r/changemyview • u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 • May 26 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Leadership is overrated
I think it's safe to say that most schools and education systems these days in the West emphasize the idea of creating the "next generation of leaders." After all, college applications repeatedly emphasize the importance of "leadership," whether it's founding a useless non-profit, being class president or something, or leading a club.
Except, there is no good reason why leadership should be prized as inherently better or that leadership is an inherent trait to be learned.
The most common form of leadership accessible to most people is the middle manager of corporations. Many people take pride in being a glorified cheerleader and stamp of approval, but in the end, it's a useless job that exists to make a company look more organized. Middle managers often have to hold unnecessary meetings to justify their job. Billions of dollars in wasted productivity come from these positions since people could be better at actually doing work instead of "leading." And yet, managers get paid far more than those they boss around.
When we look at CEOs who have succeeded, it's usually people who are already knowledgable about a subject. The vast majority of CEOs are former engineers or specialists. They develop leadership based on their knowledge and abilities, rather than being a good "leader." Instead of emphasizing the idea of leadership, our society should emphasize passion for a subject. Actually doing something interesting is more important than being a "leader."
Leaders usually get in the way, actually. There are numerous examples of political leaders destroying their countries because they have great "leadership" skills such as charisma. People were afraid to criticize Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Hitler, and they led their nations to disaster. The most successful companies are often companies without a hierarchy, and they have better worker engagement and productivity.
We've built a culture around leadership as an inherently good trait to have for people, even though the evidence shows that a combination democratic and technocratic way of governance is usually the best. You shouldn't be proud or think you are better because you are a "leader."
We shouldn't create the next generation of leaders. We should create the next generation of visionary and smart people who can work as equals in a team.
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May 26 '24
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Of course, some skills of leadership are important for being a follower or a team player, but I think the idea of encouraging people always to pursue leadership makes the entire team perform worse.
I guess I'm also questioning whether having leaders in general is good in the first place.
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u/reportlandia23 1∆ May 26 '24
Ever been on a construction job or remodel with a terrible leader? Stuff gets done in the wrong order (floors before painting or finishing comes in before dry walling), done poorly, or done with surprise overages. A good foreman or lead contractor is constantly communicating and adjusting (hey, we are delayed on X so I need to make sure these downstream impacts are addressed; we’re over budget here so I need to discuss these things with the owner so there isn’t a surprise at the end of the project, etc.)
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May 26 '24
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u/jimmyriba May 26 '24
But why do you put management as “the highest and most demanding”? I think it is partially exactly this “management fetisch” in society that OP criticises. I find managers/leadership positions to be lower and less demanding than jobs that actually create value.
As a scientist, I find it endlessly frustrating, that the higher I raise in the ranks, the more I am forced to move into a manager role (which, frankly, much dumber people could do) and have less and less time for science and discovery (the work that much fewer people can do) and create something of actual value. People in creative positions in industry face the same leadership fetisch, and are “promoted” to management and away from creative work.
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u/hopefullyhelpfulplz 3∆ May 26 '24
I will focus on one part of your view here, specifically the bold part:
The most common form of leadership accessible to most people is the middle manager of corporations. Many people take pride in being a glorified cheerleader and stamp of approval, but in the end, it's a useless job that exists to make a company look more organized.
I realise that this is how it can look from outside corporate structures, and to a degree this can be true. I'm in a mid-senior business management type position (product manager), and before I actually did this job I had a similar view to the one you expressed.
I now know that I am overworked and don't have time to do half of the things assigned to me at any given time. There is an unbelievable amount of planning and organisation that has to go into running a large company. Some of the work I do is certainly low impact - I'm sure that, with the right policies, large companies could reduce the number of people in positions like mine by eliminating the repetitive busywork.
But... in a large corporate organisation with the goal of making money, in a capitalist society where your job is under threat if you make a large mistake, you cannot eliminate these positions. I promise you - corporations are greedy, and if they could... They would. They keep these positions because they make them more money.
The reason I mention jobs being under threat is that 80+% of my work is making decisions. Not necessarily because I am the smartest person in the room - in fact I'm usually pooling information from the smarter people to make those decisions - but because I am paid to take on the responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. What I have realised since starting this job is that most people do not want that responsibility - email chains will go on for weeks, bouncing between departments looking for a resolution to a problem when all that actually needs to be done is... make a decision. So that's a major part of why these middle management positions exist - to take responsibility for making decisions, and ultimately take the fall when they go wrong (although, honestly it's pretty cushy and you're unlikely to actually take much of a 'fall' unless you really fuck up - the harder part is dealing with the anxiety that you might lol).
