Ever get the feeling you're not being recognized for your talents? Do you have a boss that seems to only see you the moment you're not working, say taking a breather, and admonishes you for it, even though 99.9% of the time you're working like a slave? Have you ever got the creeping suspicion that people in positions of power--Congress, homeowners associations, publishers, studio execs, your store manager--don't have much of a clue about what they're doing?
Chances are, you're on to something. Maybe we all are, and we're finally waking up. It can't just be mass hysteria that almost everyone dislikes their boss, can it? Turns out, there are studies to prove it, too.
I know people will call you lazy for wanting your boss to lay off (even though relaxed work environments have proven to be more productive and have greater employee retention, which leads to have more experienced workers). They'll say you just want an easy ride in life. But there's a saying (that I just made up): "If one person calls you a dog, ignore them. If two people call you a dog, begin to wonder. If three or more people call you a dog, it's time to start licking your balls and chasing cars, because you're a dog."
In other words, if enough people call you selfish or a jerk...guess what? It can't be all them. I mean, when it comes to the cliche of bosses riding you, can it really just be all the employees' minds?
To explain this Theory of Twits in Charge, we're first going to have to look at a few interesting facets of psychology. One I've already discussed in an article I did on something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you haven't heard of it, it's a study in cognitive bias, and the long and short of it is this: incompetent people tend to believe they're competent, and competent people tend to believe they're incompetent. The reason for this, as you've probably guessed, is pretty simple. If you're smart, you know that you don't know everything, so you're always seeking new information, forever getting smarter because you're also believing you're not smart enough. If, however, you believe you are 100% competent all of the time, well, you tend not to do much learning in life. Why would you?
By the way, it should come as no surprise that those people who think they are competent tend to exude confidence, and people who think they're dumb (but are really smart) tend to be humble, meek, and not so certain when it comes to voicing their opinion, because they understand there are many variables to any situation and they would rather think things through more thoroughly.
This brings us to another factoid. Studies have shown that, when it comes to listening to someone or selecting a leader, people respond to about 65% how a person looks, 25% how a person sounds, and only about 10% of what a person actually says. Does anybody think it's a coincidence that the taller of two candidates almost always wins the presidential campaign? How about in 1960, the debate between Kennedy and Nixon? Nixon was apparently sweating heavily. Those who were watching TV therefore thought Kennedy won, but those listening to the radio had a tendency to believe Nixon won because of the authority in his voice. It just goes to show that few people were actually listening to these candidates' words. Rather, they responded to how they looked or sounded.
What does all this have to do with your boss jumping down your throat, and how does it relate to what's going on in Congress and many other mismanaged systems? Simple. We have study after study showing us that, quite often (and perhaps more often than not), the people who made the decisions in your life, the ones who holler at you and look at you disdainfully for being ten minutes late, even though you've been on time for a year straight, are not the elite leaders we've been led to believe.
I'm not saying that Kennedy was dumb as a bag of bricks, or that Steve Jobs was an overrated idiot who blundered into his job, or even that our last few presidents have had below average IQs. That would be wrong to say, I think. What I am saying is that people have a tendency to allow people into positions of power without studying their ideas or history. Many times, they don't even seem to care about serious criminal deeds done, sometimes those deeds are even done while in office, and yet they are STILL re-elected. Why? Because they look good and sound good.
This can lead to serious drawbacks for workers, artists, and really anybody of great moral fortitude trying to stay moral while also trying to rise up the in world.
To give you an idea of the kind of stuff the Gatekeepers are holding back, check this out: J.K. Rowling is the brilliant writer of the Harry Potter series, and while no one now doubts her powers as a storyteller, the idea was shot down by countless publishers for years, even called crap and laughed at by one or two. "This will never sell," she was told again and again, by people who held lofty positions of power in the publishing industry. Why am I telling you this? Because if this woman (who is now a billionaire and has fans across the planet speaking many different languages) can get turned down by those Gatekeepers of the publishing world, can you REALLY trust them when they tell you your story is crap and will never sell? Or how about your ideas at that last corporate meeting? You know, the great ideas that were continually shot down, and maybe even "borrowed" by another higher-up a year later, repackaged, and sold as his idea?
