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If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? (hbr.org)
Numerous studies and real-life examples show humble, unassuming people as leaders improve the performance of a company in the long run. The humity, exuded by these leaders, can be contagious. Yet, instead of following the lead of these unsung heroes, an article on Harvard Business Review argues, we appear hardwired to search for people who exude charisma. The article looks into why such is the case: One study suggests that despite being perceived as arrogant, narcissistic individuals radiate "an image of a prototypically effective leader." Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader's narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance. It's not that charismatic and narcissistic people can't ever make good leaders. In some circumstances, they can. For example, one study found that narcissistic CEOs "favor bold actions that attract attention, resulting in big wins or big losses." A narcissistic leader thus can represent a high-risk, high-reward proposition.
Because we're idiots.
As this is something that I've thought about for some time. I believe the big reason here is not that people are stupid, or uninformed, I think it's more a matter of where they fall for the fuzzy decisions in life, either on the more logical side of things or emotional. Generally humble, quiet, non abrasive types tend to not evoke the same kinds of emotional response that you would see with charismatic narcissists. A fantastic example of this was the 2012 presidential election, emotions ruled.
In a business where someone can be simply appointed this isn't an issue. But in a democratic process these people have to be marketable, and boatloads of confidence in ones job/abilities seems to be the best way to accomplish that.
please list for me the humble leaders of the biggest corporations in the world
I believe it has a lot to do with most people being very results oriented. They are wired to believe successful results are due to good decisions and poor results are due to poor decisions. While this is usually or at least often correct, it is quite commonly a false correlation.
If you look at a large high risk high reward people, obviously some of them will be successful. And they are very likely to be more successful than those who took less risks. Unfortunately no one pays attention to the large number of these individuals who failed because of their high risk nature. The problem is that in most cases their previous success was based on little more than luck, and they are very likely to crash and burn if they keep taking the same risks which worked for them in the past.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
If you put the charismatic people in positions of leadership, it's often the place they can do the least harm. If you put them into some kind of productive role they will just screw things up.
That is also why you never want to give leaders much ACTUAL power to affect people. This is where many governments have screwed up royally. The charismatic leaders are able to do things that affect a lot of people now, causing massive widespread suffering.
The preventive measure is to make sure power is well distributed so people at local levels can mostly ignore pronouncements from ivory towers (see: speed limits).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I suspect it is the same phenomenon that is causing the rush to political extremism... the far right and the far left drag more and more people over to their side(s), causing a vacuum in the middle. unfortunately, it is those in the middle who can see something of both sides' arguments and try to accomplish coompromise, while it is the extremists who see the far side as wildly irresponsible. Perhaps those who feel most strongly are better at elaborating their case.
the result is more namecalling and less actual useful stuff happening.
Be an asshole instead. When I was lead video game tester at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple personality disorder), I was humble to the testers on my team and an asshole to management. The testers, especially the older testers, loved me. Management not so much because I was willing to fight for my project and my testers.
"We" didn't fall for the narcissist. "We" didn't fall for the fake news. "We" weren't all oblivious to the Russia connections. Some of us recognize Hannity, Limbaugh and the like as the entertainers they are, appealing to people's basest instincts, responding to daily requests of the GOP, and accepting advertising dollars from companies linked to Russia.
I could argue this scientifically and rationally from behind a burned-out and slightly irradiated russian T90 battle tank with my parents, only to have them insist Sean Hannity was right and that my liberal agenda better not come up during the militias rationing of radiation blocking iodine tablets and canned beef.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Who knew. All I see is an orange baboon slinging his own figurative feces at onlookers.
https://hbr.org/2014/05/the-be...
We seem to fall just as much for confident narcissists as charismatic ones.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
NEWSFLASH: People are fucking stupid.
I'd say it is rather because "numerous studies" don't show anything like that, or please, be so kind to link them.
Apple with humble dude as Wozniak instead of ass**le like Steve Jobbs wouldn't achieve shit, get real.
In turn the people running the world are those who marketings/sales/business people like, most of whom are overwhelmingly sociopathic. When you're only skill is talking people into buying things you yourself don't care very much about it stands to reason the people you are going to consider competent are going to share that same skill as a minimum. If they aren't talking themselves up to get a position they aren't likely to get the position.