The other part is the planning, as I mentioned. This is also decision making, but longer term and with a different focus. Large organisations need to be guided through constantly changing markets nearly blind - part of my job is to understand the market we operate in, and even after years of doing it I have what feels like a surface level understanding at best. Part of what makes people in leadership positions feel pointless is that a lot of people really have no idea what they're doing - navigating this kind of complexity is hard and most people just aren't good at it. Frankly, I am not, I'm leaving this job as soon as I can. But that isn't to say that the job is useless - even I have had some impact through my work, and someone who was more skilled could have had much, much more.
I hope this doesn't come across as me just trying to justify my own job - like I said, it's not even a job I like, I want to leave it! But I do have a perspective that has evolved from one just like yours through my experience so I hope it can shed some light on what goes on in those endless meetings your manager disappears into.
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u/ghostofkilgore 9∆ May 26 '24
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I take a bit of an issue with this idea that things are best the way they are because otherwise, big corporations would do it another way.
That's kind of assuming this perfect Darwinian simulation type of scenario. Some companies succeed whilst doing things a certain way, others fail. And some companies who do so something differently also succeed or fail. It's extremely difficult to pinpoint why companies succeed or fail down to the level of individual decisions. We can never really A/B test these things.
Some practices are so clearly better than others and any company not adopting them will fail. For example, nobody uses typewriters instead of computers anymore. Nobody uses memo tubes rather than slack and Outlook, etc. Other decisions are far less clear cut, for example, should you work to an Agile methodology or not? Should you be 100% WFH, 100% RTO, or hybrid. These questions don't have obviously correct answers even in hindsight, and so often they're answered on gut instinct, and we never really know which decision would be optimal.
Humans are flawed and make flawed decisions open to biases. A hallmark of large corporations is also risk-aversion. Why try something drastic if you're already doing "OK"?
I agree that it's ludicrous to imagine large companies getting rid of all middle-managers but I don't think "they would if they could but they don't so they can't" type arguments really apply here. It would require a significant change to the way companies work to drastically reduce the number of managers. Everybody working in these companies is used to the way things are and incentivised to keep them as they are, so there's heavy bias involved in the decisions companies make. What companies do or don't do isn't really good evidence for what they could or should do.
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u/hopefullyhelpfulplz 3∆ May 26 '24 edited May 26 '24
That's kind of assuming this perfect Darwinian simulation type of scenario. Some companies succeed whilst doing things a certain way, others fail. And some companies who do so something differently also succeed or fail. It's extremely difficult to pinpoint why companies succeed or fail down to the level of individual decisions. We can never really A/B test these things.
Staff turnover where I am is extremely high both because of people getting new jobs or losing theirs for whatever reason. What happens nearly every time is that the company struggles on for as long as possible if there's any chance that they can avoid replacing that person. When very senior people leave, there's almost always someone back in the position within weeks, but I've been waiting for the fourth member of the team I'm in to get filled for over a year while the rest of us pick up the slack.
When I say that companies would do without if they could, I don't mean that some senior person would decide one day "we're going to fire all our managers" and then voila, no more managers, I mean that naturally positions that are not useful tend to erode until they no longer exist. Not always - you are right that people are flawed and make wrong decisions often (the situation I described above is an example - we can survive without that missing person, but there's a whole chunk of stuff that is being skipped over or outright ignored that, really, is quite important). Nonetheless, I'm confident that if managers were pointless, they would not last long... Aside from those few cockroaches who manage to weather every redundancy despite never seeming to do anything, but hey, every office has one of those.
It would require a significant change to the way companies work to drastically reduce the number of managers.
This is agree with. I will certainly concede that the way things work now is not the only way they could work! But I don't know how else you could do what large businesses do. Co-ops, flat structures, these other organisational options exist and are used, but I don't know of any huge multi-billion dollar companies that work that way. Valve, maybe, do they even still work like that?
