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Comment by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh | Hacker News Reader

There's definitely something a little weird about people who proclaim themselves a "Leader" on their LinkedIn title.

I can't even imagine how that happens. Did they wake up that day, intending to do that before they even opened their laptop? "Today's the day!" Or, were they just dropping by the Edit form, when they were struck by such a brilliant idea?

Every time I see it, I just hear Tywin intoning the same old lesson:

"Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king."

I guess it sounds a little less dramatic when you swap in "Product Leader" for "king," but I think the point still holds.

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You know, for all I agree with the post, and that leadership-as-cult is horrible, the question _why_ would someone put that in their LinkedIn title is trivial to answer:

Because they want to get the moneys! Because they want to get hired as a leader!

Because _you're_ not the audience. Their cronies are, the other cultists. They didn't come up with this themselves, they're just copying what everyone else (in their peer group / bubble) are doing... shrug

> ...when you swap in "Product Leader" for "king,"

I can't help myself but swap it with the German translation of "Leader", which is "Führer". Especially when somebody insists on calling himself a "Leader" (in English) in an otherwise German conversation, which unfortunately is quite common.

As an English person learning German, it was quite a shock to realise that the word/word fragment „Führer“ („Geschäftsführer“) really is just a normal word with a boring meaning. Also „Reich“ („Königreich“) and „Anschluss“ („Hausanschlussraum“).

The thousand year Reich quickly turned into a thousand year curse, where they can’t do or say anything without people making it all about the Nazis.

That's just because they invite it.

https://satwcomic.com/not-a-yahtzee

If Germany acted less neurotic, they'd draw less commentary.

If you are interested in that specific aspect, I recommend you to read "LTI" by Victor Klemperer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Im...

> LTI demonstrates changes in the German language in most of the population. In contrast, the text also emphasizes the idea that resistance to oppression begins by questioning the constant use of buzzwords.

Huh, one of those reminded me of post-9/11 American euphemisms:

> Verschärfte Vernehmung ("strengthened interrogation"): torture

And the prefix „Welt-“ ("world-") reminds me of British politicians repeatedly calling their policies "world-leading" or "world-class".

Sure, euphemisms are an essential component of any kind of propaganda. To some degree, this includes legitimate campaigning in democracies.

What the Nazis implemented to a unique extent was the process of (re-)defining words in a specific meaning. This happened top-down and censorship not only acted passively (disallow certain publications), but the propaganda actively pushed the terminology and narratives to use by the media.

The recurrent use of seemingly harmless words in specific ways impacted the society much longer than the Nazis were in charge. Some seemingly unpolitical narratives have lived on until today. Fortunately, the (Western) allies realized that they needed to counter this after the war, but of course the denazification has not been able to undo all the damage.

Yet we all want to be reich.

Also confusing to encounter words whose meaning changes from an inaudible capital letter („Reich“ ~= empire, realm; „reich“ = rich).

At least „die See“/„der See“ (ocean/lake) are at least both about water you can put a boat on.

„Briefkasten“ is a fun one, coming from English. Sounds like "briefcase". Same etymology, both are boxes that you put letters into, it's just that the English one is the thing you carry to work, and the German one is part of the postal system.

"Führer" is these days quite rare to use as its own standalone word. You'd rather say "Leiter" or perhaps "Anführer" instead.

I always get a chuckle looking at my driver’s license and seeing that I’m a certified Führer in Germany.

Its a rather old joke that when political correct speech is overdiscussed, one guy will ask: "Aber Führerschein ist schon noch erlaubt, oder?" (But drivers-licence is still a legal word, right?)

i have a tangential question: is this thread an example of goodwin’s law ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law#:~:text=Godwin%...

I don't think so. This law is about using nazi in counterargument to something not just barely mentioning them.

No, but this thread is an example of the use-mention distinction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...

Maybe it's a bit like I heard as a kid (perhaps incorrectly), that the term sensei is one of respect, from student towards teacher. Not something one claims for oneself.

Even if I heard incorrectly, I still like the idea.

The military has an understanding here which feels lacking from modern society.

You have a rank, you get to give orders, it's a hierarchy generally.