Yes, unfortunately, research also shows that your workplace probably has at least one psychopath who is in a powerful position and cares not at all for stealing your ideas, while at the same time berating you and keeping you down (that's a whole different article).
In short, what do these Masters and Bosses and Gatekeepers know that you don't? The answer may be, "Not much."
There is one more element I've yet to discuss when it comes to detecting leadership qualities in people, and it gives us yet another barrier in the workplace. The military calls it the "bias for action." This just means that when things are falling apart, you don't freeze. You aren't afraid to bark out orders. In fact, you have a bias towards it. It's what you believe God put you here to do, order other lessers around.
Now, there is a time and a place for this way of thinking, and I'm not saying that more is not lost by inaction--oft times, it is--but what I am saying is that those decisions and those kinds of leaders belong more in a life-or-death situation, where there is zero time to decide, and someone's got to make a call right now.
Let me give you another scenario to demonstrate just why this "bias for action" attribute isn't always what it's cracked up to be:
Let's say you're working at Jeb's Home Improvement Emporium, and you're a person assigned to the lot. This means you're outside a lot, out in the elements, out in the blazing sun and sweating up a storm. You're pulling in all the shopping carts and helping customers load heavy items into the backs of their vehicles. You have to dash around to load hay and pine straw for various customers, all while trying to keep the parking lot clean of carts. It's a physically demanding job, and you've been at it all day. You pause for a moment to get a drink of water when a cashier walks up and cracks a joke about the football game last night. You pause for twenty seconds to drink your water and exchange banter. Just then, your Boss comes out and sees you "wasting time" so he chastises you. Now, you've noticed that your Boss has been walking around you all day and hasn't said a word of praise for all the hard work you're doing, but the second he sees you not moving, he supposes you've been doing nothing all day. You're a slacker. You're riding the clock. He may even threaten to write you up.
In the scenario above, what you have to remember is that you're NORMAL. It's your Boss who's behaving irrationally, but remember, he has the bias for action. When he saw you working hard, he didn't feel the need to say anything because that's what you're supposed to be doing. But the second he sees anything out of place, anything at all, be it two employees talking for twenty seconds out of an 8-hour shift or a customer complaining at the returns desk, he HAS to act. It is in his nature. He thinks he's got to handle this right now, and there can be no waiting. He's a superhero (Da-da-da-daaaaaaa!) and only he can take care of this.
Remember, having a bias for action in no way indicates a person is qualified for a job. They may possess a certain facility in their brain that allows them memorize certain jargon, such as, say, a publisher who keeps track of sales and trends, and knows exactly what genres are safe to publish in right now and which are not, but that in no way means that you're wrong and he's right when it comes to your book.
This article is about the Gatekeepers of the world, and why they so often are proven wrong. Joel Schumacher and the studio execs at Warner Bros. thought we wanted to see nipples on a Batman suit in Batman & Robin, and he thought having Arnold Schwarzenegger as a pun-tossing Mr. Freeze would delight everyone. It resulted in the worst superhero film ever made and possibly one of the All-Time Worst Films Ever. If they had asked even one fan--any Batman fan anywhere on earth--they would have gotten the same answer: "NO! WE DON'T WANT THAT! NO, DON'T DO IT!" But they didn't do that. They acted on what I call "corporate math" and somehow it all added it up to a can't-miss...until they were proven wrong.
This last example indicates that both the artists and the Gatekeepers were wrong. So I'll wrap up with this article warning: Just as it's easy for a Gatekeeper to think they know everything, beware that you don't also suffer from the poor end of the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you're an artist, you require criticism. Same as if you are a martial artist, a firefighter, an IT specialist, or a bank manager. Criticism is the heat against which your steel is tempered.
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Check out my website: www.chadhuskins.com
Check out my Psycho series on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Save-Series-Book-ebook/dp/B009DL5WEQ
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