
Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013) - hollaur
https://hbr.org/2013/08/why-do-so-many-incompetent-men
======
pfarnsworth
Because talking with confidence will go 90% of the way to convincing people
that you know what you're talking about. So often I've worked with assholes
who talk with such confidence that most people won't bother filtering the
garbage coming from their mouths. They just believe it.

It's almost eerie how effectively talking with confidence works. It's so
effective that when you complain about these charlatans, YOU look like an
asshole, even when you are completely factual. It's sad but fascinating at the
same time.

~~~
trustfundbaby
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white,
if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those
things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.

~~~
sh6678
I don't think its a race issue so much as a physical appearance issue. Height,
attractiveness, facial structure, body size. Certain people look
"presidential" and they command a lot of automatic respect just based on
appearance. There are plenty of minority people that have this quality. There
are plenty of white males lacking this quality.

Look-ism is the huge issue that is almost never talked about. In most
companies you could probably better judge how successful new hires will be
just by how they look in a video of them talking vs a sample of their work or
credentials.

~~~
projektir
I think you're right. Minority, female, etc., are often just noisy proxies for
what you call look-ism and I would also add normal-ism.

~~~
lovingKindness
What you call normalism is regression to the mean. Lotta guys in tech? Hire a
woman. Lotta white folks in the movies? Hire an 'ethnic' looking actor. The
pendulum swings to and fro, and all the while we snip the ends off of the bell
curve to make everyone feel like they fit in.

Fitting in is not a way to create progress. Adaptability and inclusiveness is.
That was the point of diversity training in the first place, not
normalization. Cultures function much more efficiently when diversity is
introduced into the medium.

The real reason for the stagnation in social order is the fear of being pushed
outside the herd if you are too near to the edge. We must become more
inclusive, and fight the laziness that manifests itself in regressing to the
mean.

------
Animats
Summary: "We commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of
competence".

See "Assholes, a Theory" (2014). Despite the title, this is a serious book and
well worth reading.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-
James/dp/080417...](https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-
James/dp/0804171351)

~~~
gozur88
It's probably a pretty good strategy to use if you have nothing else to go on.

~~~
oblio
It's a good strategy to use even if you have something else to go on :)

------
justin_vanw
I would say that it's not that incompetent men become leaders. Certainly men
are over-represented, but I would wager that woman leaders are no more
competent on average.

The truth is almost everyone is incompetent and leaders get more scrutiny.

~~~
Shubley
That's actually a good point. Everyone is incompetent; we just don't have a
way of filtering that in our leaders. Possibly because the people selecting
those leaders are incompetent too. It's incompetence all the way down.

~~~
tejasmanohar
This is a great example of Peter Principle
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)).

    
    
      "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

------
jondubois
I find that confidence is really powerful, even among engineers (who you would
think are rational).

I noticed that some engineers can come across as extremely smart because they
talk fast and can think fast - Also, they are really good at defending their
ideas when put on the spot but if you dig deeper afterwards you might often
find that while their solution is good, it's not the best one.

It always takes time to come up with optimum engineering solutions - It's not
something that just pops into your head in a millisecond whist having a casual
technical discussion - No matter how smart you are. The history of software
development (with all of its failed projects) is proof that even great
engineers have difficult coming up with optimum ideas.

~~~
sebastos
+1 for the fast-talking engineer phenomenon. I think quickness of thought is a
fitness that can be exercised, mostly orthogonally to deep thought. We all
eventually find someone who thinks and talks faster than ourselves, but indeed
we also eventually become that person to another. If you find yourself feeling
like you're 10 steps ahead, the best thing to do is give ample room for your
conversational foil to express their thoughts. If they disagree, don't
immediately assume it's because they haven't considered everything. You should
go in with the good faith assumption that they intuitively see a corner case
you haven't considered, and then work collaboratively with them to put their
objection into words. After all, if there is a problem, it will rear its head
eventually, whether or not you can "win" the argument!

