Managers Can Know They're Being Evil
ludic.mataroa.blog
ludic.mataroa.blog
Which supports my theorem:
"Behind every bad manager is a bad leader."
Dysfunctional settings is culture. Leadership is responsible for culture. Bad managers thrive where bad leadership allows it. Full stop.
The concepts of management and leadership do not disappear though. They are more desperately needed than ever.
However, the words have lost their meaning, and who today would willingly call themselves these things? Only the aspirational, driven by desperation for money or a sense of personal insecurity.
There are still people who must manage and lead, but those who are effective do so quietly, behind the scenes, and often in an unpaid capacty. They wisely eschew titles and limelight.
Meanwhile we preseve an official veneer. The cult of corporate "professional management", its deceitful Machiavellianism, self-deluding bullshit and hopelessly anachronistic fetish for efficiency is a beast feeding on all that is fresh and vital. As the article says, "manager" became a mantle adorned only by the damaged and immature (unseparated from parental issues) who let themselves be made victims of a system that creates moral labour and turns its abuse into virtuous capital.
> Leadership is responsible for culture.
I disagree. Culture arises (and has the last word) despite leaders. Leaders and their underling managers are spat out of culture like the foam on the crest of a great wave. And they are rolled under the next, as if they never existed.
When culture is healthy, we will naturally get good managers and leaders again. They may emerge from a younger generation quite spontaneously as culture allows. What we see today is mostly madness, literally codified mental illness of generations who cannot cope with the change afoot..
""" The biggest problem in the world today is mental health. If
everybody had good mental health then all the other problems
would be solved. In order to take care of practical problems
you have to have good mental health. If people have motives
that are not worthwhile those motives are always going to creep
into their activities, and you see that every day from the way
the political people behave. -- Frank Zappa """I agree the words have lost meaning. But it's because the words are used too much and usually inappropriately. For example, politicians are consistently called leaders. Nah. They are usually, at best, elected officials. Leadership is a verb, not a noun (i.e., title).
I'll leave another theorem:
"There's no such thing as bad leadership."
For example, you'll see a meme-y type thing on LinkedIn "Bad leaders don't listen to their people." Nah. If you're not listening to your people...you're not leading. Full stop. And now we're back to the words having no meaning.