damm! Now that's an intense experience. I'm often impressed with leaders that have a level of control over their emotions and intensity with the ability to use them to their advantage, with the right emotion tailored for the right situation.
That's not leadership, that's insanity and unmitigated disdain for his employees.
I have no problem with having heated discussions on occasion. I think it can be a great way to get people saying what they really mean. Mutual alcohol consumption surely is a gentler method though...
Read it again.
While I agree 'yelling' is not the most professional method of getting your point across, the CEO felt the need to impress a point on everyone that he wasn't going to stand for something. And that he was going to put resources (travel with VP of sales to talk to customers) into the person he was yelling at to make sure he does things differently.
This was not a casual emotional rant about something he said. This was a thought out attack on a way of thinking that was unacceptable to the CEO, followed up with a strategy to fix it.
I'll bet the author would agree that was one of the more pivotal moments of his professional life. A lot of CEO's might hear a comment like that, file it away, and then just not promote you, or put you first in line to be laid off. It takes effort and guts to stand up and pronounce what you, the leader of the company, believe in.
And that's something that's often missing today with CEO's.
A good leader will figure out a priori which techniques work with which people and apply them appropriately.
They are especially horrible when the person is in a real position of authority, like an adult over a child (parent, teacher), or an employer. It not only de-motivates over the long term, it causes a lot of damage to the relationship.
The military situation is a bit different, because of the pseudo-brainwashing ("break em down and build em up" approach -- downvote me if you like, but we all know that's an explicit goal to create team cohesion), not to mention huge legal obligations, and maybe because of the type of people who go into it to start with.
As much as I love etiquette, it's a nice little side deal, not the primary concern. What matters above all else is competence.
Personally I think yelling and screaming is awfully unprofessional. He still would have been humiliated and embarrassed if the guy had called BS on him in other ways, I think, which is probably what made the lesson stick. He got cut down to size, and he knew he was wrong.
I think screaming can backfire, too. I had a guy yelling and pounding his fists in a meeting the other week, and it reduced my opinion of him further. (He wasn't angry with me nor the 10 or so other people present, who were looking at him like 'what a jerk').
If I want to spend time with someone who has temper tantrums, I'd much prefer the company of my daughter, who I don't see enough as it is.
The CEO was trying to prove a point and used drama to get it across. I doubt Steve would have taken it as seriously if the CEO did not do what he did.
In addition, I'm sure that experienced contributed to Steve's development and he's thankful for it.
I, personally, would have taken a calm statement of the facts far more seriously than screaming; dramatic means to an end or not. And if the guys screaming at me was doing it just to make a point, I'd find that far more offensive than if he was a short-fused rage-aholic.
How confident in the merit of your position can you possibly be, if you need to resort to pushing emotional buttons?
I suppose as the boss you need to know how to act and when. Some people will react in different ways and you need to be aware of that. Based on my reading I interpreted that Steve thought the CEO's tactic was useful.
Emotions have no bearing on correctness, but they do have tremendous bearing on actions. Mastery of the former begets knowledge, whilst mastery of the latter begets results.
The CEO has in effect told his managers that they should use threats as a normal management technique and that reasoned discourse is an inferior business tool. For a high-tech business this seems unlikely to be correct. I can't imagine this approach being routine at say Google.
All of those have associated economic costs which screaming does not. What exactly is the disadvantage of screaming?
I'm unconvinced that this actually happens, so I, at least, would expect that it's very, very rare to use verbal or physical abuse in a way that produces enlightenment of any sort. Discipline, I would understand. Enlightenment or understanding? Doubtful.
They never abused me, but as a hotshot 17 year old, was humbling to have my ass handed to me by an overweight, half blind 50 year old man.
If I sat at the foot of some exalted spiritual man for long enough seeking meaning, I too would probably start finding meaning in his every act. It's a completely self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's great that the author learned a life lesson by being summarily embarrassed in a room of his peers. But realize that is totally a function of how he chose to process it, and not of some great teaching technique of the CEO.
Perhaps the CEO recognized that this would work in this case. For another person, perhaps another technique would have been tried. Regarding the story here, this last paragraph is all speculation, of course. We don't know how the CEO would've handled a different person. I'm really just addressing your point about teaching technique.
And "My boss, the CEO, had just come from a string of successes at Convergent Technologies..."
edit to link Convergent and Ardent re-edit: can't spell