[HN Gopher] Clues to identify a destructive leader
___________________________________________________________________
Clues to identify a destructive leader
Author : BossingAround
Score : 194 points
Date : 2020-11-08 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (articles.tilt365.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (articles.tilt365.com)
| benzayb wrote:
| "people leave managers not companies"
|
| Countless times I've heard or read this somewhere.
|
| Quite untrue with my experiences. Who exactly is the "manager"?
| the "company"?
|
| In my experience, most of my reports left because of low pay. I
| as their "manager" agreed that they receive an raise which is
| justifiable due to their output and our team's growth.
|
| But the "company" is against it. In particular the CFO. Is the
| CFO the "manager" then?
|
| In any case, a statement like that is almost always misleading.
|
| The article is Ok though. I just wished that statement was not
| there.
| code4tee wrote:
| If you've ever been in a company with a toxic leader you can
| relate. It will literally destroy everything in the company. The
| toxic leader usually thinks everyone else is the problem, causing
| them to double down. It's a vicious cycle that's destroyed many
| companies.
| danielharan wrote:
| If there's a board, it may be worth it to let some members
| know.
|
| Should those board members do nothing, you now know to avoid
| their companies in the future :)
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > If there's a board, it may be worth it to let some members
| know
|
| Scenarios like this never work out well for the person doing
| the "complaining", whether you're going above your manager to
| their manager or your CEO to their board.
|
| It's not worth your time, energy, or reputation. Focus your
| energy elsewhere, it's not your fight anymore.
| fredley wrote:
| This hits home. I've worked with leaders on two seperate
| extremes of the axes presented. In one case literally everyone
| of the bullet points was true. I wish I could have read this
| before then.
| Angostura wrote:
| I've been at a company 6 years, I was thinking of leaving
| because I'd achived pretty much all I could in the role. In
| September a new CEO joined. Having listened to their plans, I
| was excited, new ideas, a firm direction. I decided to stay
|
| a month later, I resigned. They were a bully who perceived any
| geniuine question as a challenge. Good people, coming out of
| meetings trying not to cry. I was coming out of meetings
| feeling like I was being beaten up.
|
| My last day is next Thursday. People keep telling me how
| envious they are of me. I'm feeling guilt for leaving them in
| the lurch.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I'm feeling guilt for leaving them in the lurch.
|
| You are not making their lives any worse. Most likely you
| don't even have that kind of power.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I'm feeling guilt for leaving them in the lurch.
|
| Keep in touch with them, and let them know of opportunities
| that fit them where you landed, if it's a better place.
| otaviokz wrote:
| The feeling of guilt is, unfortunately, normal. Just try to
| keep in mind you didn't really do nothing wrong, and it will
| help overcoming it faster.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Feeling sorry for someone and feeling guilt feels the same
| for me. Maybe OP are mixing them up? Ie. he feels sorry for
| them as soon as the "we are in this together" is gone?
| erikerikson wrote:
| > keep in mind you didn't really do nothing wrong
|
| Perhaps you meant to write "Keep in mind you acted in good
| faith"?
| runawaybottle wrote:
| I want to add my own advice. You remember that culture fit part
| of the interview that every company does? It's never about
| finding out if your young dumb and ready to fuck. It's about are
| you willing to put up with a certain management style. That's the
| job offer, you are being offered money to be able to
| professionally handle their people system. If you are okay with
| handling it, you can work there.
|
| Things that will help probe in that phase of the interview:
|
| - Ask about deadlines.
|
| - Ask about requirements, how much do they have, how often they
| change, who makes the final call, how are they scoped initially,
| how involved are the stakeholders.
|
| - Beyond unit testing, how is QA handled, how is user acceptance
| testing handled, how does all of this affect timelines.
|
| - Ask for a roadmap, can they tell you what they plan on building
| in the next year. Some managers don't share this information with
| their team in general, so expect a solid 'not sure, but we have
| stuff promise' type response (which gives you an answer on
| transparency).
