Why so many incompetent men rise to leadership positions

Research on why so many incompetent men rise to leadership positions found there’s a lot of antimeritocratic and implicit positive discrimination going on that favors not just men but overconfident, narcissistic, and incompetent men when it comes to leadership roles.  

Often, even when women are appointed to very senior leadership roles, it isn’t because people have embraced what they bring to the table in terms of EQ, self-awareness, self-control, integrity, humility, people skills, et cetera. Rather, it’s because they go for a profile of somebody who may be biologically female but out-males males in masculinity. So there’s a queen bee or Margaret Thatcher phenomenon. In fact, there are many countries in the world that are run by women who look more alpha male than their male competitors.  The point is not to have more biological women in charge but to have better leaders in charge.  

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Columbia University

Insight into who will respond better in a crisis

A person’s capacity for healthy outcomes during difficulties is tied to their ability to define their life’s goals and values apart from the surrounding pressure to conform to a particular viewpoint.

In his book Generation to Generation, Edwin Friedman offers a way to test resistance to togetherness pressures, that is, possessing the power to say “I” when others are demanding “you” and “we.”

When presented with an issue that does not include “should” and “musts” some listeners will respond in a way that better defines themselves (such as “I agree” or “I disagree”). This person is likely to function well (emotionally) during a crisis. Other people may respond by attempting to define the speaker (comments like “How can you say that when…” or “After saying that I wonder if you are really one of us”). This indicates the person will likely resist progress toward healthy outcomes during crises and difficulties. People who more clearly define themselves are also more likely to take personal responsibility, whereas those who focus on the speaker are more likely to blame outside forces for their situations.  

One of the founding fathers of family therapy, Murray Bowen, suggested the capacity to define one’s own life’s goals and values apart from surrounding pressure, that is, to be a “relatively nonanxious presence in the midst of anxious systems” is an indication of taking “maximum responsibility for one’s own destiny and emotional being.” It shows up in “the breadth of one’s repertoire of responses when confronted with crisis.” The concept shouldn’t be confused with narcissism. For Bowen, differentiation means the capacity to be an “I” while remaining connected.

Stephen Goforth

How to Pick the Best Leaders

“Employees who do well at their assigned tasks and score well on a simple IQ test are more likely to succeed as managers than noisy self-promoters. But there is an even better way to pick managers, according to these experts — directly test people’s aptitude for core management skills. The best managers, it turns out, are those who are actually good at one of the primary responsibilities of a manager — assigning the right projects to the right people.” - Inc

How to Pick a Leader

Try to ignore everything that is style and not substance. We should de-emphasize things like credentials, expertise, and experience, especially when they apply to something people have done before but is not so relevant for the future. Most of us are less likely to lose our jobs to AI than to reimagine our current roles while working out how to use AI to add value in different ways. Less focus on hard skills and more focus on the right soft skills.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Columbia University

Adaptability: Critical to Effective Leadership

A decade long study published in Harvard Business Review set out to identify the specific attributes that differentiate high-performing CEOs: 

Our analysis shows that CEOs who excel at adapting are 6.7 times more likely to succeed. CEOs themselves told us over and over that this skill was critical. The adaptable CEOs spent significantly more of their time—as much as 50%—thinking about the long term. Adaptable CEOs also recognize that setbacks are an integral part of changing course and treat their mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. In our sample, CEOs who considered setbacks to be failures had 50% less chance of thriving. Successful CEOs, on the other hand, would offer unabashedly matter-of-fact accounts of where and why they had come up short and give specific examples of how they tweaked their approach to do better next time. Similarly, aspiring CEOs who demonstrated this kind of attitude (what Stanford’s Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset”) were more likely to make it to the top of the pyramid: Nearly 90% of the strong CEO candidates we reviewed scored high on dealing with setbacks.

Read more about the CEO Genome Project in the Harvard Business Review

Battling Tradition in a Organization

Without understanding that a tradition is an outdated way to fulfill a good intent, you will just ignore or fight it. But, armed with that understanding, you can argue with tradition — debating what needs to stay and what has to change — precisely in order to keep the organization’s intent alive.

Gianpiero Petriglieri writing in the Harvard Business Review

The best strategy for persuading others to help you achieve something

Let's say you're considering a wonderful business opportunity, but you also face challenges.

The average leader might gather the team and explain why it's such a great opportunity for the company. The emotionally intelligent leader, however, skips much of that, and frames everything from the point of view of his or her team:

1. First, what the opportunity means for everyone together,

2. Second, what it means for individual contributors, and

3. Finally, what's needed from each person to reach the goal.

The hard part is that it takes more time to think about all of these angles and to craft the right message. On top of all of that, you have the challenge of being brief. But, when done right, you also get the benefit of being far more likely to achieve your goals.

Bill Murphy, Jr. writing in his newsletter

Hiring a disruptor

Peripheral leaders who operate at the geographical and cultural margins of an organization, often see disruption coming much earlier than those at the center. The same leaders are also, research shows, most likely to come up with innovative ideas. But to the leaders at the core of the organization, the concerns of those at its periphery often seem premature and exaggerated, and their plans far too risky.

Hiring a disruptor can be a conservative move, an unconscious way to prove the power of traditions and blame someone else’s style for our irrational investment in them. Any aspiring disruptor who does not get a handle on this dynamic is at risk of being set up. Picking an outsider to deliver, or more precisely embody, that message makes it easier to dismiss the message.  