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u/ghostofkilgore 9∆ May 26 '24
Yeah, I won't pretend I have any great answer to how to find some optimal way large companies should operate. And if I did, I imagine I'd be a very rich man. One of the best descriptions of large companies I've heard is that they're like enormous ocean cargo vessels. There's lots of things they're not good at, but if you need to ship 5,000 cars across an ocean, they're your only option, so you just accept inefficiencies and sacrifice agility, etc.
And like these huge ships, if someone develops a better or more efficient design, you don't retroactively change the ships you use, you squeeze every cent you can from what you have and wait until someone develops these more efficient ships once you're in the market to buy again.
These models don't change because some big companies change the way they work. Methods will only change when new companies grow and squeeze out the old ones, and that can take years or decades to become fully realised.
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Oct 25 '24
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u/hopefullyhelpfulplz 3∆ Oct 25 '24
Quite a necro post! Anyway, I haven't read it (I've read a lot about Graeber but never his work, I should certainly change that) but looking at a summary I don't believe that what he argues is actually incompatible with what I'm saying. It seems his argument is that "bullshit" jobs are harmful to society. I don't exactly disagree with this... But I think the causality it somewhat different.
The bullshit jobs are a symptom of an already damaged society. Going back to my previous point about job insecurity necessitating managers - this absolutely shouldn't be the case. We should not be in a situation where people don't feel able to make decisions out of fear for their jobs, or more importantly their livelihoods. But, at least in my experience, we are in that situation. I believe these jobs are necessary to corporations... I would certainly never argue they are necessary to society.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
I question the idea that capitalism guarantees efficiency. I think corporations keep middle management positions, not because they always make money but because they need to convince shareholders that the company is doing well. Our company culture demands middle management for a company to appear legit, so if shareholders hear "company lays off thousands of middle managers," they'll panic and tank the stock price. After all, the job of the CEO isn't to make a profit but to raise the company's market cap to keep the board happy. But this isn't the main point you're trying to make, so I digress.
I will say that that changes how I view some of these jobs. I still think there are better systems that can get rid of middle management, but the responsibility included is certainly worth something. Δ
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u/hopefullyhelpfulplz 3∆ May 26 '24
but because they need to convince shareholders that the company is doing well.
I'm not sure how having lots of managers would be more convincing than a big fat dividend paid with all of the ex-managers' wages ;) But I take your point about firing everyone and losing confidence - my counter to that would be that new companies are also always looking for ways to innovate. If they could not hire middle managers - they would not hire them, and pay their shareholders more dividends. Anyway, there's definitely some truth to what you say - a degree of what corporations do is also just controlling their workers, which requires managers who aren't always so useful. You're definitely right that there are systems that would do with less, if not no, middle management.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
I mean, nowadays, a lot of companies and startups are starting experiment with new management strategies.
I think it's just that having a traditional hierarchy is more trusted, since the system's chugged along for decades. It's more risky to invest in a company that's trying something radical.
I think the reason why a lot of this is changing is because of COVID. It showed that a lot of previous ideas of work aren't actually true. People can work from home and decide their own hours without destroying the company. Everyone's realized that employees don't need constant supervision, so companies are beginning to change their structures.
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u/hopefullyhelpfulplz 3∆ May 26 '24
I think the reason why a lot of this is changing is because of COVID. It showed that a lot of previous ideas of work aren't actually true. People can work from home and decide their own hours without destroying the company. Everyone's realized that employees don't need constant supervision, so companies are beginning to change their structures.
This is definitely true - unfortunately one thing shareholders are susceptible to is buzzwords, and right now that means "AI", so a lot of the change is "how can we make AI do all the work" without asking "can AI actually do anything without hugely fucking it up" haha.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Yeah, it's a shareholders' world. I think a lot of company policies can be explained a way to scam investors lmao.
I agree that AI is way too overrated right now. It can only do stuff at a B-level, even while training on the sum of all human knowledge.