But the difference between an experienced, senior NCO and a junior officer is well understood, and built into the structures.

Specific examples: why is there an officer's mess? Is it classist? Or is it because familiarity breeds contempt, and when you need to order someone to do something if no one respects you; everyone dies?

On the other side of it, who eats last, the enlisted or the officers? If you get that wrong you get mutiny.

Also why I think getting rid of the executive suites was a mistake.

Not only does familiarity breed contempt, but putting executives in IC tier offices lowered the standard for everyone, and now ICs have been reduced to factory floor scrubs.

ICs have always been factory floor workers; highly paid ones, but still, factory workers.

> Specific examples: why is there an officer's mess? Is it classist? Or is it because familiarity breeds contempt, and when you need to order someone to do something if no one respects you; everyone dies?

I'd assume it is because the officers might be in a position where they choose to send the men (and women, in this enlightened age) to their deaths. There isn't much point eating together if that sort of politics might come into play, the power differential is too large. And it'd be harder for the officers to do that in an emergency if they see themselves as part of the same group.

Not to cast doubt on the officers, I'm sure they care very deeply about the wellbeing of their people and generally do a pretty good job of keeping people alive. But it is the military. People can die. Historically in war, some people die when their officers decide something suicidal is better than inaction.

> There isn't much point eating together if that sort of politics might come into play, the power differential is too large.

Historically, the value of eating with your men is that the men will actually follow your orders rather than just mutinying and killing you.

Historically, fraternizing between enlisted and officers has generally been not only unwelcome, but a punishable offense.

That is only true for high modern European (western) history.

It must be being struck by the "brilliant" idea, right? The first one is too weird for me to contemplate. In either case, I don't judge people too much for this because I think it signals compliance with corporate norms. My theory is that anyone that says "Leader" on their LinkedIn title is actually saying "I'm not going to point out the emperor has no clothes as long as I'm salaried and allowed to give talks."

I think the answer is much more simpler. My own CEO and his immediate lackeys consider themselves "leaders". This is just to distingush themselves from lower level management. They "lead" the company, so "of course" they are "leaders".

Or to put it even shorter: leadership is reserved for the top of the org-chart.

I agree, and my "favorite" title is Thought Leader.

In my experience, people who call themself leaders, are often not performing very well in their main role, which usually happens to that of a people manager.

"I didn't forget my homework I just.. did it orally"

Is thought leader the next evolutionary level of the "idea guy"?

You don't need to even have ideas to be "Thought Leader". Just repeat what is popular in field at the moment and you are there...

Yes, I would say so, nice observation. I also think that many "idea guys" are doing the performative role of "the leader", i.e. the idea guys doing the corporate/business drag of the "thought leader".

It's more just the commercial version of "ideas guy". Anyone can be an ideas guy. Once you go pro, you're a thought leader.

>Is thought leader the next evolutionary level of the "idea guy"?

With 40 years and counting in this particular sub-field of anthropology, it's been fully confirmed that the so-called "Thought-Leader" (Ignoramus Rex) does not fall within the evolutionary branch of the now-extinct "Idea" man (Traumus Pieintheskii) whatsoever.

On the contrary, Ignoramus has now been shown to be an evolutionary dead-end that arose from lower-intelligence forms than those which gave rise to Traumus. As we have seen from intact specimens, Ignoramus is simply not capable of achieving the level of sophistication in its natural environment as Idea Man once exhibited during the brief epoch when it was thriving.

It's a horrible suggestion that everyone is going to have to pretend to agree with whatever nonsense that person has hyped themselves up on that week and they'll bully people into doing so.

Whereas Linux Torvalds is a leader by default because he had to be. There's also no need for him to say it anywhere. He just did it and was it.

In the case of Linus Torvalds and others like Guido van Rossum, I think is fine to consider them leaders, because they are leading their projects - to a certain extent these projects are not theirs (only) anymore, nonetheless they IMO they can claim or get the leader title.

Exactly - you can have thoughts all day long. Everyone can dream up ideas. Hell, world peace tomorrow is a great one.

Executing them on the otherhand, that's hard, and well - it's is the only thing that matters.