|
| - Why do they need one more person on the team? Here you really
| want to find out their current bottlenecks. Then probe deeper and
| find out if the bottlenecks are a lack of labor, or systemic
| issues (see above bullet points). Scary answers include 'no
| roadmap, and everything is on time' - so why do you need me?
|
| - The dance with the manager at a startup could eliminate you as
| they are still looking for people that will put up with
| absolutely anything. But, they might also be ready for more
| process oriented people. Again, you have to signal who you are.
| If these things don't matter to you, go with the 'I eat sleep and
| code answer'.
|
| If you sufficiently annoyed them at the end of those questions,
| both you and the company will agree in a non-spoken dance that
| you won't be happy in their management style.
|
| If you really really just need a check, don't ever ask questions
| like that. Just say, 'I build stuff on my spare time constantly,
| and I just love development, so I think this would be a great
| opportunity to grow'. You are signaling you are desperate and
| ready to fuck.
|
| Small things to consider, if you ask those questions to a regular
| dev on their team, you will get feedback that you might not fit
| (so don't ask the team these questions). Save it for the manager,
| and negotiate with the unspoken dance directly.
|
| Best of luck, culture fit is definitely how the manager and you
| maintain healthiness, what you can put up, and what they can put
| up with. Even the most toxic manager has some humanity, and it is
| also exhausting for him/her to deal with unhappy people. Work
| together in the culture fit part to parse if everyone's
| expectation is within reach.
|
| The end goal of all of this is you don't walk away from the job
| because you didn't know what you got yourself into. You're an
| adult, go into everything with both eyes open, no crying at the
| end.
| SeeManDo wrote:
| You can definitely operate a profitable startup/any sort of
| business if you can find enough college grads/cert drones who
| are desperate for work, will take $15/hour, are "dumb and ready
| to fuck" and will put up with a team of unprofessional
| micromanaging assholes. You just to have to make sure you are
| their leader!
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Been there done that, I've worked for $15 bux an hour before
| at a software company.
| XorNot wrote:
| I just saved this list into my phone for future reference.
| These are some solid questions I've skirted around before but
| never consistently followed (didn't for my current position,
| probably should have)
| runawaybottle wrote:
| And I warn you, do not ask these questions unless you
| definitely have a comfortable position, these are all red
| flag inquisitions.
|
| I've been in desperate spots before, and I never dig like
| this. It's a position of luxury.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| I've been in a position where I had to find my next
| opportunity. While I was considering options, I asked a ton
| of questions and got to know the people/tech/processes
| extensively, and I believe I got a better offer because of
| it.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| That's great to hear. Any tips on how you modulated your
| questions? I think it's possible the spirit of the
| inquiry was the same, some do it better.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| I notice the predominant colour of the diagram is orange.
| Coincidence, surely.
| mrweasel wrote:
| It can be interesting, but also draining if you're no careful, to
| view these companies from the outside.
|
| I work with a client, who have the most toxic environment I've
| ever seen. The company is just a handful of people, including the
| CEO, and we've been in meetings where they are basically yelling
| at each other, sometimes us, trying to allocate blame. Fixing
| stuff is less important than identifying who is to blame.
|
| Trying to get a decision about anything is impossible, we have
| questions that goes unanswered for months. It frequently trivial
| stuff like: when do you want this script to run? Picking a date,
| or where is this documented (it's not but they'll insist it is,
| and we're just to stupid to find it).
|
| It all stems from the leadership within. Their managers all have
| one or more of the traits in the article, and it seems to trickle
| down to the employees who act similarly towards people on the
| outside.
|
| Personally I've take the approach that I'm consulant, paid by the
| hour (because the client refuse to sign an actual contract), so I
| really don't care, I'll make any modification they want, write
| whatever document they need, redo anything they're unhappy with,
| even if the result is worse.
|
| The main things with having these companies as clients is:
| * Double check everything you write, before sending it.
| * Have them sign of on everything, before starting the work.
