There's a difference between being grumpy and being an abusive asshole. Unfortunately, this article seems to conflate the two and seems to be rationalizing bullshit behavior from CEOs as being indicative of success rather than being too-big-to-fail.

I've worked with plenty of grumpy people that had a no-nonsense attitude but never let it get in the way of being genuinely helpful or used it to put down people.

I've also worked with assholes that were bad at their jobs and pretended that their no-nonsense attitude was helpful when it was not. It's a very fine line to walk.