Some obscure company cultures demand you address everyone and yourself as "leader" in third-person, irrespective of designation and rank. So fresh grads are leaders, janitors are "sanitation leaders", SDEs are "development leaders" and so on.

Is this better or worse than saying everyone is an "engineer"?

Is that better or worse than saying every one is „Vice President of“?

Obligatory American Psycho business card scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY&t=85s

Or “Your business card is CRAP!” https://youtu.be/4YBxeDN4tbk

For many app-entrepreneurs, app website has become embodiment of American Psycho business card, rich and expressive nonetheless how shallow app-product or app-idea actually is.

Senior vice president of leadership

Self-proclaimed leaders and experts basically signal to me that they stopped bothering to upskill, leveled off, and use their new title as a form of justification or personal flattery.

I think they're trying to compete. A lot in life depends on how people first perceive you and what box they immediately pidgeonhole you into. When one goes to a new company all status and all the perceptions one has built up with people at the old company are lost.

One must make an attempt to be seen as one wants to be and it's not easy to do that without sounding arrogant but being humble doesn't work either.

I went on a hardcore training course once - four days in the mountains in Wales (UK) in winter, in the pouring rain, with ex-military trainers, competing as teams on tasks that were deliberately designed to cause tension in the teams. It was fascinating. All the guys that declared themselves the leaders at the start were practically (and literally in one case) in tears by the end, realising that nobody respected them and everyone thought they were jerks. The quiet, respectful, thoughtful ones became the leaders that everyone wanted to follow.

And then what happened on the fifth day? We all know the answer. The dream ended and everyone was back in the reality. Managers keeping workers busy, depressed and docile with scrum and jira dogshit while themselves playing game of thrones on getting the biggest comp packages.

Well, some of the people left their jobs after the course. (Employers were warned this might happen beforehand if they sent their staff on this course.)

It's because nobody is interesting in hiring you otherwise.

That is despite the fact that post-hiring they want you to be a follower, not a leader.

This one still confounds me.

It seems like 80% or more of jobs are bait and switch at worst and definitely not aligned with hiring expectations at best.

Are you implying leadership is not a skill that can be honed? Is being a leader not a profession?

Edit: instead of responding to individual comments, I will just edit this comment.

I am just a little bit sad about the emotional responses here on this thread, just echoing a sentiment, without much critical discourse.

It's a profession that depends on others actually following you. You can't just decide you're going to lead.

No, being a leader is not a profession any more than being a thinker or a talker or a worker is.

I would say my cousin, who is a Major in the army would disagree with you. If you're not a good leader when trying to lead several hundred soldiers in a situation where they might be maimed or killed, you're not going to last very long in that job.

Being a leader is absolutely a huge part or the main part of many professions, and the truth is that the more people you are responsible for, the greater the importance of your leadership skills. That is, to be the CEO of a company requires you to be an exceptional leader as that is one of your primary responsibilities.

I think you made a huge leap from military leadership to "leadership" what the article is about. I would argue that military leadership has a good component of meritocracy, while business leadership has a good component of the opposite virtues. Like nepotism, networking, ruthlessness and inflated egos. A company with a terrible ceo can function just fine for a while if they have enough customers. I can't say the same for military in a war.

So leadership is a skill, not a job.

>Are you implying leadership is not a skill So just like GP asked

I also have been to ex military talks at my non military job, as motivational speeches. Nothing about military operations translates to civilian jobs. It's all cool how "we were under enemy fire and I had to get our team to the chopper", but no one is shooting at us, so we can just sit in our own excrements all day and the next day.

I think your cousin might agree with me that their profession is "military officer", not "leader". I agree that leadership is a valuable skill for many professions.

Dress for the job you want, not have.

Dressing is one thing, being pretentious, glib and cringe online is another

My favorite one comes from our current "operations manager", where he shared his best performance in the last years ( he joined us 2 years ago).

"They found me after 1,5 years" lol

Odd, it's probably true. Just not what I thought.

This is kind of a silly question. In essence you're asking why people do things that other people find stupid (I agree it's pretty bad to see that).

Probably so that you can put Director on your resume even though you're an M1 manager and not get called out for it publicly.

What if your name is King? :)

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