Agnostic.com

32 11

Why There Are So Many Incompetent Male Leaders

1) The inability to distinguish between confidence and competence.

2) The love of charismatic individuals.

3) The inability to resist the allure of narcissistic individuals.

"If we want to improve the quality of our leaders and help more women get to leadership positions, the last thing we should do is not lower our standards when we select women. This means not asking women to behave more like incompetent men."

"It also means not ruling out men because they lack the traditional masculine features that match our flawed archetypes of leadership."

[ideas.ted.com]

An interesting short read by renowned business-organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

VictoriaNotes 9 Jan 12
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

32 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Corruption does not appear to be the main factor where " leaders " are propped up for voters and honest leaders are censored and vilified for their lack of corruption ......controlling or invading 150 countries IS NOT KEEPING US SAFE as I am "thanked for my service" invading Vietnam in 1959...yes I was brainwashed to believe war heroes and football heroes were the lucky ones to be loved by women....even though I joined the Navy to stop the war from the inside like many other vets were doing, hippies still do not like my short hair then or now....Mayor Pete and Pocahontas seem to be selling their personalities while defending "vital national interests" which is code for Pentagon zionist profits

5

I think the question should be "Why have we so many incompetent leaders?" Let's leave out the sexism here. I say this from a country which lost Theresa May as PM last year. Perhaps one of the most incompetent leaders we have ever had and that is tough competition.
The vast majority of govts. are run by men. If we keep choosing idiots? then it stands to reason that they will be mostly guys. Gender has little to do with it. There is no guarantee that women will do any better.

In fact, if you look at the female leaders that have risen to the top? Then their shortcomings are pretty much on a par with male ones, taken as an overall percentage.

@VictoriaNotes Sorry but it kinda does look sexist. "Why have we so many incompetent MALE leaders?" His solution seems to be more female leaders. Now I do not say that is a bad thing, in fact I would welcome it. However, that does not address the problem of people rising to a level of their own incompetence.

5

I know it's just me, but I think it's the testosterone that makes a lot of
them really stupid.

@VictoriaNotes Annnnnd, there ya go!

Walt is right about you.

😉

4

Nice article 😊 it's harder to judge competence than confidence. There is a good chance that a person is confident because he or she is competent. Similarly, one may not be competent and that's why he or she is not confident. People trust these signals and go for confidence to imply competence. As the article says, men judge themselves more competent and hence appear more confident. I would think that this is due to some evolutionary pressure on men "to perform". Just speculation 😊

yes i think you're right there is an evolutionary basis for male confidence or bravado. They want their genes to prevail.

@MsDemeanour
That's not my understanding and I think the difference is profound. It is not that men want their genes to prevail, but that the genes which causes self-deception in men regarding their competencies have a Selective advantage over their rival alleles. Genes are not there for us, but we are there for the genes. Every organism has a genetic drive to maximize its number of offsprings because those genes tend to prevail over time. This gene centric view of evolution has been the most successful formulation of the theory of evolution.

@Spongebob Ah yes I see. Makes sense.

4

Competence is not a gender based trait, you will find many degrees of competence in all humans.

@VictoriaNotes yes, I can read too, and because I can read too, my comment was directed at the statement made at the opening of your post and also of the Title: "Why There Are So Many Incompetent Male Leaders?".

4

There are also a lot of incompetent male followers

3

When that's all there is...
But let me point out Betsy DeVos...

3

Interesting point but are female leaders not as incompetent? Just asking?

@VictoriaNotes Interesting, so it’s trait rather than gender.

3

Some of these points remind me of criticisms of the behavior of the German feminist movement during the 1980s by author Gunter Grass. He stated that they "were trying to use power like men; and we already have more than enough stupid men."

3

It also means not ruling out men because they are self-confident, charismatic or manly in appearance.

@VictoriaNotes Hmm...A lathe operator might be competent, humble, and have integrity, but those qualities wouldn’t make him a good CEO for the company. In addition he’d need bold self-confidence, a degree of charisma, and he would need to have the appearance of a leader. That’s why CEOs keep well-groomed and wear suits rather than overalls. He’d also need a different kind of intelligence, and he’d need broad general knowledge. He could be a total incompetent dummy about machine work and still be a great leader for the company if perceived as such.

@WilliamFleming A good leader listens to the advice of others, particularly experts in their particular field. A good leader is one who listens and doesn't have to be centre stage.

@VictoriaNotes Whether or not it’s an illusion, perception is an important part of the equation. Don’t forget personal drive and energy also. Those things trump humility and consensus making.

@MsDemeanour On that I agree. With good leadership there is respect both ways. Women have a reputation for hovering over the workers and trying to mother them.

@WilliamFleming Hovering eh? I could tell you about some of the bosses I had when I was young but it would turn into a #MeToo thread lol

3

This post brings to mind the best book on management I ever read: The Peter Principle, By Peter, Laurence and Hull, Raymond, 1969

"The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence": an employee is promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another" Wikipedia

Still as relevant today as it was over 50 years ago.

3

I can answer that with a quote from George Carlin. “Think about how stupid the average American is and then realize that half of them are even more stupid than that.” An intelligent person can recognize incompetence and finds narcissism laughable.

2

The reason why there are so many incompetent male leaders is because there are fewer female leaders to be incompetent.
Over time, ALL leaders are inherently incompetent in assorted aspects - and all voters are inherently incompetent in selecting their leaders in the long term.