| * Always get everything in writing. * Don't lie, they
| will catch you and use it to blame you for unrelated stuff.
| * Don't take it personal. * Bill by the hour.
| pram wrote:
| Yeah I experienced this years ago at an MSP. The client was
| outright hostile to people who would pick up their tickets. It
| was extraordinarily hard to please them. They'd also leave bad
| reviews on the tickets once completed, which would impact our
| bonus (!)
|
| So the eventual outcome was no one would pick up their requests
| from the queue, and this made them even more angry and
| difficult. I flat out refused to do them, directly to my
| managers, since they wouldn't consider voiding the inevitable
| bad reviews. Just dumb all around.
| bsder wrote:
| My advice is to dump these kinds of customers ASAP.
|
| These kinds of customers will eventually screw you on billing,
| too.
| avg_dev wrote:
| All I can think is that your hourly rate must be pretty high to
| put up with that. It's good advice for when I might need it, I
| suppose.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Money helps, but you can honestly deal with alot of bullshit
| when your own employeer has excellent management.
| Xylakant wrote:
| I found that it's much easier as a consultant, especially
| if you have a good boss since you always know that you can
| be gone tomorrow if things get to bad. And on top, people
| in the org have no actual way to reprimand you, they need
| to go via your actual boss.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Tons of people put up with the similar on a daily basis. The
| pay is often really good in consulting gigs.
|
| I was a consultant for retail/financial megacorps. 75% of the
| job is managing blame - covering your ass, finding ways to
| blame others, referencing the statement of work, etc.
|
| PMO is always 5 or 6 members deep because of this - the work
| of many consultants is to milk money, not solve problems,
| unfortunately. Obviously there are great consultants out
| there - but I find for every one good one there are 10 bad.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The sad part is that many who have to deal with this really
| do want to help and fix issues, but poor management, be it
| from the client or your employeer can stand in the way and
| be really costly.
|
| I hate billing customers for stuff they don't need or
| aren't helping them, but if they insist and won't take free
| advice I'll do the work and invoice them.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why not bill them by the day or week?
| mrweasel wrote:
| That works as well, the point is never to give a fixed price.
| dboreham wrote:
| However, eventually this will destroy your sole.
| foobiekr wrote:
| because of all the pacing?
| kderbyma wrote:
| while I get the point of these articles, I think they are little
| more than self-satisfying regurgitation of past experiences which
| went poorly. I want to see an article from the perspective of
| someone who realises they have these problems and what they plan
| to do to fix them.... identifying is not that helpful when it
| becomes the end result - all in all seems like clickbait.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| While destructive leaders and psychopaths / sociopaths in the
| workplace are critical issues, this article is hot garbage in the
| same way that you can't quote DSM narcissism disorder traits at
| people you don't like and you can't use Myers Briggs descriptions
| like horoscopes.
|
| The defining characteristics are all so subjective (what does
| "extreme" external image mean? who says?) and so vague (what is
| gossiping vs actually describing real organizational problems?
| what if a middle manager really is being bullied or unsupported
| and they have to defend that certain things really aren't their
| fault?) as to be useless and dangerous, because you can read into
| this and see anyone as a "destructive leader" if you are
| motivated to. There's no basis in systematic rules or data.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| I think the article is useless as well.
|
| BUT, personality DOES play a large role in determining the
| effectiveness of someone as a leader.
|
| More to the point, personality and the discernment of its
| characteristics and consequences is an intrinsically subjective
| thing. You will not find clearly actionable data nor systematic
| rules for figuring this stuff out.
|
| That subjectivity doesn't stop people from trying to quantify
| this stuff, like for example, those insipid HR-driven DISC
| personality surveys and workshops. Some folks dive into minutia
| about Myers-Briggs classification. There's grains of truth in
| all these approaches, but it never works the way it was
| intended. HR departments and individuals aren't psychometric
| professionals, and even if they were, what they could actually
| use this for in a workplace isn't at all clear even in the best
| case scenario.