~~~
dandersh
The most important thing is being open to the fact that you will be wrong.
I've lost track of the number of times I have machine gunned out
ideas/solutions only to have parts (or even all of it) picked apart by myself
or others.

Your final point is the most important. Ultimately the process should be about
solving the problem in the best manner possible, not how person X thinks it
should be solved.

------
sharkweek
I have a confession to make - I'm not a particularly good leader. I don't like
managing people, and I'm not terribly interested in learning how to do this. I
have seen good managers in action, and have been under a few on occasion; I am
not one of these people.

I do, however, have some very solid skills and have deployed them repeatedly
at the handful of companies I have worked at in the past.

My main concern is knowing that down the road I'm probably going to get
"stuck" in my career when I'm not interested in moving up and running a team.
It seems like a trend lately to praise the IC and promise them the moon and
stars, but I think this is mostly lip service to keep them around.

~~~
vinceguidry
I'm fairly sure the idea of a natural leader is a myth. Just about everybody
has to learn how to do it. Everyone starts out bad at it and they work and
work and work until they're better, then everybody starts crowing about how
natural they made it look.

It has to look natural for it to be effective. This requires a lot of art.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I would say I'm a natural leader. I am constantly scanning for order and when
I see chaos, I am forced to take charge. Otherwise if I recognize competent
decision-making, I am content to observe and go along. I cannot help it, as
this is a compulsion, and it has been a part of my personality for as long as
I can remember.

I have often been praised for my charisma and my confidence, but therein lies
the problem: because I cannot allow dysfunction to perpetuate, I sometimes
butt into situations where it is not my business, or I act impulsively because
_something must be done._ But this problem can also be compounded because the
people around me who cede leadership for the sake of ensuring action can
sometimes get absorbed into my confidence and charisma, believing my
conviction to be equivalent to the validity of my decisions, and thus enabling
poor decisions that may as well turn out to be worse than no decisions.

I see where these problems with incompetent leaders arise even when they are
not intentional. At best, one can hope that these leaders are capable of
recognizing and humbly accepting their own limitations.

~~~
vinceguidry
I would not call this trait of yours leadership, I would simply call it a
personality trait. It, by itself won't make you a good leader.

I'm still wrapping my brain around the concept, but I conceive of leadership
as a broad collection of social skills oriented around driving an organization
of people towards a goal. One needs vision, persuasion, strategy, a certain
ability to see and work with the darker side of human nature, emotional
maturity, and probably more. All of these need to be identified, worked on,
and refined over the course of a lifetime.

There's just so much to being a leader that it can literally be a life's work.
It's so fascinating to watch different organizations being led by different
people. Anybody can run an organization, effectively leading it is another
thing entirely.

You can see the leadership style of Donald Trump just doesn't work very well
at all in the Office of the President of the United States, it's essentially
causing a mutiny in the rest of the executive branch.

Organizations are products of the people at the top, and develop inertia of
their own. Leaders have to manage this inertia, Trump is used to operating
very quickly, but the Executive Branch of the US Government is a massive ship
to steer. Time will tell if Trump is up to the task of getting the ship in
order.

~~~
sverige
I think it is more than a single personality trait -- it's more like a
combination of personality traits. It definitely exists in various forms, and
it is not all learned.

The converse is also true. There are some people who lack the personality
traits required for leadership, and who probably could not be taught to become
leaders, even if they desired to become one.

When people say "so and so is a natural leader," what they mean is that people
tend to follow them. That is, after all, the essence of leadership. How well
they do at keeping people following them and how efficient they are in
producing results are just a couple of the various qualities of leadership,
but the essence of it is that people follow them, and want to follow them.

Some people just naturally have that quality without any formal training. You
can even see it in some very young children when they're among their peers, if
you look.

------
stupidcar
One of the most interesting facts in Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of
Political Order was that the most primordial form of human social groupings,
small bands of hunter gatherers, are organised along egalitarian and
democratic lines, without any recognisable leader.

There may be an individual who the other members of the band listen to more
than others, but only due to their proven experience and wisdom. And there is
no concept of authority, e.g. the ability to enforce a decision upon people
against their better judgement.

More complex forms of social organisation and hierarchy are inventions, and
relatively recent ones. I suspect that is why they so often display these
kinds of dysfunctions. As a species, we haven't yet evolved the skills
necessary to behave optimally in situations where we have to engage in
constant non-violent negotiations with strangers over issues of power,
authority, friendship, employment, sex, etc. Instead, we try to create
institutions that enforce an optimum solution, but this produces a circular
problem, because these institutions are prey to the same dysfunctions.