Many analyses fall short because they assume that we think these things through logically. On the contrary, this is an area in which hardwired instincts in the lower, more primitive parts of our brains take over almost completely. And one of the most fascinating things about human beings is how very clever people can be completely sure they are doing something for logical reasons, when in fact they are being driven by blind instinct. (Dr Freud was onto that fact with regard, mostly, to sex; and Dr Adler with regard to power).
Homo sapiens evolved over at least two million years as a hunter-gatherer, living in groups ranging probably from family-sized to a maximum of perhaps 200 - possibly depending on the density of food sources. Such small groups would be critically dependent on effective and experienced command. Just like other land animals that live in herds, packs or prides, human beings instinctively recognize the vital necessity of social structure in the form of a well-defined pecking order and a universally accepted leader (alpha male or female). It's far better to have a relatively poor but generally accepted leader than no leader, when the group may break up or even start fighting each other. In that case they probably all die, and all their genes are lost.
So one of history's observations - that people are often very willing to greet and cheer a "man on a white horse" - shouldn't be so surprising at all. And the converse of accepting and supporting the leader is usually hating and fearing outsiders. Unfortunately, this is one of many respects in which our ancient instincts, which served us well as hunter-gatherers, are now extremely counter-survival. (Although it's not at all clear that there is any good solution to the problem of governing human societies larger than a few thousand).
Here is a good essay on a related topic: http://fredoneverything.org/th...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
what and how do you define humble in such a way it can be measured and then studied?
Humble is sometimes defined as the opposite of pride, but not all self value is pride so , again, define humble?
So far as I know humble is defined as such:
https://www.google.com/webhp?s...
Humility is a christian value , but honestly I don't see it as something logically consistent with any kind of Atheistic Darwinian thought process.
How does the humble man fair when 'survival' of the fittest is the only real rule?
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The appearance of competence is not the same as actual competence.
Actual competence is difficult to assess when the outcome measures are subjective.
Incompetent yet successful people are more likely to be proficient at masking their incompetence through lying and psychopathic manipulation.
They tell us what we want to hear, not what is right. Public speaking, leadership, campaigning are skills like any other fortunately.
To put it another way, we evolved from chimp-like apes and are still merely apes. Just because we can talk and use symbols to communicate doesn't make us non-ape-like. We still collectively follow the shiny red ball at the expense of logic (or a shiny orange ball of fur).
I see at work almost half of what's done is waste due to lack of planning and office politics. The "leaders" are posturing buffoons who are mostly clueless about the subject matter and easily steered by bullshit-artists. None of the yes-men/yes-women dare offend the leader's fragile ego by introducing reality into the conversation. If and when another alpha-male wannabe comes along to challenge them, it turns into a nasty king-of-the-hill war that drags everything into it.
I now try to think of work as a jungle safari instead of a place of economic productivity. The first is more fitting and less stressful: you are then not surprised when a poo-flinging fight breaks out, because after all, humans are nothing but animals. I've never seen anybody yell at a chimp, "Why don't you just be rational!?"
Table-ized A.I.
I'm having a hard time imagining the last US president who could be considered "humble". I think Truman probably was, to some extent (or at least he was a reasonably miserable fellow, a sort of an American version of Clement Attlee), as was Hoover. Washington is portrayed as humble, but I can't imagine a military commander of his ability actually being humble; generals are just not known for their humility, but generals who are bred in war have to be both charismatic and able.
The problem with democracy is that any would-be political leader has to have those hubristic "alpha" qualities that people, often wrongly, associate with great leaders. The advantage of democracy is that you can get rid of them, although a really bad political leader still will usually have at least one term to screw things up.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The humity, exuded by these leaders, can be contagious.
That's exactly the problem! Nobody wants to catch humity; it will lead to poor editing skills that will spread to the entire organization!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Occam's razor tells us Humans are assholes.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why do we fall for charismatic narcissistic candidates?
I blame the illegal immigrants for that.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Perhaps Ford? Remember, he never ran for the office until he already had it.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Without Woz's technical expertise and experience, Apple would probably never exist. It took teamwork.
But Woz is probably not a good example because he's not cut out to be an executive, period. It's a false dichotomy.
Darwin E. Smith or Colman Mockler are better examples of humble yet successful leaders.
Table-ized A.I.
Silent Cal?