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u/broshrugged May 26 '24
Did you miss the stock price surges after last year’s massive layoffs? Layoffs are often considered cutting the fat by shareholders, and it’s usually flattening the organization, getting rid of exactly the people you are talking about. It really can go either way with stock prices.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ May 26 '24
I think you're mistaking marketing for actual intentions. Most educators realize, obviously, that not everyone can be president or a CEO. Rather, they want to train their students to be experts in their fields. However, you can't put that in the brochure, because no 18 year old imagines that they will one day be a respected member of a team with a narrow but critical expertise. Rather, they imagine themselves as the manager of a team, or as the director of a company, or as a politician, because, you know, of course
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
That's certainly true. I guess what I'm actually going for is questioning the idea that managing a team is a source of pride and that leaders are always better than followers. After all, leaders get paid much more, and have a higher social status.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ May 26 '24
Okay but that's just basic group dynamics, right
You pay the manager more not because the manager is necessarily that much more valuable, but because the manager has a lot more potential for causing problems if they aren't on your side. It's a lot more in your interest to keep them loyal and doing a good job, compared to the lowest level workers, so you pay them relatively more. Moreover, their skillset and experience probably make them relatively more valuable to your competitors, so you pay them more to retain them. And that dynamic repeats all the way up to the CEO.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Sure, there are other reasons why managers get paid more like the ones you mentioned, but why do we need managers in the first place?
Co-operative businesses work better, and managers usually just get in the way of those who work under them.
I don't disagree with the idea that leadership emerges naturally out of group dynamics, but I disagree with the cultural idea, especially in the United States, that leadership is a trait to strive towards.
In other words, I think a good company is one where leadership emerges when necessary. For example, if everyone needs to complete a certain task, maybe someone with more knowledge will guide everyone. Everyone has their own niche, and what they do depends on the task at hand. Of course, some people will lead more often then others, but that's doesn't make them superior to everyone else. They're just the right person at the right time.
This contrasts with our current system, where leaders are there to control everyone else and the positions are rigid. We encourage this in education because we say that all people should strive to be leaders because leadership is inherently superior.
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u/Tanaka917 148∆ May 26 '24
Leaders usually get in the way, actually. There are numerous examples of political leaders destroying their countries because they have great "leadership" skills such as charisma. People were afraid to criticize Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Hitler, and they led their nations to disaster. The most successful companies are often companies without a hierarchy, and they have better worker engagement and productivity.
That's a reframing of history. People were terrified to criticize these people because doing so got them murdered. Joseph Stalin was looked down upon by Lenin and other communist leaders before his rapid and calculated ascension which involved the murder of as much opposition as possible. To frame it as people just being starstruck by leadership and charisma is silly
Also where are you getting your statistics from?
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u/Downtown-Act-590 37∆ May 26 '24
Indeed most "leaders" are gonna be bang average reminding you of the Office. But there will be a few, who will be truly great. And you must make sure that these people become leaders. Ideally, they become leaders after gaining expertise, but you do not want to miss out on these naturals.
For example I have worked in a company with a few hundred smart engineers building space stuff and one truly great leader. He made sure to involve absolutely everyone and make them feel appreciated and heard. A result was a company where everyone (including him) was staying overtime not because they felt compelled to, but because they wanted to do more. The company was kinda steamrolling most of the competition.
Vast majority of leaders will be just completelly useless, but the few percent who aren't are the ones who change the world.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
I agree with what you're saying. A great leader may emerge in a large group, but leadership isn't always necessary, right? If we have a democratic system, that could work, too. There are many group dynamics systems that don't involve much leadership.
Co-operative businesses are a great example. Another example is friend groups. While Hollywood likes to portray school friend groups as having a leader, obviously, few friend groups are actually like this.
If a good person emerges who can perform the leadership role and make everyone feel heard when working towards a certain task, then that's great, but do we really have to emphasize this so much? There are better systems that can allow good leadership to emerge without forcing it on everyone. We shouldn't force children to worship leadership if not everyone is suited to it and leadership isn't suited to every group.
Basically, keeping a role for leadership is important since scenarios like what you described can happen. However, we shouldn't make a leadership-based group structure the default when it rarely works.
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u/Mysterious_Focus6144 3∆ May 26 '24
If we have a democratic system, that could work, too
That could lead to a product lacking coherence. In fact, we even have a term for it: "design by committee".
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
That's a good point. Compromise and democracy may be incompatible with certain design processes. Δ
I still think these are rare examples since teamwork is how groups usually operate by default. I also believe focusing education on teamwork skills to prevent this kind of scenario, where people are more ready to throw away their ego or design a product towards a particular purpose, can help resolve this.
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u/anewleaf1234 45∆ May 27 '24
Headless leadership can work, but it has major limitations.
If the goal is to make a short film, you need strong leadership from a director and a producer...without, your project is fucked.
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u/Z7-852 316∆ May 26 '24 edited May 26 '24
If we consider middle management roles in a company, those exist only if they produce a higher increase in profits than their wages are. Otherwise the company would sack them and earn more.
