Many years ago, I was involved in delivering some “leadership training” to a bunch of research scientists who were acting as team leaders. It was an “experimental” event and the first exercise we did was some storylistening and some archetype extraction. I can’t remember exactly the story prompts but I think we might have gotten people to share the key moments of their biographies in small groups.
Then we asked them went through the higgledy-piggledy extraction process and got them to present back their archetypes. There were three:
Harried, miserable science team leaders.
Predatory senior management.
Blissful, young early career scientists able to luxuriate in scientific research.
When we facilitators pointed these archetypes out to the participants, they vehemently repudiated that this was how they saw the world. We had made them say it.
We had done no such thing. But we had allowed some of them to name the thing that they did not want named. And for that we must be punished.
There are many things to take from this encounter but here are two.
Firstly, most managers do not want to be managers. They want to be doing the thing. And for whatever reason, they find themselves not doing the thing. They find themselves dealing with meeting invites and performance reviews and remuneration discussions and inter-departmental meetings about reducing inefficiency that go on for hours and achieve nothing. And all this sucks. They want to be back doing the thing. And they envy those who are doing the thing. Even if as managers they are paid a bit more or have higher status. They still want to be doing the thing.
Most management positions are an escalating series of filters based on your tolerance to handle BS. So to a first approximation, the people who rise up in organizations are not the most visionary or humane but those who can tolerate the most BS. There are consequences to this.
The second thing is that no one wants the truth. The absolute worst thing you can give someone is the truth. Give them a pleasing lie and everyone will be happy. The messenger will be shot so even if they have the best kevlar so don’t be the messenger.
I know he looks like a stripper but he’s actually a scientist