|
| IMHO, the way you identify a destructive leadership pattern is
| by having experienced it before (as well as its opposite), by
| being mindful of your interactions with others and with
| organizational politics, and being self-critical of your own
| reactions to it. None of that is easy, It can't be learned in
| advance. It takes experience, trial and error.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| I agree it's much more of an experience judgment.
|
| The real harm of poor quality "checklist psychology" articles
| like this one is that uninformed HR or aggrieved employees
| will treat it with too much respect and legitimacy, meanwhile
| the actual psychopath or destructive leader is going to get
| out in front of this and start disingenuously saying other
| people are destructive leaders and cut off their credibility
| to push back or undermine the psycho's authority.
|
| For example, if you see a high ranking leader trying to
| deflect valid criticism of their choices by saying "assume
| positive intent" you can be sure this is happening.
|
| "Assume positive intent" is a siren call of a destructive
| leader because the plan is to reframe their challenger's
| valid criticisms in an "us vs them" abstract debate about who
| is or isn't acting in good faith, completely tabling the
| merits of the argument out of scope. The genius of it is that
| "assume positive intent" allows you to sidestep the usual
| reputation hit you would take for making something "us vs
| them" - basically "assume positive intent" is HR-permitted
| code for framing us-vs-them blame to sabotage otherwise
| legitimate criticisms of leadership - "criticism" itself
| becomes politically disallowed.
|
| Articles like this one act like legitimizers for that kind of
| stuff, since it's all just vague, fluffy pop-psychology
| statements that could virtually apply to any coworker whether
| their situation is legitimate or they are being a destructive
| leader or they are just having a bad week.
| tilt365 wrote:
| Appreciate your perspectives and happy to share the many
| years of research we have conducted. We have been sharing
| the positive version of this scientific model based on 12
| character strengths for years and have some awesome tech
| clients who have used it for years. This is the first time
| we have shared the pathological version during this
| election. Great leaders choose to take responsibility for
| their negative impact and commit to growth. We help people
| choose that every day and have served many great tech
| leaders startups and companies. Of course there is a LOT of
| detail not included in this short blog. If you are
| interested we will post more here about the science and
| positive version. Pam
| tilt365 wrote:
| Personality is largely genetic but doesn't limit who we can
| become thru choice and moral reasoning. We built a
| personality profile that is based on character science and
| doesn't limit people to type. Enjoyed your post. Agree that
| experiencing a destructive leader is what catalyzed the 30
| years of research and devotion of my life's work to creating
| a scientific framework for identifying positive vs
| destructive leadership. quickly. I found that having a
| heuristic helps keep all of us choose to grow and lead more
| consciously. Myself especially! Pam
| kebman wrote:
| Reminds me! I recently came accross this older YouTube channel,
| Healthy Software Developer. I found it to be quite a good source
| of info on everything from leadership to company culture.[1]
| Quite entertaining too!
|
| [1]: A Tale Of Software Development Culture Change - Gone Wrong!
| 18 May 2018, Healthy Software Developer
| https://youtu.be/yKAOMiNv-go
| wilburm wrote:
| Healthy Software developer has been a great resource. It sounds
| clicheed but knowing you're not alone in some of this stuff is
| a comfort.
| grawprog wrote:
| I've always felt the concept of leadership is looked at the wrong
| way. Whether in the workplace or even in politics.
|
| Leaders are not at the top, they are the foundation of
| everything. A good leader is the base of the team. The foundation
| the team is built on. They hold the team together from the
| bottom. Bearing the weight of responsibility and direction.
|
| A good leader understands, their team's success is their success
| and their team's failure is their failure.
|
| Anything can only be as strong as the foundation that holds it
| together. A leader who tries to stand at the top leaves no
| foundation for the team to work off and instead expects the team
| to bear their weight.
|
| A leadership role is something that should be taken on with
| trepidation and the understanding that you're taking on
| responsibility for the people working with you.
