Posted on 02/14/2009 6:43:19 AM PST by KeyLargo
Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It?
By Jeffrey Kluger
Bosses may be an overbearing breed, but more often than not, you've got to admire their business chops. Wouldn't you love to have that same sense of competence and confidence, that ability to assess tough problems and reach smart solutions on the fly? Guess what? So would they. If you have ever suspected that your boss isn't actually good enough at what he or she does to deserve the job in the first place, a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that you might be right.
Social psychologists know that one way to be viewed as a leader in any group is simply to act like one. Speak up, speak well and offer lots of ideas, and before long, people will begin doing what you say. This works well when leaders know what they're talking about, but what if they don't? If someone acts like a boss but thinks like a boob, is that still enough to stay on top? (See the best business deals of 2008.)
To determine just how easily an all-hat-no-cattle leader can take control of employees, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, devised a pair of tests. Cameron Anderson, an associate professor of organizational behavior and industrial relations, along with doctoral candidate Gavin Kilduff, recruited a group of 68 graduate students and divided them into four-person teams. To eliminate the wild card of gender, the teams were either all-male or all-female. Each group was given the task of organizing an imaginary nonprofit environmental organization; the group that did best — as determined by the researchers — would win a $400 prize. While the prize was real, the purported goal wasn't. Excerpt...
Good article.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
http://lh3.ggpht.com/nobamanation/SOATeFNeTKI/AAAAAAAAAKA/rHZ0Zgpo7_A/OBAMA-INCOMPETENT_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg
In my line of work, computers, faking it won’t work.
If you move a system to production, and it is bad, everyone will know about it. You can’t fake stuff like that.
Same thing with banking. If you lose billions, the mere appearance of competence is of little use.
Stay on top? Heck, some are even promoted. See: Tim Geithner, Leon Panetta, Robert Gibbs, and so on....
“Same thing with banking. If you lose billions, the mere appearance of competence is of little use.”
Huh?
Does bailout sound familiar?
The government rewards bankers failures with our tax dollars!
Nice slam on President Bush in it.
Talking about faked competence, how about John Kennedy? Mishaps, misunderstandings, close calls and plain disastrous decisions were the usual order of the day in his thrill a minute administration.
Say what? See: Franklin Raines, et al.
But I slept at a Holiday Inn Express . . .
“Nice slam on President Bush in it.”
Yes, I saw that.
Consider the source: “Slime Magazine”
How much was spent on this "new" study? Have they not heard of the 1968 Peter Principle?
'Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It?'The "researchers" at the UofC Berkeleystan should have bought the "Peter Principle" and saved a lot of time and money.
... researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, devised a pair of tests.
(but then they couldn't justify their phony-baloney jobs)
Shhhh.
They are simply practicing the Plagiarism Principle and undoubtedly getting government funding for their efforts.
.
I have noticed when working in retail that the “boss” usually ends up being the one who can act like someone in charge for the higher ups, but doesn’t possess any real leadership skills. The best term for this is found in Stephen Ambrose’s books, and that is “chickensh!t”. The muckety-mucks love these people, but they are really poor leaders where it counts. It can be hard working for such a manager because they love to find ways to tear you down when you start doing something that they see as a threat to their egos. The bad part is that with the economic problems of late, these people seem to think that being more of a chickensh!t will make things better. I was in a store recently where the store manager was ripping his entire staff during store hours on the sales floor with a chickensh!t rant while every customer in the store was watching. Meanwhile, nobody could get any help because the staff was tied up in this “meeting”. I suspect that the only result was that the employees were demoralized and were unwilling to do their best for some time.
Rule of thumb: If your boss isn’t asking customers and staff for advice, he’s faking it. Probably means he doesn’t want to get involved in in-depth conversations that would expose him.
There is no right answer in business. A leader makes things happen. If he fails he keeps trying. Usually dogged determination pays off.
John Kennedy?
I would accept him as President anyday of the week over Obama.
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