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
The problem is narcissism is not that easy to treat. You have to accept that you need to change (the way you think, the way you treat other people, the way you interact with the world) in order to successfully treat a mental illness. One of the defining characteristics of narcissism is that a person suffering from it doesn't realize that they might possibly be wrong in any way. It's always someone else's fault. And even if a narcissist realizes that they need to change, they don't accept that experts know any more than them, so they don't accept the treatment.
-Someone whose mother suffers from NPD
People are stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We only know Woz's name, because of Jobs.
It take an ass**le with huge ego to create "reality distortion field".
I've mentioned this before and have received some snarky comments but having a number of socipathic individuals in a community is an evolutionary advantage. Without them there is nobody to stir the pot, breed discontent, find what is over the next mountain or large body of water etc etc.
love is just extroverted narcissism
- education level, dumbness, idiocy is the cause, look at the audience's brightness there:
Idiot on the microphone (look at his very complex sentence structure) and more brightness radiating cheering audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The answer is because humble people don't over-commit and don't promise that which they can't deliver. Charismatic Narcissists have a much greater chance of doing just that. It almost doesn't matter if they believe they can deliver or know that they can't, the end-effect is still the same.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The opposite may also be the case. We'll never know: God doesn't let us play with his sims. Something tells me Jobs would eventually wind his way into a similar industry and make some waves, but perhaps not as much because Apple gave him early experience to learn from. Jobs had to stumble around a bit before he found his footing: reality is a strong teacher. Without the early Apple experience, he may still be in the stumbling stage.
Table-ized A.I.
I think humbug is the word you are looking for.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Follow me, God has shown the way!
Rationally, nobody wants to be a leader because it is too much extra work and because big decisions generally have the worse predictability of the outcome. The expected return on investment for being a leader generally sucks. Look at who volunteers to be president of small community organizations and scale that up. Since most rational people are lazy and only look for good ROIs, nobody rational wants to become a leader.
Of course if you are delusional, you might want to become a leader. We might be better off following the humble delusional, but since most lazy folks think they are humble (even if they aren't), we tend to hate that which is most like ourselves, so most lazy folks don't want to follow a humble person because we often project our own faults and fears on to that such person because of course we could be that person. So by process of elimination, we follow the charismatic delusional and project our hopes and dreams on to that person.
It's not a surprise that the average outcome is better because humble people are generally more paranoid and the paranoid often survive better in average conditions, but if you want to either succeed greatly or go down in flames, why not follow a charismatic delusional? The big winners write the history books (or in this case randomly survived the cataclysms that formed the evolutionary choke points in our history).
Problem is that charisma is a good way to charm people into being disposed to believing you (look at Jonestown), narcissism means that they will use if to their advantage.
I think that is the problem with the argument as it is presented. Nobody thinks "lets hire a charismatic narcissist" they think "lets hire someone with charisma". The two are not the same and it is entirely possible to have some with charisma without the narcissism and vice versa. The problem is that the charisma can hide the narcissism until it's too late and you have already hired/voted for them.
Without Wozniak, Jobs would have just hired Jay Miner instead.
The best campaigners are not the best leaders. It is a completely different skill set. Trump is the Boaty McBoatface of U.S. Presidential elections.
This may be true in regard to the U. S. presidental election, but at least in my country (germany) pretty much every vote from the last years was some kind of humility/cosmopolitarism contest. Not quite south east asian level but jovialism and/or arrogance have become pretty much a death flag.
"The best rulers are those the people barely know, after that those they love after that those they despise and fear."
- Konfuzius (paraphrased)
In an ideal society the leaders are barely known. But we don't have that yet - that would be Star Trek or something. ... So in broken or non-optimal societies people lean towards the popular.
As far as humble leaders go, I think Uruguay, Buthan and Germany are good examples.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Given that the average person is not too bright and half of the population is dumber than that, it's no wonder that pretty, shiny, charismatic appeals to people.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
One, neither comma should be there. Two, humity isn't a word.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's not that we fall for the narcissistic types, rather the humble among us typically do not seek positions of power.
( They wouldn't be very humble if they did now would they ? )
Our elections are akin to being asked to hammer in a nail, but only given a choice between a screwdriver, a corkscrew or a hacksaw to get it done :|
They're certainly all tools, but none one of them are really suitable for the task at hand. ( Don't you dare ask for the proper tool. )
Then, when we're forced to finally make a choice, it's always the same bullshit from both sides of the fence for years.