|
| It's up to you to guide things and yes it's you that takes the
| blame if things don't work.
| _greim_ wrote:
| Maybe even the term "leader" is starting to show its age.
| Successful decision-making is (has to be) distributed in modern
| society, where skills are fragmented into so many specialties.
| grawprog wrote:
| Agreed, decision maker seems like a good stand in. A good
| decision maker is able to take, as you say, people whose
|
| >skills are fragmented into so many specialties.
|
| And successfully organize those people into a functioning
| unit to accomplish a goal.
| cannabis_sam wrote:
| > A good leader is the base of the team. The foundation the
| team is built on. They hold the team together from the bottom.
| Bearing the weight of responsibility and direction.
|
| After doing consulting for the last couple of years, I'm slowly
| realizing how lucky I was to have stumbled into a small company
| with a CEO with this approach, right after uni.
|
| He ended up writing a rudimentary, inefficient cms in java,
| filled with strange lispisms, but goddammit it worked as an
| amazing stopgap until I was available to make something more
| useable.
|
| That's true leadership to me.
| grawprog wrote:
| I've worked for both kinds of leaders. The companies with the
| kind of leader I describe above were by far the better places
| to work. The businesses always ran more smoothly, employee
| turnover was low, there was never usually interpersonal
| issues, and when problems like that did crop up, they were
| always solved quickly and by the end amicably.
|
| A leader really can make or break a workplace. A good one can
| make any job feel good to go to, while a bad one can make the
| best job in the world feel like a living hell.
| fogetti wrote:
| Similarly applicable alternative title: "How to identify brainy
| smurf who writes articles starting with "How to identify...""
|
| And also: "How to identify everyone based on their childhood
| dilemma"
|
| Hard to take this article seriously. I thought that we have
| already passed this kind of cheap pseudo-freudian psychoanalysis
| a long time ago.
| itronitron wrote:
| Also the writing is all over the place even within individual
| paragraphs.
| otaviokz wrote:
| Amen! Taking a common perception and wrapping it in a lot of
| cheap psychoanalysis (without even providing references)
| belongs somewhere else.
| tilt365 wrote:
| Would you like to review the psychometrics? Happy to share?
| caiobegotti wrote:
| If you ever consider taking a leadership or management role
| please do yourself plus the people around looking up to you a
| favor and go to fucking psycotherapy. It's far more important
| than your technical skills (since you should be pretty senior by
| then anyway).
| kodisha wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| 55555 wrote:
| Off the top of my head: No one likes dealing with a boss who
| lets their emotions overflow into the workplace and takes
| their personal issues out on their staff. That's just one of
| many ways therapy can help you be a better manager.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| In my experience, most of good management is about figuring
| out why am I not doing the right thing (as a manager).
| Knowing what needs to be done is much easier than actually
| doing it.
|
| Example: giving feedback is notoriously hard, even if it's
| really clear what the issues are. Promotion is also hard (you
| have to choose who to promote and who to not promote), and
| most of the time you do know the right choice but you might
| not be able to call it for personal reasons.
|
| So yes, if you happen to manage people, spend a LOT of effort
| on self-reflection. Go to a coach, therapist, go to courses
| where they let you practice and where you get feedback.
| Whatever works for you, just keep investing. Also, don't
| worry if the coach, course, therapist is imperfect.
| user5994461 wrote:
| >>> Promotion is also hard (you have to choose who to
| promote and who to not promote)
|
| Promotion is hard because as a manager you don't have the
| power to promote. There's HR on top of the organization
| deciding every year that there's no budget for raises and
| no slots for promotions.
|
| When you're finally allowed to promote someone for real,
| after many years of tenure, the 10% raise is pale compared
| to what they could get by joining a new company.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Promotion is hard even in my small little 10 people org
| where I'm in a position to just at whim promote someone.
| Money is always limited, and any promotion (or even non-
| promotion) is a statement about relative (financial)
| value. People sometimes confuse that with actual human
| value and feel mistreated. Even talking about money is
| hard for many folks - how do we balance wages, how do we
| distribute profits, invest, save for bad times, ...