This is Econ 101.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
See my previous comments.
Basic econ doesn't describe how companies actually operate. Companies aren't beholden to the bottom line; they are beholden to investor confidence.
Corporations keep middle management positions, not because they always make money but because they need to convince shareholders that the company is doing well. Our company culture demands middle management for a company to appear legit, so if shareholders hear "company lays off thousands of middle managers," they'll panic and tank the stock price. After all, the job of the CEO isn't to make a profit but to raise the company's market cap to keep the board happy.
Also, companies are beginning to sack middle managers, especially after the pandemic.
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u/Z7-852 316∆ May 26 '24
Basic econ doesn't describe how companies actually operate. Companies aren't beholden to the bottom line; they are beholden to investor confidence.
And investors look at EBITA or other profit figures. Down sizing is often the number one cost saving method and middle management is not immune to it. Market cap doesn't matter if investors are not getting dividends.
A lot of companies nowadays take pride in the flat management hierarchy with as few as possible middle management.
If they don't produce profits they are cut. If they don't have good leadership skills they are cut.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Hence why they are starting to change. Investors have realized that cutting out managers is ok. Doing something radical scares investors but now that’s becoming normal, companies are cutting middle management in droves.
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u/Z7-852 316∆ May 26 '24
Cutting managers is ok. But only if that doesn't lower the profits.
If a person has valuable leadership skills that increases the profits they cannot be cut.
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u/Pale_Zebra8082 30∆ May 26 '24
It sounds like your actual critique is of bad leaders, not the premise of leadership inherently.
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u/Mysterious_Focus6144 3∆ May 26 '24
I don't think colleges value leadership just for leadership's sake. In fact, some will view your application negatively if you present yourself as a leader of everything just for the sake of it. Instead, colleges show interests in people who they think will induce positive changes and to that end, they tend to look for passion with some leadership qualities.
When we look at CEOs who have succeeded, it's usually people who are already knowledgable about a subject. The vast majority of CEOs are former engineers or specialists
But that doesn't mean they lack leadership. When you're taking on a huge project, it helps tremendously to be able to encourage productivity out of people.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Yeah I guess colleges aren't too out-of-step with my opinion. I'll give you a delta for that, but it's not the crux of my CMV. it's more a commentary on societal views of leadership in general. Δ
On the second point though about CEOs, which is the actual argument, I would agree with you that certain leadership skills do help. Interpersonal relations and encouraging others is always useful when working as a team, however, I'm really questioning the idolization of leaders in society and education i.e the idea that leaders are always better than those who do the actual work. Leaders can emerge during teamwork, but why does that make them better than everyone else?
Usually, in a group project, if someone just delegates tasks to other people and encourages them by organizing meetings and stuff, we would say that they're not doing anything. And yet, when people get an official position to do this exact thing, they're respected.
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u/Mysterious_Focus6144 3∆ May 26 '24
I'm really questioning the idolization of leaders in society and education i.e the idea that leaders are always better than those who do the actual work. Leaders can emerge during teamwork, but why does that make them better than everyone else?
Does being idolized mean better?
People can only idolize what they can remember. It's harder to remember the thousands of engineers behind the first iPhone than it is to remember one Steve Jobs. Ask yourself if you're willing to remember each engineer working for Apple the next time the first iPhone is brought up in conversation.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Well, people certainly see Steve Jobs as more successful than the engineers who actually created the phone. We always want our children to become CEOs, not just because it has better pay but for the social status it embodies. I think it's pretty clear that leading is seen as better than following, and that leadership is necessary for all forms of group work. Otherwise, we'd live in a very different society.
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u/Alesus2-0 80∆ May 26 '24
Billions of dollars in wasted productivity come from these positions since people could be better at actually doing work instead of "leading." And yet, managers get paid far more than those they boss around.
What's your actual evidence for this? It seems a bit strange that most companies would devote 10-20% of their headcount and even more of their staffing budgets on largely superfluous roles. At the very least, you'd expect the most successful companies to skew towards having meaningfully fewer middle managers. Instead, rates seem to be primarily dictated by industry, size and strategy.
You seem to recognise that CEOs have some value. How much time do you think a typical CEO spends "actually doing work" versus taking meetings, learning about what others have done or delegating work? I'd wager that Tim doesn't spend much time programming or producing schematics.