" You chose to go with X ! See how poorly it's doing ? It was obviously a poor choice. You should have chosen Y or Z ! "
The best tools for the job are out there, we're simply not given the option to select one based on how our system is setup.
Jay Miner seemed like the kind who wanted a real salary, which Jobs couldn't pay. Woz saw the microcomputer biz as more of a hobby. It's why he wouldn't let Jobs slice out the Apple expansion slots to save some dimes.
Table-ized A.I.
People don't choose charismatic or narcissictic leaders because of those traits, they choose leaders who are confident, act decisively, and have ideologies that lead to predictable behavior that they themselves agree with. "Humity" (sic) is OK, but if they lack confidence etc, it's not enough to make a good leader.
So the question that is of interest to me is, when and how will we change?
It is obvious to me that we can't continue to trust leaders and hierarchical systems. They don't scale. As our population increases the death toll that can be attributed to any leader by whatever matrix you use to decide if they are good or bad, will continue to rise. Our world is more complex than any one person can understand and to enforce our abstract wishes on how it should be are childish. Even now our leaders focus on outcomes that they can't control or guarantee rather than small changes to how we do things based on the values we share.
Example:
You can't eliminate poverty. But you can find what contributes to poverty, or a few things we can do to address it, and then move on from there.
You can't eliminate war and strife, but you can slowly make changes to our culture so that we can someday appreciate what it takes to have peace and trade instead.
So the question that comes to mind is if we are going to grow up as a culture or species, what will that look like? and how can I participate?
The key difference for me is I don't need someone to lead, I just need someone to fulfill their role as coordination or logistics. It's one role of many. A leader is about ego, and is not a job function I truly understand nor wish for a world that needs such things. For a leader I give them my trust and admiration in return for survival and identity. If my survival and right to exist is not, TRULY, at stake then I have no need for such a transaction.
If we keep focusing on a world of scarcity and need, then leaders are inherent. If you instead focus on a world that has enough for all (and we can do this) then leaders, the heirs of kings and queens, are no longer relevant. I don't need a leader who is the biggest bastard on the block, I don't need a leader at all.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
And that is spot-on. The other half of the problem is those that go along with these people. The narcissist is only a problem if others fall for his fake promises.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is kind of a poorly formed study - and post. "humble, unassuming people as leaders improve the performance of a company in the long run." All companies? How do they improve performance specifically, and how is that measured? What is the long run? In the "long run" companies get bigger and more bureaucratic; but is that an appropriate size and behavior for a startup? I could go on, but this is a poorly formed topic for discussion.
'The reason why rivers and seas are able to be lords over a hundred mountain streams, is that they know how to keep below them. That is why they are able to reign over all the mountain streams.'
Charisma is a tool. Combined with stupid, it is hugely dangerous. If only charisma is needed to swim to the top, it becomes a problem by itself.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If pink rabbits taste better than chicken, why aren't eating them? When a leader seems weak, the top management is not "collaborating". It's involved in constant intrigue and politics and infighting. A strong leader is more clear about setting objectives to achieve because he states them as his personal goals. A weak (humble) leader allows himself to be ran instead of running the place himself. This allows for de facto leaders to emerge, but they are almost certainly the ones who are charismatic and narcissistic personalities running the place.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Humble people may make better business leaders, but that doesn't mean it is true for political leaders, where charisma can help to build political capital and accomplish things. Not all political leaders are charismatic. Some that were not: GHWB, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover. None of these guys were very successful.
To me it's clear that Trump became president in order to have tax payers pay for his family's lodging and vacations. He's making tons of money just by using his properties as president. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Humble people may make better business leaders, but that doesn't mean it is true for political leaders
Lincoln and Eisenhower were both considered to be very humble.
It requires a special level of idiocy to equate "having the magic numbers for the big bang instant sunshine things" with "least harm".
I can see you yourself must be "blessed" with much charisma. At least I hope so since you seem to have little else...
The "magic numbers" mean pretty much nothing. They are just another example of exactly what I am saying - giving someone with charisma the illusion of power. Even if someone were to use the "magic numbers" there are layers of real, non-charismatic, people in e way between using the numbers and an actual launch.
