refurbishment between missions. Upper stage is not reusable. 3) SpaceX hasn't flown a single mission into deep space or Mars despite this being the stated goal of the company. In the same time, others have flown multiple rockets to Mars and to other planets. We have multiple rovers roaming the surface of Mars and satellites orbiting other planes all while SpaceX has contributed nothing to these efforts. I personally see SpaceX contributions to the industry are mostly incremental: 1) Booster reusability to LEO and for light payloads. 3) Human rated capsule for space station resupply missions. 3) High quality video content from launches. 4) Increased interest in space exploration at the expense of unrealistic expectations in relation to cost and timelines.
- varjag 4y ago
  It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to call booster reusability "incremental".
  - duhast 4y ago
    Care to elaborate?
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Depends on how much demand for those low orbit launches there is. A non-zero portion of those launches is Starlink, so basically in-house demand. Yes, I'd call that incremental. Which doesn't mean it is not impressive, because it is. The main point so, IMHO, is that prices for comparable launches are not so much cheaper using SpaceX. Kind of like those Ryan Air 19.99 tickets. Sure, there are some, but on average the price difference is much smaller than people think.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

cycomanic 4y ago

I have another theory. I'd argue more people are getting attention/becoming famous because of monetary success, i.e. being rich (and I don't have a good theory why that is). The assholes/jerks aspire much more for attention and thus are much more visible. The ease of getting attention nowadays also plays a significant role.

thwayunion 4y ago
I think it's something else. After all, people with large amounts of capital having attention and power is not new; the world's dominant economic and political system has been grounded in an ideology of capital for at least half a century, and in the Anglo world far longer.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > the world's dominant economic and political system has been grounded in an ideology of capital for at least half a century As opposed to what less dominant but still significant systems?
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    > As opposed to what less dominant but still significant systems? The cold war ended roughly half a century ago; I'm rounding. (To be clear: no love lost for the soviet system, but "an ideology of capital" it decidedly wasn't.)
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The USSR's economy still revolved around money and allocating money. It was just the government allocating it rather than individuals.
      - varjag 4y ago
        And in our Soviet passports we all had "No True Scotsmen" under "nationality".

daniel-cussen 4y ago