| People are not trained for this, money is often something
| people don't talk about.
|
| So some of the promotion dance may be more complicated in
| larger orgs, but it's still hard in other orgs since it's
| a value judgement on merits earned and as with all value
| judgements, there's no absolutely correct and
| mathematically defensible formula.
| user5994461 wrote:
| Raises/promotions can be easy, you pay what you have to
| in order to retain the employee... as long as there is
| the money to do so AND as long as the company wants to
| retain said employee.
|
| It's 90% about what they could get somewhere else in the
| city and a bit whether they are willing to leave and
| capable to (it's actually quite difficult to get a job
| ^^). You should have a pretty good idea of the what's
| available in the area after a while.
|
| As you noticed, everybody think they deserve more.
| Ironically everybody is wrong, because the fact that they
| work here for this amount is proof that it's enough (for
| now), if they could get paid more they'd be paid more
| (whether here or somewhere else).
|
| The key is to ignore people because people are always
| dissatisfied. Big companies set a fixed pay band and
| reply to everything with "there's no budget for a raise"
| because it's the nice easy way to do that.
| Xylakant wrote:
| We distribute 80% of the companies profits among the
| employees, so by definition we pretty much always pay as
| much as we can. That still leaves the discussion open of
| how wages and promotions get balanced among the team. And
| even if the decision is "everyone gets the same share
| more", some people feel like they should be getting more
| than the rest. And those people sometimes even feel
| rejected if you tell them that there's not more money in
| the pool and if they want or need more, they need to go
| look elsewhere. Or they stick around and are silently
| disgruntled until at some point they explode, despite
| having had a voice and a vote in the matter (and actual
| agency in raising the profits, hence everyone's wage).
| mt42or wrote:
| Something is weird with this article, it's like the main goal is
| to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Caring about the employees and making the enterprise successful
| can be one in the same. That's the point.
|
| Businesses require success and profit to continue to exist.
| There's no point in pretending that what the business does
| isn't ultimately motivated by profit. I know there's a trend to
| pretend that companies are doing things for selfless reasons or
| purely to do good things for their employees, but that's
| usually obscuring a hidden profit motive (increase recruiting,
| motivate employees to work harder, create goodwill among
| customers). It's better when the companies are simply honest
| about their intentions.
| nerdponx wrote:
| _it 's like the main goal is to care about employee only to
| make the entreprise successful._
|
| This is just how business works. It's how market (and many non-
| market) economies work. It's how much of human society is
| structured.
|
| Also, sometimes people need external motivation. "You are a
| jerk and you need to stop being a jerk" is not enough
| sometimes. This happens in many contexts, not just the
| workplace.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The #1 job of any manager (and employee), _as far as the
| company is concerned_ , is to represent/forward the goals of
| the corporation.
|
| "forward the goals of the corporation" can mean a lot of
| things. As any parent knows, it's dangerous to let kids have
| everything the want. Same with pets. If you let your dog eat
| all your chocolate chip cookies, I hope you have an animal
| emergency room nearby. Same with a corporation.
|
| In one or two cases, I deliberately took a risk, and disobeyed
| orders/policies, because I _knew_ that they would be eating
| chocolate chip cookies. That 's a big risk, because there's
| usually quite a bit more behind policies and orders than an
| individual can see, and what I did could have been destructive.
| I am happy to report that these were _not_ destructive, but it
| isn 't a practice that I can recommend.
|
| But "forward the goals of the corporation" can also be in
| direct conflict with the goals of the employee, which, if they
| are healthy, may start with things like "my kids, my spouse,
| etc." Balance needs to be had, and it's a mistake to look to a
| corporation to provide that balance.
|
| Usually, the best source of balance is the direct-report
| manager. They need to be "in tune" with their employees, and be
| able to negotiate the competing priorities.