It really is a shame when people do not educate themselves as to how systems work before positing misuse.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I suspect we did better when we voted for electors, (better in the vote for president, not the vote for electors) but it'd be hard to be sure about that.
I don't doubt that the premise of this article is true - that by objective measures the humble lead better. but...
1) To be leader you have to be elected, if the charismatic-narcissists are better at getting elected then that is at least one aspect in which they make better leaders
2) I'm not sure people want leaders in top positions, they tend to want people to affirm their pre-formed opinions and act as if they were a surrogate for the voter. The last thing they want them to do is lead in the sense of make a case for changing the voter's opinion.
3) I think people see themselves as the leader, and want to pick someone to represent them that they most aspire to be (from the usually poor list of available candidates). If they had to invent Tyler Durden would they pick a humble man - nope...
Nullius in verba
Our leader selection process has nothing to do with actual leadership abilities. It selects for a person's capacity to talk a big game, and that's about it.
Speak for yourself.
How can I exude it?
Because charismatic narcissists make the best usurpers.
The leaders in organizations have the responsibility of hiring and succession planning for the organization. Leaders tend to see themselves in up and coming protégés and they will select these individuals to groom as future leaders to take over the organization. A healthy organization will invest in training for leaders and have hiring boards to encourage diversity of experience, temperament, etc.
I think enough people here have worked in the kind of positions charismatic narcissists tend to inhabit to understand this. If you're the kind of person who thinks it's possible, even likely, that people around you have better ideas than you do, being responsible for deciding which idea is best is difficult. (If you really think it's easy to lead a group of people, guess what kind of leader you are...)
Gathering ideas from people around you and making sure credit goes to those people is the right way to run any organization, large or small. But it's much easier to shoot for action without argument, if you have the smile to get it. I think the result is that humble leaders don't last as long, they burn out or decide to change their focus more often.
Jimmy Carter was elected and was humble. He even put up Solar Cells on the White House. They were promptly take down when Reagan took office.
This is actually calibrated behaviour. I click "submit" when the odds of noticing such a mistake fall below the bar of justifying the extra time investment.
And then sometimes I spot it right as the afterimage fades.
Maybe it's just me, but I've come to group most workers into three categories:
- Manipulators - Those good at generating images, focusing attention, turning strangers into friends, and figuring out exactly what others want. These are the perfect sales, marketing, and investor relations workers. Given that sales, marketing, and investor relations are so critical to future business projects and the ability of companies to survive....they're who you generally find as CEO's.
- Planners - Those who can concentrate and focus on the bigger long term picture, discerning truth from advertising, and who can imagine new solutions for existing problems, and deal with very sophisticated technical projects. These make good engineers and who you may find creating new business startups. Much of the slashdot audience would probably categorize themselves into this group. However, at a certain point, most businesses find that they can't grow enough revenue, attract enough new investors, or keep employees happy with these people in charge. So, they end up hiring the manipulators into the top jobs.
- Followers - For whatever reason, there are a lot of people who don't really care so much about their job or what it accomplishes, as long as they can feel good about themselves and have good friends and a life outside of work. These people would refuse any major leadership role if offered. Work is just a way for them to accomplish other things. You'll find a lot of high end service people in this category - doctors, etc.
We only know Woz's name, because of Jobs.
No. You only knew Jobs because of Apple's marketing.
Just a wild guess here ...
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It's the answer, that's what it is. Combine it with the aura of self-confidence inherent to narcissism (or mistaken for narcissism) and that's the bloody obvious answer. Confidence + Charisma = People listen to you. That, people listening to you, is the key to leadership.
It's not an ability, it's a trait. One that has nothing to do with control in and of itself. It means that people are at least open to listening to you, and may actively want to listen because you're so darn interesting. Obviously, that opens a door to controlling people, but that is just the means to control, not the will.
Would a truly humble person ever accept a leadership role? Just sayin.
Maybe instead of Apple we'd have a diverse collection of smaller computer companies working off of common chipsets and creating computers that better fit a lot of niche roles than the ubiquitous generic winbloze box has.
Looks interesting, especially if the article actually addresses either this specific instance or the general problem of: "Why do people in groups make bad group decisions".
We're never going to be done talking about the 2016 presidential election -- and the nomination process that gave voters two such lousy choices -- are we?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.