The Fine Art of 'Boss Science'

BoredStiff writes "NYMag has up an article that explores Boss Science and the minds of American corporate leaders. In the real world, bosses are known to suffer from a long list of social pathologies: naked aggression, credit hogging, micromanaging, bullying, you name it. Leadership research shows that subtle nasty moves like glaring and condescending comments, explicit moves like insults or put-downs, and even physical intimidation can be effective paths to power. Research also shows that employees tend to see the jerk as boss material. The article goes on to discuss some of the science bosses apply to making an operation run smoothly: 'A researcher reported that one law firm deconstructs its HR needs by personality traits. It insists on extremely bright employees who are also extremely insecure. 'They want them to think that working really hard matters,' he explains. Through this prism, personality types can even be mixed and matched to make a team function more efficiently.'"

Comments

Re:Coincidence?

[spottedkangaroo]

Canonical abbreviation. NASA is an acronym because you pronounce it. FDA is a canonical abbreviation because you don't. Sadly, the distinction is nearly gone, but there used to be a difference, and it wasn't all that long ago.

Re:Lame article

[NeutronCowboy]

Because I can't do everything in my job. I've had good bosses, and I've had bad bosses. The bad bosses made me want to quit my job due to their incompetence and interference with my job. The good bosses made themselves invisible and filtered out anything that would distract me from my job.

Bosses are necessary. Every organization needs leaders (even the most far-out communes have de-facto leaders), because someone needs to organize direction.

And unions do not have anything to do with who makes a good or a bad boss. Come to think of it, I doubt you did more than glance at the first few lines of the article. Otherwise you'd have gotten to the part about changing the system.

Re:It depends upon the job.

[geekoid]

Fine, but allow them the opportunity to see failure as a learning experience. :D
Not when you're managing a nuclear plant. (Which is also a bad match for the heros and drama queens.)

Actually critical systems have a method specifically for learning from failure. It's called training exercise.

Learning from failure is a great tool for growing strong employees.