|
| In any case, a manager that puts their own, personal goals
| ahead of those of the corporation, _and of their employees_ is
| (IMNSHO) negligent in their duties. I was a manager for 25
| years. I think I did a decent job of it, and I kept senior-
| level employees for decades (not an exaggeration -when they
| finally wound up my team, after 27 years, the employee with the
| _least_ tenure had ten years).
|
| My experience, is that whenever I have discussed my
| philosophies and methodology, I'm attacked for either being a
| "wimp" (other managers), or being "two-faced" (other
| employees). None of these attacks have come from people that
| have actually worked with/for me.
|
| When I became a manager, I assumed a different role. I had to
| make the commitment to put aside my personal aspirations, in
| favor of those of the corporation, then my employees. My own
| goals came behind those.
|
| But that was just my experience. YMMV.
| user5994461 wrote:
| What is the geographic area? How is the pay band of the
| company compared to local competitors? How are the perks?
|
| I don't expect managers in a tech hub to be able to keep
| younger employees for many years, when they can jump ship
| after 1-3 years to get a huge pay raise somewhere else.
|
| Then there's the grade of the company, if you're at a lower
| grade company (low pay, mediocre projects, no pension, bad
| health insurance) good luck keeping people around. They will
| figure out soon enough the grass is greener elsewhere.
|
| The few people I met with 10+ years of tenure were mostly in
| large companies with benefits and comfortable positions.
| They've changed roles internally a few times over the years.
| Xylakant wrote:
| The parent specifically mentioned keeping senior level
| employees. Juniors can easily jump ship for pay raises, but
| as you get senior, other values start to becomes more
| important. Your wage level is likely "good enough" and so
| stuff like stable working hours, a team that you can rely
| on, stability etc. become more of a deciding factor,
| especially once you start settling and having a family. 10
| years + doesn't sound implausible, especially if you had 27
| years to build the team. The ones that stick around for
| longer than the initial period tend to stick around long.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| NY. Mediocre pay. Conservative corporation.
|
| It was also important to keep employees for a long time. I
| worked for a Japanese corporation, and my boss was 7,000
| miles away, and didn't speak English.
|
| So, for me, keeping my employees happy, and feeling valued,
| was important. Since these were fairly senior (C++
| programmers that had been coding around 30 years or so), I
| gave their families and personal space a _lot_ of respect.
|
| This was appreciated, and I was rewarded with personal
| loyalty.
|
| The risk to the corporation was that it was _personal_
| loyalty. I have no doubts, whatsoever, that, if I had left,
| the entire team would have left quickly behind me.
|
| My management was not as respectful of my personal life, as
| I was of my employees, but I enjoyed a pretty remarkable
| level of trust, as I have some fairly well-considered
| personal Principles.
| user5994461 wrote:
| Ah nice. Used to work in a large corporation with a major
| office in NYC (I am in London).
|
| Also recruiting C++ developers, had a few folks with 30+
| years of experience.
|
| I think the key is to have developers who are good, but
| not too great that they can pass interviews in other
| places (tech interviews are getting impossibly difficult
| nowadays).
|
| Give them decent work-life balance, decent pay/perks, and
| decent teammates/manager. They will stick around for a
| while. Not looking too hard and if they look there's a
| good chance it doesn't conclude (interviews are too time
| consuming with a family and too difficult).
|
| There's still quite a bit of attrition though. NYC has a
| lot of strong opportunities (FANG, banks, hedge funds)
| and C++ developers have niches in demand (finance/high
| performance).
|
| Top developers will get a better opportunity eventually.
| I've seen the case where another company decided to take
| over somebody or a whole team, it's unstoppable.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| A couple of them were _really_ sharp, and now work for
| another heavy-duty (this time, German) engineering
| corporation.
|
| Not everyone wants to be a CTO. Many of us just want to
| do what we love, and be respected and supported, while
| doing it. For many people, that's a dream job.
|
| When I left my job, I could have gone on to management at
| another company, and be making fairly decent money.
