Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? And what can we do about it?
Jan 9, 2020 / Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
If we want to improve the competence level of people in leadership positions, we need to improve our own competence for judging and selecting them, especially when they are men, says organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.
Have you ever worked with people who are not as good as they think?
This finding won't come as a surprise to most of us, but statistically, these people are more likely to be male than female. That's right — men are typically more deceived about their talents than women are. And they are also more likely to succeed in their careers. That's because one of the best ways to fool other people into thinking you're better than you actually are is to fool yourself first.
I'm an organizational psychologist, and I use science and technology to predict and understand human behavior at work. One of the areas that fascinates me is the relationship between gender, personality and leadership and more specifically, how gender and personality shape our choices of leaders and how those leaders then impact organizations. Discussions of gender tend to focus on the under-representation of women in leadership, which, sadly, is more or less universal.
But a bigger problem is the fact that most leaders are incompetent. Indeed, whether in business or politics, incompetent leaders have negative effects on their followers and subordinates, causing low levels of engagement, trust and productivity and high levels of burnout and stress. Just google “my boss is” to see what most people think of their managers (and maybe, just maybe, you'll feel a bit better about your manager). You'll see words like “crazy,” “abusive,” “unbearable,” “toxic,” and other words that are too rude to repeat.
So, the main question we should be asking is not why there aren't any more women leaders, but why do so many incompetent men become leaders?
My research suggests there are three main reasons, and the first is our inability to distinguish between confidence and competence. Across cultures and countries, we tend to assume that confident people have more potential for leadership, but in any area of talent, including leadership, there is very little overlap between confidence (how good people think they are at something) and competence (how good they actually are at something).
The second reason is our love of charismatic individuals, particularly since the explosion of mass media in the 1960s. But this has been turbocharged by the recent digital age. We appear to want leaders who are charming and entertaining, but as most of us know, there is a big difference between an effective leader and being a stand-up comedian. In fact, the best leaders are humble rather than charismatic, to the point of being boring.
That's why they're rarely featured in blockbuster movies. For example, imagine a movie on Angela Merkel — she wakes up, has breakfast with her husband, goes to meetings well-prepared, lets other people talk without interrupting them, makes rational decisions, and there are no scandals about her. In contrast, there is a surplus of captivating biopics on charismatic leaders with a fascinating dark side, who end up ruining countries and organizations.
The third and final reason for the rise of incompetent men is our inability to resist the allure of narcissistic individuals — people with grandiose visions that tap into our own narcissism. We've always admired famous people, but our admiration for people who admire themselves or are famous for just being famous has been rising for decades. At this rate, future generations will look back at Kim and Kanye and say, “Whoa! Weren't they modest?”
Much of the popular advice that focuses on helping people become leaders nurtures and promotes a narcissistic mindset: “Love yourself, no matter what”, “Don't worry about what people think of you” or “If you think you're great, you are.” Unfortunately, this creates a surplus of leaders who are unaware of their limitations and unjustifiably pleased with themselves. They see leadership as an entitlement and they lack empathy and self-control, so they end up acting without integrity and indulging in reckless risks. In contrast, the best leaders keep their narcissism in check. They care a lot about other people, including what they think of them, and they spend a great deal of time worrying about their reputation, which is why there are very few scandals about them.
So, how do we stop incompetent men from becoming leaders?
The first solution is to follow the signs and look for the qualities that actually make people better leaders. There is a pathological mismatch between the attributes that seduce us in a leader and those that are needed to be an effective leader. If we want to improve the performance of our leaders, we should focus on the right traits. Instead of falling for people who are confident, narcissistic and charismatic, we should promote people because of competence, humility and integrity. Incidentally, this would also lead to a higher proportion of female than male leaders — large-scale scientific studies show that women score higher than men on measures of competence, humility and integrity. But the point is that we would significantly improve the quality of our leaders.
The second solution is to distrust our instincts. Most of us love our intuition, but most people are just not as intuitive as they think. In that sense, intuition is a bit like a sense of humor. Ninety percent of people think they have a fantastic sense of humor. Yet how many people are actually funny? A much lower percentage. One implication is to focus less on the impressions people make during job or media interviews, which are just an invitation to project our own biases and prejudices. Even when we have good intentions, it is not easy to overcome this. For example, unconscious bias training will rarely help you ignore that the person in front of you is white, female or attractive. In fact, the more you try to suppress certain thoughts from your mind, the more prominent and present they become.
If we want to improve the quality of our leaders and help more women get to leadership positions, the last thing we should do is lower our standards when we select women. This means we shouldn't ask women to behave more like incompetent men — for example, asking them to lean in when they don't have the talent to back it up or to spend more time on self-promotion or advancing their own personal interests. It also means not ruling out men because they lack the traditional masculine features that match our flawed archetypes of leadership.
To the extent that we can do these things, we will end up with better leaders. However, progress starts with each and every one of us. If we want to improve the competence level of our leaders, we should first improve our own competence for judging and selecting leaders, especially when they are men.
This piece was adapted from a TEDxUniversityofNevada Talk.
机器译文：
组织心理学家thomas Chamorro-Premuzic说:“如果我们想要提高领导者的能力水平，我们就需要提高自己判断和选择他们的能力，特别是当他们是男性时。”
你曾经和那些并不像他们想象的那么好的人一起工作过吗?
