Just because some dudes in suits or some bureaucracy academic had not talked about it yet it doesn't mean it's now been "discovered", don't fall for this trap. Everyone's who's experienced a virtuous workplace also "discovered" this as it's a self-evident truth(when it happens). How many times will we "discover" human nature again? Depending on psychologists, economists, administrators and business gurus, infinite times(corollary: we will keep on 'discovering' the same things because we never actually learn). Edit: To try and make it clearer: we are all human yet we systematically neglect our nature/ignore it in others and treat it as if it's a million pieces puzzle we can't figure out. Seems we're just looking at stuff ever more fractioned, we take 1/2, make it 1/10 and act like we made a +8 advancement in knowledge, but we haven't. Holism and shit. To me it's an example of the stupidity of modern thinking.
Indeed. So much of it comes down to behaving in a natural manner. It gets jumbled up because we've constructed artificial institutions on top of human society that don't comport with our natural behaviors.
Everyone understands these things fundamentally, but they pretend like they don't because we've set up a farcical structure and told them to play along or lose their well-being.
It's obvious that everyone wants a leader who has been in substantially similar shoes and done an acceptable job. That's the only way to have the credibility to boss someone around. That HBR pretends this instinctive truth is a revelation is typical of the haughtiness that makes people hate the bourgeoisie.
Humans are evolved to stay in fixed family units that expand only by marriage and child birth and contract only by death. The permanence afforded there allows humans to cooperate while also behaving naturally. The survival benefits of remaining in the tribe easily surpass emotional/personal benefits that could be had by fracturing off. There is no credible fear that expressing your feelings or otherwise behaving naturally will get you fired from your tribe.
It turns out people are quite fickle, and that if circumstances don't compel them to work together, lots of things get broken quickly. The modern corporation is a poor stand-in for the tribe.
Just because some dudes in suits or some bureaucracy academic had not talked about it yet
Well, as you know, things aren't true or factual until Science™ has confirmed it as such with a statistically significant quadruple-blind placebo trial. After all, many anecdotes from employees that they are happier with a competent and capable leader most certainly do NOT equal data.
There could possibly be some outside factor, like a competent and capable leader ensures the water-cooler filter is actually being changed on a monthly basis, which is really the reason for all that employee happiness.
I've always wondered if I can start a mgmt consulting company that exclusively focuses on doing Science™ that researches facts that are already known to be true to just about everyone outside the skeptical academic bubble. Just sit back and let the grant money roll in while I spend it producing papers and managerial books on things like "Can more advisers help your plans succeed?" or just about any other applied statement from the Biblical book of Proverbs.