~~~
omalleyt
Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat. Therefore, when the best hunter
in the group brought home a large animal, he shared it with all. Likewise,
there were few physical possessions or need for such, and so these were shared
too.

But egalitarian? Not a chance. Studies show that even modern hunters expend
enormous energy and risk their lives hunting over the real prize: access to
mates.

~~~
undersuit
>Hunter-gatherers generally didn't store meat.

The diversity of cured meats around the world makes this statement suspect. I
don't see an agrarian society taking time to discover how to cure meat... why
would they, grain stores easier.

Yet every culture has various kinds of preserved meat; Pemmican, European
sausages, Kiviak, Hongeohoe, etc.

~~~
flukus
Most curing methods weren't widely available to hunter gatherers because the
required trade goods like salt. Dehydration was about the only option.

------
eachro
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the
intelligent are full of doubt." \- Bertrand Russell

~~~
gentleteblor
This. Too many people are sure of too many things. Too sure of religion,
political ideology, techno purity. Too sure of the absence (or presence) of
the many -isms that plague us.

HN is a perfect example. At least i think so. I'm not sure.

------
donovanm
Reminds me of how when you say you dont know everything about XYZ
language/framework to an hr person or recruiter they look at you like
incompetent. Meanwhile saying that you knew everything about XYZ
language/framework to a technical person would have them thinking you're
incompetent.

------
Nomentatus
Research shows a very strong correlation between mere height and who ends up
at the very height of corporate leadership. It's an ape thing, not a
competence thing.

~~~
ktRolster
That is one of those "correlation is not causation" things. You need to dig
deeper to find the actual causation. One of the best CEOs I've known was quite
short.

For example, it could be that growing up tall gives you more confidence
(because you are better at sports all the time), and more confidence makes it
easier to rise in corporate leadership. But we don't know for sure until we
study it more.

~~~
edblarney
If you watch a high school cafeteria for one hour you know exactly why taller
people are promoted to leadership.

The same reason they tend to be whiter, a little better looking, more
athletic.

Interesting paradox: for Men, girth is actually good. Carry a few extra
pounds, and it's good.

For women - inverse. Skinny women earn more.

Think of this: every single social interaction you have - with the guy at the
watercooler, to meetings, to presentations - everyone is 'sizing each other
up' subconciously. They are determining where they belong in the pecking
order. Usually only from observable traits.

~~~
Nomentatus
I agree. Unconscious bias is real. I was far shorter than average until about
15, and well taller than average thereafter. So I found out first hand, quite
suddenly, just how much different other people's reactions were to me. When
human growth hormone first became available, medically-short teens given it
grew considerably and almost uniformly suffered from depression. There
previous ways of interacting with people just didn't work anymore. (also from
Keyes book)

------
TommyXin
Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to
back up what he is saying. How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since
when does competence make you a good leader? Author believes CEOs should be
selected by having them take a competence and personality test...

