Leadership BS (Bullshit) - Fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time - Jeffrey Pfeffer

Leadership BS (Bullshit) - Fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time - Jeffrey Pfeffer

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The leadership industry has failed over ist roughly forty-year history to in any major, meaningful, measurable way improve the human condition

First, you need to take care of yourself. […] The pursuit of individual self-interest just might be, as virtually all economics wiring and theory since the time of Adam Smith teaches, good not just for you but also generally beneficial for the social systems including the work organizations in which you live.

Absolutely no evidence that these conditions [that workplaces are toxic environments that are bad for the people working in them with negative consequences for employers] are substantially different in other countries or that things are getting better over time.

”failing upwards”: the political dynamics and particularly the requirement for managing his relationships with his bosses by doing whatever they wanted and flattering them endlessly.

One critical time for derailment is when, in their first jobs postgraduation, people move from positions where they can succeed mostly on the basis of their individual performance and into more interdependent roles where political skills become more important. [...] At that point, the differentiating factor is the ability to navigate increasingly politically charged environments that are peopled by those who mostly do not fulfill the leadership industry’s prescriptions.

The problem is that for a social group to function as an adaptive unit, its members must do things for each other. Yet, these group-advantageous behaviours seldom  maximize relative fitness [for a given individual] within the social group. [...] Leaders frequenty focus on their own careers and what's good for them

[New CFO twitters on Day1:] Task#1: Undermine the CEO, consolidate power.

Many of the people offering leadership advice have a) either never held a leadership position, or b) if they have, were notoriously unsuccessful in it, or c) often promulgated leadership prescriptions almost inconsistent with their own behavior.

To the extent there are evaluative measures […] the resources expended or consumed on leadership training and development, not whether anything happened as a consequence.

Evaluation sheets: Feedback of participants: “Happy Sheets”. Participants’ self-reported satisfaction. “Smiley-face” indicators of success. => Very small and statistically insignificant relationship between student evaluations and learning. => and contraproductive: Likely to change the behaviors of presenters in ways that make learning and personal growth less likely. => Whether they are having a good time and are feeling good. => failure to measure results. => Simply stated, measuring entertainment value produces great entertainment, not change

What’s more, doing the opposite of what the leadership industry advocates is sometimes a much better, more reliable path to individual success.

Not only do individuals perceive themselves to be above average for most positive attributes and believe that the qualities in which they excel are the most important, but individuals will also selectively remember their successes and forget their failures or shortcomings.

Her peer was not interested in “repairing a relationship” or behaving with trust and authenticity; he was interested in taking over her team for his own advantage.

People not only have problems in their current positions, but they also lose out on attractive job opportunities by believing in the prescriptions so frequently roffered for how leaders should behave. [...] People suffer career troubles because they believed what they were told in the books, blogs, and talks.

Go home and throw out the numerous leadership books – or better yet, give them to career competitors.

Most leadership roles are ambiguous – there is uncertainty about what the leader should do, uncertainty about who would be best in that position, and frequently even a lack of clarity about how people are performing in their leadership roles.

Once people form an impression, they ignore discrepant information and seek out and overvalue confirming evidence. If you project confidence and claim competence with enough conviction to be credible, observers will tend to assimilate any information about you in ways consistent with the idea that you know what you are doing and are deserving of a position of leadership.

In order for you to be selected for a leadership role, it is necessary, that those doing the selecting notice you. => Exposure effect => It helps to be known, to have a brand, to, simply put, stand out =>  Engaging in behaviors that draw attention to an individuals positive qualities, past accomplishments, future plans, and also deservingness of jobs, money, or promotions. => Overconfident individuals achieve higher status, respect, and influence in groups.

Energy, dominance, self-confidence, and charisma. More extraverted and have higher self-esteem. Narcissists are more likely to engage in behaviors that make them more noticeable and noteworthy. They are more likely to push their own point of view and advocate in their own interests more aggressively. Helps them to dominate the social group => Their judgements are rendered with such conviction, other people tend to believe them and the narcissists become disproportionately more influential in group situations.

She is relentlessly upbeat and positive in public. Because being enthusiastic and confident is an essential quality for entrepreneurs, regardless of what they may be feeling on the inside. The ability to not succumb to personal feelings or predilections seems like a crucial trait for high performers in many domains. => The last thing a leader needs to be at crucial moments is “authentic”, being both in touch with and exhibiting their true feelings. In fact, being authentic is pretty much the opposite of what leaders must do. Leaders need to be true to what the situation and what those around them want and need from them. The reassurance that things will work out and the confidence that they are on the right track.

Middle-class families prepare their children for emotion management. (The emotions they display to others)

Getting along, let alone being successful in the world, often requires a large amount of inauthenticity and self-regulation. Leaders need to be and do what their followers and society require, not what the leader feels like being or doing at the moment.

As you move up the organizational ladder, you lose the freedom to ac t on your personal beliefs, feelings, and predilections – your “authentic self” – and you have to direct your behavior according much more to what you need to do to be successful, regardless of how you feel at the moment.

We become what we do (People change and grow all the time as a result of their work experience)

Learning and adapting to what we do never stops. So what does it mean to be true to yourself? Is that your high-school self? Your college self? Your postcollege self? Your role as a friend? A family member? An employee? A leader?

You need to learn how to be successful in the environments you confront

One of the most important leadership skills is the ability to put on a show, to act like a leader, to act in a way that inspires confidence and garners support. Draws on the craft of acting and the science of psychology. The message: Act powerful and you become powerful. People develop leadership qualities by practicing them, by acting them out and rehearsing them until they become natural and part of the individual.

Companies have apparently decided that telling people the truth about their actual promotion prospects will demotivate them. Companies will lose those solid performers who make things run but who do not see much potential for further career growth. Companies that lead people to believe they have better promotion prospects than they actually do maintain more positive relationships with their employees. People frequently see themselves as above average and are prone in many instances to engage in wishful thinking.

If employees believe that a company is going to fail, they will leave – and the best ones, who have the greatest chance of finding other good jobs, will leave first. As talent drains out, the odds of turning the company around are reduced. Thus, one important task of leaders is to convince their employees that success is possible. Believing in success, people will expend more effort and exhibit more confidence, and by so doing, whereby create success. In many instances, leaders convince customers, investors, talented employees by presenting the organization as more successful than it really is. This is why I often say that the ability to misrepresent reality is a crucial, maybe the most crucial, leadership skill.

Leaders share little or nothing in common with those they lead. Growing frequency of outside succession into leadership, leaders share few experiences with the people they are leading. Share little common history or experience with the rank and file.

You may think that your employer owes you something for your past contributions and good work – but most employers don’t agree. Companies look after themselves and their own interests to ensure their survival and prosperity. If you hold the expectation that your hard work and good efforts are invariably going to be appreciated, acknowledged, and rewarded by your employer in perpetuity, it’s time to get over yourself.

“What were you thinking? If you need to work to support yourself, you need to a) always, and I mean always, be looking for new jobs both within your current employer and one on the outside so you have options available to you at all times, and b) be constantly working on your relationships with your new boss.

Self-interest as a guiding principle: Try doing precisely what companies have told you to do for decades, and what the fundamental principle of economics has advocated since the time of Adam Smith. Take care of yourself and assiduously look out for your own interests in your life inside work organizations. => And presume that others are acting on the basis of their self-interest, and you will be better equipped to forecast and understand their actions.

Sometimes, maybe even often, the choice comes down to playing the game, whatever that game is, the way others do or losing.