And I'm not just talking politics here. But in many facets of life especially at work. Why is this? Did they have proper connections or know how to suck up to the right people? Or sabotage others to get ahead? Do they rise to powerful positions due to insecurity about their own skills (i.e. overcompensation)?
shareYep they are good at sucking up and playing politics. There is a thing called the Peter Principal though which means that a person will rise to the level of their own incompetence and then start going back down again. Sucking up and bullshit alone will only get you so far.
shareThat's sad. I've observed leaders at work that never should've gotten the position in the first place. They do crap work. Yet they get off mistreating or micromanaging others to fuel their ego. I believe they're narcissists.
shareI'd say you are right. Often they sacrifice everyone else plus the company/workplace to get where they want to be. It seems to be the way modern management is structured. They go from job to job changing things making a mess, then the next manager comes in and although they are supposed to fix it they just make a mess or leave it the same then leave and so on.
And the ones right at the top are so out of touch they couldn't care less and actually get bonuses when they fuck it all up and resign! The game has to be rigged!
It is rigged. I think only tech companies that are not very rigged. When I look at most tech CEOs they all were very competent engineers / programmers at some time. Satya Nadela, Mark Zuckerberg, Linus Torvalds, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Sergei Brin, etc.
PS. Amazon was not a tech company, it was a bookstore. They used tech to create a new bussines model, they did not create or sell tech.
Eric56, isn't it true that you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, lol.
shareIt’s called inner office politics. I watched it happen for years.
shareNepotism, the Old Boys network, and people that ride on making things look good on the surface but don’t waste a second caring about the chaos bubbling right beneath it.
shareWell I'm the president of our local Grammar Society, and so I think that I prove this theory wrong. As far as personal grammar usage, I take great pride in always doing everything exarctly correct.
shareI saw it happen at work. Boss hired two new guys who became his buddies. These two were the first people he ever hired as a new boss. They are absolute morons. The boss had to come in from his vacation to fix the mistakes one of them made on a project and he defended him as inexperience.
Worse they are pricks. They were brought up on harassment charges against fellow employees. The boss came up to bat for them and they got off. Worse the boss got a permanent black mark on his record for letting the situation get out of hand.
When he moved up a few years later, the branch was split in two and they were named his successors.
i think theres a few factors , some are good at the actual work , so rise up , some are good at "mamagnent" , some are bullshitters.
But do we underlings really know if we would do it any better?
its easy to critisize from the bottom.
Like every armchair football coach
absolutely.
the easiest thing in the world to do is to stand on the sidelines and make pissy comments about incompetence.
most bosses are like most people. they have their ups and downs and strengths and weaknesses.
most people are average, by definition, & they're gonna have an average amount of intelligence and an average amount of grit & endurance & so on, and they're gonna make an average amount of fuck-ups.
until robots rise up and take over, the world will be run by people, and people are not perfect and make mistakes. this is the way things are.