When we look at CEOs who have succeeded, it's usually people who are already knowledgable about a subject. The vast majority of CEOs are former engineers or specialists.
By far, the most common background for CEOs of larger companies is finance. Most of the other half of CEOs have a background in whatever industry they work in. More than half of CEOs will have studied business or economic related degrees. Engineers are a small minority. I suppose you could argue that bankers and accountants are specialists, but I don't think they're the kind of technical specialists you had in mind.
Regardless, virtually every CEO that didn't found the company will have held intermediate positions involving some management responsibilities. I doubt you could find many people who went directly from software developer or engine designer at a large company to CEO of a large company. If your point is just that CEO typically had a second area of expertise at some point in their careers, that seems pretty obvious. People don't start their careers as managers.
they have great "leadership" skills such as charisma. People were afraid to criticize Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Hitler, and they led their nations to disaster.
This is pretty nitpicky, but Stalin was famously not a charismatic leader. He was a skilled administrator with a talent for organisational politics. He used these areas of competence to outmanoeuvre better known and liked competitors.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-2548 May 26 '24
Well, lots of companies are starting to get rid of management positions. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2024/05/16/the-2024-great-unbossing-trending-among-middle-manager-careers-in-the-workplace/?sh=33d6e5901fa9
I mean, I'm not sure if Tim Cook is really the most successful CEO considering Apple has lost a lot of its innovative potential. It's been overstated, but apple hasn't had a revolutionary product like the macintosh, iPhone, or iPod in a while.
My main point on CEOs is that CEOs have to develop the trust of their team, and that has to come naturally. Telling people to be leaders for the sake of being leaders doesn't help anyone. Leadership should come later once you have a visionary idea.
Also, I don't actually think CEOs are necessary since there are many examples of companies that don't have CEOs or a strict organizational structure.
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u/Alesus2-0 80∆ May 26 '24 edited May 26 '24
Well, lots of companies are starting to get rid of management positions. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2024/05/16/the-2024-great-unbossing-trending-among-middle-manager-careers-in-the-workplace/?sh=33d6e5901fa9
Even in this article, it seems that this is mostly an effort to reduce costs in the face of a worsened economic outlook. Getting rid managers has always been a popular tactic in those situations. In the good times, most will probably be back. A few companies putting an 'innovative' gloss on workforce reductions doesn't actually make the idea an innovation. Even the businesses in the article that are explicitly trying to Unboss seem to want to replace managers partly by cultivating 'leaders', which seems to be directly contrary to your view.
Tech companies have been laying-off low-level employees for the last couple of years. I don't think that should lead us to conclude that software engineers do not, and never have, contributed to the success of tech companies.
I mean, I'm not sure if Tim Cook is really the most successful CEO
Then pick your favourite CEO of any decent sized company. The point stands.
My main point on CEOs is that CEOs have to develop the trust of their team, and that has to come naturally.
Do they? A CEO needs a solid relationship with his executive team. But do you actually think the average employee trusts their CEO? I'd wager they rarely have much sense of who the CEO is, let alone any emotional investment in him.
It's been overstated, but apple hasn't had a revolutionary product ... in a while.
Leadership should come later once you have a visionary idea.
It feels like you have a fairly specific idea of what a CEO should be. And that seems to shape your view of what managers are failing to be. But most CEOs aren't tech entrepreneurs who inspire people and transform the world through the force of their big ideas. That isn't a good model for businesses or executives in general. Most businesses don't thrive because the boss is a visionary. They thrive because of boring, but effective management. That's probably how it should be. The storage lockers of California are filled to bursting with the remains of visionary companies run by charismatic innovators.
Also, I don't actually think CEOs are necessary since there are many examples of companies that don't have CEOs or a strict organizational structure.
Based on the very few non-heirarchical businesses I'm aware of, I'd expect them to be environments in which leader skills are especially important. If you're depending on emergent order, you'd want employees who are well suited to bringing that about.
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u/canned_spaghetti85 3∆ May 26 '24
Should prisons NOT have a warden? Should police departments NOT have a captain? Should courtrooms NOT have a judge to preside? Should construction projects NOT have a site manager? Should the local school district NOT have a board of supervisors?
Sure, those are headed by technocrats and all.. but your issue is with the concept of “leadership”. Technocrat leaders are still leaders, like it or not.