Trying to act and plan for an uncertain future as a CEO will make any human
(male or female) seem incompetent.

~~~
jldugger
> Really bad article. Not surprised its coming from HBR. No facts or data to
> back up what he is saying.

HBR is a practitioner's magazine; it's purpose is less to offer the evidence
and more keep readers abreast of research and thinking in the field. Did feel
the citations in the article were insufficient? There seems to be a number of
them for any interested reader to follow up on.

For example:
[http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf](http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2009/PSB_516/6390561/w5.pdf)

> How do you measure someone being incompetent? Since when does competence
> make you a good leader?

Maybe there's some angle I haven't considered, but competence at being a good
leader is basically the same thing as being a good leader. Unless you actively
set out to be a bad one I suppose.

As for measuring, it gets mushy fairly quickly when looking at meta-analysis.
You'll want to dig one level deeper to get an understanding of that; I'll pass
personally ;)

> Author believes CEOs should be selected by having them take a competence and
> personality test...

Virtually all publications aimed at practitioners are rife with conflict of
interest, and HBR is no different. The author is the CEO of an assessment
company.

------
NTDF9
>> In other words, what it takes to get the job is not just different from,
but also the reverse of, what it takes to do the job well

Did it take this long to figure out that most processes in the world don't
select the people for the job?

Think about the following: \- SAT score based admissions (numbers matter)

\- Tech Job interviews (number of problems solved, mistakes made, time taken
to solve matters)

\- Data driven Quarterly metrics and performance reviews (stupid metrics
matter)

\- Running for Presidency (Count of votes matter)

\- Winning at WoW (Kills matter)

I can easily see most of these processes as a game. It involves a "System" and
"Scoring in that system".

The ones who win the game don't necessary do post-game activities better,
unless the system selects for that. I don't know...don't they teach this in
MBA classes anymore?

------
snarf21
I think the main gender bias is that a lot of the powers that be think women
will be less decisive and worry about people's feelings too much. They want
someone to drive the success the company needs. But this quickly falls to our
natural tendency to trust the common denominator. So they hire and promote
people that think, look and act like them because it's easy and (at worst)
they feel they'll be able to easily make adjustments with someone so similar.
Just look at sports and all the coaches who go around the carousel with
minimal consistent success.

One other thing people forget is that a lot of times, promotions are a reward
for past behavior, not an endorsement of their abilities. A lot of high
performing individuals make horrible managers but it is the only way to
acknowledgement past value added. Additionally, these new managers feel like
they _deserve_ the promotion and now want to coast a little. Of course, they
fall into the same trap as above and usually treat all the subordinates as
they see their self and never learn how to manage or lead. As a manager, I see
the job as helping your team create maximum business value.

Of course, none of this is easy and why so many companies are so completely
screwed up. You look around and you see so few CEOs who make a difference over
random chance. Most who are this top 0.001% are extremely confident and
decisive (but also manipulative a __holes). This is also why there can be so
much opportunity for disruption. The incumbents are stuck in a quicksand of
their own making and everyone has embraced self preservation over value
creation. Promoting more woman won 't fix that. You need leaders that have the
will and dedication to create a culture of ownership, transparency and
autonomy.

------
belorn
As I often see in this kind of theory based articles, it is missing some basic
experiments through which we can test and investigate the theory.

So if the issue is the inability to discern between confidence and competence,
it should be relative easy to create a experiment through a double blind study
where 50% of the participants are trained in behaving confident around their
peers. Then we the study observe, first through experimental environment and
then through a longer life-time study, and see if the result differ.

A question that arise is also how society treats men with below average
confidence. Do they have higher or lower chance to be perceived as leaders
compared to women with the same level of confidence? If they have less (a
common theme in gender studies), we would again find a distribution where a
minority portion of men are at top and have a higher chance than women to be
leaders, with the majority of men below with a worse chance. This should also
be fairly easy to test in an experimental setting.

------
uranian
Because the skill to become a leader in this world has nothing to do with
being competent.

Some of the characteristics you need to become a leader are: be an excellent
lyer, have a good pair of elbows, a desire for power and/or money, fit in the
world of wealthy people that are in power, etc..

What do you expect from people with these characteristics? Competence?

------
k__
Also, decision making often works good if you don't know or care about the
implications of your decisions.

So the dumber you are, the easier it is to make a decision, which are needed
in leadership.

~~~
dba7dba
Thing is when you are dealing with so many uncertainties, you can't speak with
certainty.

Dumber people can't grasp all the variables involved in the decision making,
so things look more black and white to them.