2

The history of female leaders in history ain't that great either. There just haven't been near as many. I just wonder why so few leaders in history have been good leaders, putting the welfare of their people as their main priority. I would certainly like to see us elect a woman. Maybe a woman would help get this health care system headed toward a more affordable and humane system.

2

This article is spot on to my way of thinking. Whenever I point out that there are not enough women in government, men will point out the crap women like Thatcher or Palin. But most women who claw their way into politics have had to play the men's game. Well we need to change the game. To enter government there should be a job description and criteria to be met like any other job.

I've often thought that portfolios should be given to experts in the field, not career politicians who know nothing of the world. The Minister for Defence should be an expert in the field. Someone with from the social services should nominated for that portfolio. The same with other portfolios like Transport, Environment, the Arts, Education, Industry etc. I am so tired of seeing ignorant people making bumbling incompetent decisions on things they no nothing about and care even less.

Thatcher was not crap - at first. She did a good job initially in reigning in the power of unions controlled by fanatical leaders. However, by the time of her third term in office, she had outlasted her usefulness, and yet was still touting privatisation of everything as her holy grail. Hence the modern disasters of rail franchise companies, not to mention water and electricity.

Thatcher may have been a "crap" leader but she was indesputably a leader and thus a trail blazer. I always thought that she was a woman trying much to hard to be manly. The women who have come so close to winning the presidency have not suffered from that mistake thereby liberating all of us a bit.

2

Bayesian statistics says stop it. The simple fact that there are more men in leadership alone guarantees that some of them will be incompetent.

No surprises there, just statistics.

On a psychological note, a lot of times it doesn't matter how competent a leader is because the job of a leader is to get everyone on the same page and working toward the same goal. This happened well before the 1960, possibly tracing back millions of years.

I have a feeling this guy, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic doesn't warm up to well to evolutionary psychology.

@VictoriaNotes Unless he is beating around the bush here, which I suppose he might be doing for good reasons, he makes no direct claim about the nature of what we desire in leadership as it pertains to evolutionary psychology. It is ambiguous if he is talking about the evolution of our minds or our bodies.

In fact these two sentences almost contradict each other, which leads me to believe he may have other motives...

2

Meritocracy has very definite advantages. In the US there are practically no requirements for holding public office,and we now can see where that leads.

GROG Level 6 Jan 12, 2020
2

I think a lot of men suffer from an Alpha complex -- they need to believe themselves to be alphas regardless of whether they are or not. In pursuit of this they aspire to positions of leadership where alphas are expected to be. When they get there it only exposes them for the Betas they truly are. The result: we have "leaders" like Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and so many other dipshit losers who can't admit to what they really are so we have to suffer through their incompetence and stupidity so as not to upset their fragile self image.

And they will never admit to it themselves.

Yes

2

Competent males are blocked from leadership roles, just like most women. It's all about greed.

I agree. Government attracts the self-serving not ethical people. It is the system that must change.

@MsDemeanour I was thinking of the corporate world also. In the US, corporate families are like royalty.

2

It's time that women take over most leadership positions. There have been poor women leaders, but usually they were trying to imitate mens styles. Afterall, women could not do any worse than their male counter parts have done throughout all these millennia. The world could stand a little maternal direction.

2

This isn't stereotypical or sexist at all. It would be if it was aimed at minorities or women. Since it's generalizing about men, it's OK.

@Gwendolyn2018 Now that you asked. It seems that the male bashing part of it might be deemed to be sexist. Us guys. We're all incompetent boobs, so we don't mind at all. No one should give it another thought.

@Gwendolyn2018 It's the equivalent of today's male bashing sitcom humor. Only in the form of an article. Certain people nod in agreement. You're nodding in agreement. I'm not. No group is "all" anything. "Why there are so many incompetent male leaders". A statement of fact. Not a question. True statement or not?

A bit defensive? Are you being a bit offensive by putting it out there as fact?

@Gwendolyn2018 Copied from the headline and pasted:

"Why There Are So Many Incompetent Male Leaders"

That's a statement. There is no question mark.

@Gwendolyn2018 I appreciate that.

1

The reason there are so many incompetent male leaders is that men have way more practice being incompetent in many roles.

karl Level 5 Jan 21, 2020
1

People don’t respond to logic, they respond to ‘charisma and aggression.’ That way, there’s no personal work involved; choose your flavor of aggression and your favorite guy to carry it out.

Woman can certainly be passive-aggressive, but lack the physical stature to appear formidable. So they’re rarely chosen for leadership roles. So, when it’s basically ‘all men,’ with an unhealthy dose of narcissism at that … the world gets what we’ve got.

Varn Level 8 Jan 13, 2020
1

Ascension to leadership seems to be more correlated with ambition than other qualities that make good leaders, like ability to listen, coordinate, cooperate, inspire, or even general competency. Men are emotionally conditioned for ambition more than women are.

1

Often someone is judged to be incompetent as a leader by those who don’t have the whole picture, and are basing the judgment on misunderstanding or possibly on envy. Anybody who does anything makes mistakes, but truly incompetent leaders don’t last long.

Different kinds of leaders are needed in different environments. Charisma, bold self-confidence, poise and decisiveness are basic requirements for almost any leader. Also required are knowledge, intelligence and good judgment, specific to the environment.

The leader of a wolf pack will always be the most wolffish of wolves.

1

Very interesting.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:448659
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.