| Instead, I decided to "retool" myself, and return to my
| production engineer roots.
|
| It's a field that is dominated by a lot of ruthless,
| young, hungry people (and a management culture that has
| adapted to this), and I may never get anyone to pay me to
| code ever again; even though I have the ability to make
| others a _lot_ of money.
|
| But I've never been happier.
| user5994461 wrote:
| For some reasons this makes me think of the generational
| struggle.
|
| The difference between the 50-60 folks who bought a home
| before the bubble (if not multiple homes) and can be
| pseudo retired. Still working for another decade but
| typically not caring too much about salary.
|
| And the 30-40 folks who is facing the housing bubble with
| a lifelong mortgage and soon university fees for their
| children. Typically caring quite a bit about compensation
| because they're struggling to make ends meet. Sadly they
| really missed the boat if they stayed a decade at a
| company (with little raise/promotion).
|
| Obviously they're managed quite differently and have very
| different concerns in life.
| anonwithaq wrote:
| What should someone do if they've started realizing they see some
| of these qualities in a cofounder? Is it worth addressing it in a
| corrective or supportive way or are these behaviors that are
| unlikely to change?
|
| Edit: I should clarify I mean more of a competence/confidence
| issue leading to destructive behaviour, not malicious intent.
| tilt365 wrote:
| Pam Boney here. Happy to provide the positive version of this
| framework. Based on 30 years of scientific research in character
| science.
| charliemil4 wrote:
| Is there a way to psychologically assess the positive version?
| Either a DISC or WAIS subtest score or something similar? (I
| assume a constructive leader?)
| burrows wrote:
| If it takes 30 years to do something, then you've not actually
| done it.
| playpause wrote:
| To do what? Done what?
| victor9000 wrote:
| Please do.
| Guthur wrote:
| TLDR, narcissists are not good to be around and are quite bad
| leaders.
|
| The hardest aspect of leadership is learning the appropriate
| techniques and behaviours. It's so often not the focus of your
| attention when working as an individual contributor then when you
| take up a leadership role you have to learn fast before you do
| any serious damage.
|
| My best general advice is honesty with your team, realise when
| you've screwed up and apologise. Also if you can't honestly
| develop empathy for your team you should probably get out of
| leadership roles.
| tomasreimers wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| xbar wrote:
| Lost me at genetics.
| SCHiM wrote:
| Indeed. This is what the people at less wrong mean when they
| talk about "semantic stop signs". Words to make you stop
| thinking, and accept the argument as given:
|
| "Some people are dominant destructive bosses because of
| genetics, m'kay?"
|
| The whole argument falls apart when you realize the author, and
| nobody really, understands the relationship between your
| behavior and your genetics enough to conclude anything at all.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| I thought the explanations described childhood outcomes that
| encouraged the tendencies?
| CravingLogic wrote:
| Those certainly create a nice narrative.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| You think that domineering, alpha, type A people are not more
| or less born that way?
| mkl95 wrote:
| I worked for one such company early in my career. I was the first
| hire of a batch that made the IT department 2.5x bigger.
|
| Some of the initial red flags were all the empty desks with
| readily available computers and multiple monitor setups, and the
| fact the IT manager was a guy who struggled to communicate in
| English or the local language.
|
| Long story short, one year after I joined all the IT department
| (including me) had left, with the manager being the only
| exception. We found out the hard way the company had a long story
| of hiring batches of developers and struggling to make payroll in
| the following months, which the CEO "fixed" by having the IT
| manager create a very toxic environment where people blamed each
| other for all sorts of things, thus distracting themselves from
| the elephant in the room (the company was broke and the CEO
| didn't care, and our manager was little more than a puppet).
|
| My main takeaways were:
|
| - Financially unsound companies are likely to have a toxic work
| environment.
|
| - You should look for signs of high, recent employee turnover the
| first time you visit your employer's offices.
| bfrog wrote:
| Does this apply to governmental leaders as well? seems like a lot
| of these get ticked off for certain country leaders...
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