But smart people do grasp all the nuances and complexity involved. And their
eyes can distinguish all 50 shades of gray or whatever, and thus they can't
speak with uncertainly.

Best leader would be one who can grasp all of the variables, make a decision,
and speak about it while hiding the feeling of uncertainty.

And this is why so many politicians are liars... They are not dumb. But they
just get better at hiding and lying about true intentions...

We just can't win...

------
talkingtab
Along the way I have seen way too many BIG men with DEEP voices who are dumber
than oxen and are CEO's. My own thought is that both men and women defer on
some level to their physical aspect and to their self-confidence. But boy they
can be dumb. Sigh. Not saying all.

------
vmarsy
One reason for incompetent leaders I've heard is the leader's leader chose him
specifically for his incompetence. The leader shields himself with less
competent direct reports so that it's unlikely that one of them would be able
to take over his job.

------
trentnix
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

From the link:

The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence
J. Peter and published in 1969. It states that the selection of a candidate
for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role,
rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only
stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers
rise to the level of their incompetence."

~~~
Kluny
I don't think you read the article.

------
bootload
_" confidence and competence."_

There is an overlap of confidence and competence. For instance I'd rather be
in a situation where a leader is projecting confidence because they've
encountered a situation before. One way to evaluate this is asking yourself,
_" have they done this before?"_. [0] That question breaks down when novel
situations arise. This is where relevant experience matters. Sometimes though,
you may have to _" fake"_ your way to allow a team to succeed in a difficult
situation.

This is why I believe that good leaders will be competent in their area of
expertise, recognise when they are not and be open to alternatives. This isn't
confidence. This is belief in oneself, team and leadership to succeed. Belief
and competence is a better description of leadership.

Reference

[0] "The curse of confidence" ~
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620745)

------
tempVariable
I've seen incompetent leaders promote other incompetent people to serve them
as their ideals are congruent. As in - they don't question the status-quo to
make things better and alas their numbers grow stronger. It takes a good
concerted effort to take this type of nepotism on.

------
Mikeb85
In general, leaders seem incompetent because their decisions are scrutinized
to no end. Often though, they're forced to make a decision in a limited amount
of time with imperfect information.

Also, one thing I've found after managing people, running businesses, etc...,
is that it's more important to make __a __decision than it is to make the
__right __decision. If you try something and fail, it 's easy enough to pivot
to another idea. If you make the right choice in the first place, great. If
you consult everyone and take too long to make a decision, you're fucked.

------
clueless123
A good artist or technician spends most of his time executing and polishing
his craft. A politician spends most of his time executing and polishing his
image.

Given this, guess who would climb higher faster ?

------
dlwdlw
Many executives cultivate this ignorance. When you kill someone accidentally
its manslaughter, when it's purposeful it's murder. A person is dead either
way, but the punishment for incompetence is lesser than that for malice. By
cultivating ignorance and incompetence in key areas, people can dodge the
consequences of risky or unethical behavior yet still receive the benefits by
nature of being the "leader"

------
geofft
The more I read about this sort of thing (and read comments on these
articles), the more I'm told that there are, in fact, innate gender
differences, and the PC crowd is censoring important discussions. I'm starting
to believe it, and I think that this article is an excellent example of the
sort of politically-incorrect research we need to pay attention to.

~~~
Thrillington
This article doesn't even begin to posit "innate gender differences"

It shows a correlation in confidence displayed to gender, but social
conditioning of either confidence display or confidence interpretation are as
good an explanation as any innate differences. It's even supported by some
research, so it's actually a stronger hypothesis than yours.

~~~
geofft
The article makes it clear that this is a difference that happens across
cultures. If men and women are in fact as equal as star-bellied and non-star-
bellied sneetches, why do we see the _same_ social conditioning in the _same_
direction in every culture? Shouldn't half the cultures have the social
conditioning in the other direction?

~~~
watwut
Men are stronger. When all is said and done, he can get his way by hitting
her. You need quite modern society for women to be able to escape that and
subsequently feeding themselves (and children). This alone can cause women
being raised for lower self confidence and submissiveness.