Gianpiero Petriglieri writing in the Harvard Business Review

Businesses Blaming the AI

Bosses have certain goals, but don’t want to be blamed for doing what’s necessary to achieve those goals; by hiring consultants, management can say that they were just following independent, expert advice. Even in its current rudimentary form, A.I. has become a way for a company to evade responsibility by saying that it’s just doing what “the algorithm” says, even though it was the company that commissioned the algorithm in the first place. 

Ted Chiang writing in The New Yorker

How Emotionally intelligent leaders deal with failure and setbacks

Emotionally intelligent leaders expect there to be roadblocks and emotionally prepare for them. They look for the lesson learned and don’t take setbacks personally.   To emotionally intelligent leaders, disappointments are part of their learning and development journey. They understand that these moments will ultimately help them to reach their goals.

Harvey Deutschendorf writing in Fast Company

Leadership in Times of Difficulty

Even if they don’t have immediate solutions, emotionally intelligent leaders are able to maintain calm in the face of difficulties. This can help their team focus their energy on coming up with solutions, rather than needlessly squandering time and effort on fear and worry. 

Harvey Deutschendorf writing in Fast Company

The road to becoming more of a manager than a leader

If you catch yourself referring to people on your team by their job titles as often as by their names, beware—you're on the road to becoming more of a manager than a leader. A real leader thinks of people individually and holistically, and tries hard to understand strengths and weaknesses, goals and interests.  I saw this all too often in the military, for example, where great leaders grew to know their soldiers, and lesser leaders referred to them generically, either by their ranks or occupational specialties. 

Bill Murphy Jr. writing in the Understandably newsletter

Emotionally intelligent leader are consistently authentic

An emotionally intelligent leader is always clear about their intentions and where they are coming from. This means employees don’t have to worry about deciphering messages from leadership and keeps them best informed about the organization’s goals and motives. 

Authentic emotionally intelligent leaders share as much as they are able to with their people at all times and expect the same from others in their circle. They don’t feel the need to hide things from others, cover up their mistakes, or play favorites in their workplace. They treat everyone the same, regardless of their position or station in life.  

Harvey Deutschendorf writing in Fast Company

Emotionally intelligent leaders are willing to step out of their comfort zones

Growth and development require that we continue to push the boundaries of what we feel comfortable doing. Emotionally strong leaders recognize this and continue to push themselves and encourage those around them to go beyond what they already know and are familiar with. 

Emotionally intelligent leaders recognize that change is constant and that their success, the success of their people, and the success of the organization requires constant advancements and adjustments. 

Harvey Deutschendorf writing in Fast Company

Bosses: Don’t be Jerks

After decades of being bossed, and 16 years of bossing, I’ve developed a prime directive for bosses which will probably not be taught at Harvard Business School: Don’t be a jerk. Organizations need hierarchies and leadership, so yes, you get to call some shots. You can be tough and demanding. But remember that your authority over other human beings is an artificial construct. You are not better than the people working for you. Fire people if you must, but humiliate no one. Be kind. Granted, many bosses don’t operate this way, and I can understand why women in positions of power want the right to be as obnoxious and tyrannical as their male counterparts. But wouldn’t it be better still if no boss could get away with acting like a jerk?

William Falk writing in The Week Magazine

Great Leaders vs Managers

Great leaders aren't always the most likable people. In the long run, great leaders recognize that their job is to get people to do things they might not want to do, in order to achieve goals they want to achieve.  Contrast that with "mere managers," who either want to be liked or try to convince themselves that they don't care. Great leaders know that cordiality is necessary, but also that they might sometimes have to sacrifice short-term likability in favor of long-term respect. 

Bill Murphy Jr. writing in the Understandably newsletter

Switching Strategies

Parents need a veritable smorgasbord of strategies to raise their children, everything from tough discipline and strict boundaries to treating kids to ice cream and a day off. Knowing when to use which one is a sign of healthy flexibility. The same goes for leaders at work, who might want to change the way they manage their employees when the company is going through a season of stress.   

Kira M. Newman writing for Greater Good Magazine

The best predictor of toxic work culture

To find evidence-based insights on culture change, we began with the large body of existing research on unhealthy corporate culture. Leadership consistently emerged as the best predictor of toxic culture. The importance of leadership will surprise no one, but it does underscore a fundamental reality: Leaders cannot improve corporate culture unless they are willing to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable for toxic behavior.  Toxic social norms can take on a life of their own in a team or an organization and persist through multiple changes in leadership. Without a commitment from the top team, any organization wide culture change — including a cultural detox — is destined to fail. 

Donald Sull and Charles Sull writing for the MIT Sloan Management Review

Leaders Make Wrong Assumptions about Toxic Work Culture

In many organizations, bad news about toxic behaviors gets filtered out as it moves up the hierarchy. As a result, top leaders often think they’ve done a better job addressing toxic culture than they actually have. In a survey of 16,000 managers across nearly 500 companies, top executives were 24% more likely to say that they addressed unethical behavior quickly and consistently compared with how well middle managers thought the C-suite dealt with unethical actions. Top executives were 48% more likely to believe they dealt effectively with cutthroat managers. 

Donald Sull and Charles Sull writing for the MIT Sloan Management Review

Toxic workplaces

Toxic workplaces are not only costly — they are also common. Our research on large U.S. employers found that approximately 1 in 10 workers experience their workplace culture as toxic, an estimate that is in line with other studies. Even companies with healthy cultures overall typically contain pockets of toxicity, due to abusive managers or dysfunctional social norms among certain teams.  By identifying and addressing these toxic subcultures, a process we refer to as a cultural detox, leaders can dramatically improve employees’ experience and minimize unwanted attrition, disengagement, negative word of mouth, and other costs associated with a toxic workplace.

Donald Sull and Charles Sull writing for the MIT Sloan Management Review