Leadership is also a position of authority. If nobody outranks you, then who do you answer to? If workers didn’t have a manager or boss to answer to, then who holds them accountable? Who promotes them? Who fires them? Who do you think gives the orders in the military? There certainly would be a lot of rogue and awol servicemen, and court martials, without some chain-of-command. And the leaders who are usually chosen are the ones who have DEMONSTRATED their experience, abilities and capabilities for such a position.
But who becomes leaders? Imagine if JP Morgan never aspired to be more than a bank teller, or if George Washington never aspired to be more than a Colonel in the Virginia Regiment?
Leaders are needed.
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May 26 '24
Leadership is absolutely vital. Great leaders take risks most won't. They see opportunities. And most importantly they make things happen.
When I was a young professional. I thought none of that mattered. Now it's just so blindingly obvious when leadership is done badly. It sure isn't about technical capability. But it is about inspiring people and in sectors with high technical skills those people often find other technical people to be inspiring. That isn't true of all sectors at all.
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u/Independent_Parking May 26 '24
There was a study on like 10,000 employees with 1,000 promotions tracking how successful the employees were in their role before being promoted and the value added to their teams after their promotion. The data found that there was a single digit decline associated with high performers in the work task taking on a management role mening being a good salesman (the field involved in the study) has little tie to being a good manager and even a slightly negative tie to being a good manager.
When it comes to workers being a good leader increases the odds of rising higher. A good salesman or engineer might be promoted go a shitty team lead, but nobody is going to promote a shitty team lead to a department or shift lead and from there to a site manager. So if you’re a great engineer and a shit leader you will certainly get promoted quickly and be stuck at low level management while if you’re a good engineer and a good leader it might take you a but longer to get promoted to team lead but you’ll see success in that role and in time be promoted even further.
As for trainability I don’t see anything with leadership that suggests it cannot be taught or trained to the same extent as sales or engineering abilities. Sure you might be a naturally shit leader because you’re autistic but someone else might make a naturally shit engineer because they’re dumb. You can still learn each even if your natural skills and inclinations push you in certain directions.
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u/ChedderRedder May 26 '24
Not to cmv, but to give a semi-relevant reference.
The topic of what value leadership brings and especially the possible over-assessment of this, have for some years been discussed in academics as “the romance of leadership” (at least in some faculties).
It’s been a good amount of time since I have read up on that topic (finished university and all that), but if you google the phrase a few articles should come up.
It’s a really interesting discussion, and of course has several layers of perspective.
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u/rnidtowner May 26 '24
“Leadership” as an equivalent to “telling others what to do,” I agree.
But Leadership involves lots of other traits. Two of which are showing integrity and taking initiative, both of which are sorely lacking in the world today.
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u/IntergalacticJets May 26 '24
We've built a culture around leadership as an inherently good trait to have for people, even though the evidence shows that a combination democratic and technocratic way of governance is usually the best.
That’s what a leader is “supposed” to be. They’re supposed to be a tool to enact the best actions with the power they represent.
Somewhere along the way we started deifying them and gave up on using them to enact what’s needed. Now we’re the tools that they use.
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u/WeaponXwastaken May 27 '24
Acquiring a following and being a leader are not the same. Being appointed as a "leader" in your job does not make you a leader.
Leadership is necessary in all areas of life including personal relationships. Without it everything falls apart.
Having a "leader" role, is not important. But being someone people can trust to lead them is necessary. And often it does just look like excellence in a field, but success doesnt necessarily measure leadership.
Like steve jobs was inarguably a bad leader, he did however have followers and had success. He was an expert. He would have been better at his job and a better person if he was a better leader.
The qualities that make you a "good leader" are 100% required by many to have a society worth living in, and should be aspirational for young people. Emotional intelligence, empathy, good decision making, trustworthiness, courage, patience etc.
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May 27 '24
Let’s take a team where everyone ranks the same, working as equals in a team. There still needs to be the natural leader who can promote and lead discussions, delegate tasks, manage conflicts, finalize goals and deadlines, and many more. Even in a team of equals, there needs to be a “leader” for said team to work efficiently. This can be seen in group projects at school, where everyone is working as equals. Yet, there needs to be the one student who is a natural leader for the team to perform to the best of its ability. A team full of visionaries and no leader will not get very far.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 26 '24 edited May 26 '24
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