------
id122015
They become micromanagers not leaders.

Its a political problem. When voting is rigged it happens that those who get
benefits vote for those incompetent. And those incompetent promise free
benefits to obtain votes. Vicious circle.

~~~
mulmen
I'm not sure I agree with this. Are you saying all voting is rigged? Also not
all incompetent managers are micro-managers, I have had problems with managers
that are uninvolved as well.

It may be possible for a candidate to gain votes by promising free benefits
(or even non-free benefits) to their constituents and then actually grant
those benefits. I would not describe that situation as a problem because
that's exactly how representative democracy is supposed to work.

I don't see how rigged voting implies incompetence or that incompetence
implies rigged voting.

Also, I nave never seen a business setting that had elections, rigged or not.
In the cases where I have been faced with incompetent managers their
constituents (employees/reports) would have voted them out at the nearest
opportunity. Is this the rigged system to which you refer?

~~~
id122015
There are a lot of facts that need to be explained but I'll try to tell you
the ideas in a few paragraphs. I cant summarise a whole stack of books in such
a short time.

Representative Democracy: Do you understand by that a contract between people
where those who never paid a cent in tax but receive free benefits have the
right to vote ? Maybe that will answer the question about how incompetent
managers raise to the top.

Business Have you not heard about how the leader of Mozilla? or some other
company has been voted out because he expressed his ideas about sexuality ? Or
are you not familiar with how a company traded by shares is GOVERNED by a
board of directors ? Cisco founder has been fired, thats an example of how
elections work in a business.

Maybe you should watch The Office movies to understand how and why incompetent
people are given manager positions. Its a comedy and the main actor plays very
well the incompetent manager. There are also some serials where voting is
involved but the manager does all he can do go his own way.

~~~
mulmen
Can you provide references to the facts in those books? Even the titles would
be appreciated.

Taxation is not required for representation but taxation does require
representation. This fundamental concept of American democracy is applicable
in only one direction. I don't see how you established the connection between
managers and politicians.

Corporate governance and national governance are not equivalent. If an
employee or founder is fired that is not the same as failing to be
(re)elected. Founders are not initially selected by a democratic system.

I do not accept works of entertainment fiction as evidence of any real world
phenomenon.

------
amjaeger
Article does not present and solutions to picking a good leader and avoiding
the issues mentioned in the article. Unless the advice is "only elect female
leaders" \- which also seems broken.

~~~
DonaldFisk
How about avoiding those with personality traits which the article says make
incompetent people look competent: psychopaths, narcissists, risk seekers,the
over-confident, the arrogant, the manipulative, etc.?

Some women have these traits too, so discriminating by sex isn't the answer.

------
amai
The only fair solution: The leader of a group should be selected by random.
The probability that the least competent will be selected is then inverse
proportional to the size of the group.

~~~
GFischer
Has been proposed before, and it was the preferred and traditional Athenian
method:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

Would definitely be very interesting, I wouldn't mind trying it.

------
camus2
Why single out men? incompetence doesn't have a sex.

------
squozzer
It's possible too that the people who are actually good at doing are too
valuable to promote (Captain Kirk Syndrome.)

------
Taylor_OD
Act confidently and get lucky a couple times? After that its management /
leadership position easy street.

------
ipnon
Is "leadership" pure ideology?

~~~
xjwm
I think leadership gets tagged with buzzwords like 'vision' and 'synergy' and
gets made to look idealistic, but the skill of motivating people to work
towards a shared goal is a very tangible concept.

------
tilt_error
Why are you bringing politics onto this forum?

------
ommunist
Because "to lead" is their only scope. and since the number of seats is
limited, its not about gender. Some men are just more equal.

------
sparrish
It's because of the "Peter principle" \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

"employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform
effectively"... that's at the "Leader" level for so many.

~~~
mulmen
In a way I find the Dilbert Principle [1] more encouraging because it implies
promotion is based on what will improve the overall productivity of the group.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle)