这一发现对我们大多数人来说不会感到惊讶，但从统计上看，这些人更有可能是男性而不是女性。这是对的——男人通常比女人更容易被自己的才能欺骗。他们也更有可能在事业上取得成功。这是因为欺骗别人的最好方法之一就是先欺骗自己。
我是一名组织心理学家，我利用科学和技术来预测和理解人类在工作中的行为。其中一个吸引我的领域是性别，人格和领导之间的关系，更具体地说，性别和人格如何塑造我们对领导者的选择，以及这些领导者如何影响组织。关于性别的讨论往往集中于女性在领导层中的代表性不足，可悲的是，这或多或少是普遍现象。
但更大的问题是，大多数领导人都不称职。事实上，无论是在商业还是政治领域，不称职的领导者会对他们的追随者和下属产生负面影响，导致他们的参与度、信任度和工作效率低下，以及高度的倦怠和压力。听听“我的老板是谁”，看看大多数人是如何看待他们的经理的(也许，只是也许，你会对你的经理感觉好一点)。你会看到像“疯狂的”、“虐待的”、“无法忍受的”、“有毒的”等词，以及其他粗鲁到不能重复的词。
所以，我们应该问的主要问题不是为什么没有更多的女性领导者，而是为什么这么多不称职的男性成为领导者?
我的研究表明，主要原因有三个，第一个是我们无法区分自信和能力。在不同的文化和国家，我们倾向于认为自信的人更有潜力成为领导者，但在任何领域，包括领导力，自信(人们认为自己在某件事上有多好)和能力(他们实际上在某件事上有多好)之间很少有重叠。
第二个原因是我们喜欢有魅力的人，特别是自20世纪60年代大众媒体爆发以来。但最近的数字时代，这一趋势得到了加速。我们似乎想要有魅力和娱乐性的领导者，但正如我们大多数人所知，一个有效的领导者和一个单口相声演员之间有很大的区别。事实上，最好的领导者是谦卑的，而不是有魅力的，以至于令人厌烦。
这就是为什么他们很少出现在大片中。例如，想象一部关于安格拉·默克尔的电影——她醒来，和丈夫一起吃早餐，准备充分地参加会议，让其他人交谈而不打断他们，做出理性的决定，而且没有关于她的丑闻。相比之下，有很多引人入胜的传记电影，讲述的是魅力超凡的领导人有着迷人的阴暗面，他们最终毁了国家和组织。
第三个也是最后一个原因是，我们无法抵抗自恋者的诱惑。自恋者是那些有着宏大愿景的人，他们利用了我们的自恋。我们总是崇拜名人，但我们对那些自视甚高或仅仅因为出名而出名的人的崇拜已经持续了几十年。以这样的速度，未来几代人在回顾Kim和Kanye时，会说:“哇!他们没有适度的?”
很多关于如何帮助人们成为领导者的流行建议都在培养和促进一种自恋的心态:“无论如何，爱你自己”，“不要担心别人对你的看法”或“如果你认为自己很棒，你就很棒。”不幸的是，这造成了过多的领导者，他们没有意识到自己的局限性，毫无理由地自得其乐。他们将领导视为一种权利，缺乏同理心和自制力，因此他们最终行事不诚实，沉溺于不计后果的风险中。相反，最好的领导者会克制自己的自恋。他们非常关心别人，包括他们对别人的看法，他们花大量的时间担心自己的声誉，这就是为什么很少有关于他们的丑闻。
那么，我们如何阻止不称职的男性成为领导者呢?
第一个解决办法是跟随这些迹象，寻找那些实际上能使人们成为更好领导者的品质。在引诱我们成为一名领导者的特质和成为一名有效领导者所需要的特质之间存在着病态的不匹配。如果我们想要提高领导者的表现，我们应该关注正确的特质。我们不应该爱上自信、自恋和有魅力的人，而应该提拔有能力、谦逊和正直的人。顺便说一句，这也将导致女性领导者的比例高于男性——大规模的科学研究表明，女性在能力、谦逊和正直方面的得分高于男性。但重点是，我们将显著提高我们领导人的素质。
第二种方法是不信任我们的直觉。我们大多数人都喜欢我们的直觉，但大多数人只是不像他们想象的那样有直觉。从这个意义上说，直觉有点像幽默感。百分之九十的人认为他们很有幽默感。但又有多少人是真正有趣的呢?一个低得多的百分比。其中一个暗示是，不要太关注人们在工作或媒体采访中给人留下的印象，这只会让我们暴露出自己的偏见和偏见。即使我们有良好的意图，也很难克服这一点。例如，无意识的偏见训练很难帮助你忽视你面前的人是白人、女性或有吸引力的人。事实上，你越是试图抑制某些想法，它们就会变得越突出、越突出。
如果我们想要提高我们的领导者的素质，帮助更多的女性进入领导岗位，我们最不应该做的就是在选择女性时降低我们的标准。这意味着我们不应该要求女性表现得更像不称职的男性——例如，当她们没有能力支持自己的时候，要求她们向前一步，或者花更多的时间在自我推广或推进自己的个人利益上。这也意味着，不要因为男性缺乏传统的男性特征而将他们排除在外，而这些特征与我们有缺陷的领导模式相匹配。
只要我们能做到这些，我们就会有更好的领导者。然而，进步始于我们每一个人。如果我们想要提高我们的领导者的能力水平，首先要提高我们自己判断和选择领导者的能力，特别是当他们是男性的时候。