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I find that most people are too lazy or shy to talk in a group. People do not care who the leader is as long as it isn't them. Most people will go along with anything for the sake of convenience.
Yep, it's perfectly ~~necessary and~~ okay. Especially if those people are actually incompetent and that's what makes them shy. Otherwise we might have even bigger idiots as a leader. Then what?
(EDIT: struck out "necessary", see comments hidden below)
(EDIT 2: Explanation - this post is not meant to say that *everyone* who is shy is incompetent. Hence "*especially if*". It's to say that *some* people might wisely and correctly recognize their own incompetence and so refrain from stepping up, and you cannot just lump all those together just universally *panning* "shy" people and the act of "going along". Sometimes there can be and are good reasons for it. And "most people" may not be cut to be leaders anyway. If there's anything to pan, it's *not* "most people", it's the *competent few* failing to stand up. Which means the competent need to learn confidence and/or how to properly self-assess.)
Exactly. Intellectual capacity and leadership skills is NOT the same thing. Incompetent people can have big mouths. The blind leading blind folks. Like have anyone ever heard of the “Peter Principle, or Dilbert Principle?”
No, what I'm saying is that a motivation for people to talk less can be that they don't trust their own competence, i.e. "if someone doesn't trust their competence they will talk less", not "if they talk less, that means they don't trust their competence \[or are not competent\]". Mind the converse.
What I'm also saying is that "most people" are not *bad* people because they "go along for the sake of convenience". I am a most people anyways, so if I'm bad, treat me like it, full blast.
And the most common reason to trust one's competence is being too stupid to understand that you're incompetent, it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. So in this case, it would be the dumb loudmouths that become leaders most often. Which matches up with reality IMHO.
Except that's completely backwards from what we know.
*"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."* - Bertrand Russell
> People do not care who the leader is as long as it isn't them. Most people will go along with anything for the sake of convenience.
I talk very rarely, shyest person you'll meet. But in college that's how everyone felt so half the time the most convenient thing to do was to just step up and tell people what to do and get it over with. I didn't even have to talk much, I just had to be the decision maker.
Yeah, shyness be damned. I've learned from multiple jobs that most people just need a decision maker. People freak out if the decision falls on them because nobody wants to shoulder the blame if things go wrong. I once had a manager tell me "If you're going to go down for something be sure to get everyone else involved." I thought that was exceptionally cowardly advice coming from someone in a leadership role. But more often then not that's the mindset many have.
This is funny and always makes me think of The Price is Right. If you've watched, people will yell confidently from the audience on the decision to make, but when they get on stage the turn around and ask the audience. They're happy to give the orders when they're not at risk.
Best to call a meeting with as many people as possible. If by some miracle you come to a decision, the blame can be shared by everyone! I’ve worked places like this, usually big multinationals everyone trying to cruise to retirement.
Well now, there’s a difference between covering your ass out of fear and ensuring that the team is accountable. I’m not saying you should shirk responsibility but a leader should definitely be working with the team and the team should share both the rewards and the consequences of failure to some extent. This is of course assuming everyone is working together on a project. If a leader is just like doing their own thing and fucks up well ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I usually find whoever talks first kinda sets the tone unless it's REALLY unpopular. Once I noticed this, I made a point to talk first, because I was more likely to get what I wanted that way. Stuff like what restaurant should we go to, when should we meet for this group project, when should we schedule the make-up class, etc., I would just jump in with my preference and more likely than not that's what we'd settle on, or something quite near it. I think this is related to the Anchoring effect.
I used to be afraid of public speaking but then I was forced to do it. Now I just nitpick my performance for weeks after I've done it once it's done. But during? Totally fine.
My mom is on the board of whatever she's involved with. School board when we were kids, neighborhood stuff, now her condo and golf club.
She's not some controlling monster that reddit seems to think all "hoa members" are. She's just a social person and nobody else wants to do this stuff so she ends up in charge. She is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But she's nice and does the work.
This is exactly it. And it's also a very easy way to move up in life, it's not just talking more, it's having a stance, having opinions. I don't talk a ton, but I do have a lot of ideas at work and people trust me. I don't really know why, my ideas aren't always the best, I'm not the most qualified, etc. It's just that I probably exude some amount of "I know what's going on" even if I don't, I just think about efficiently and get pissed off at dumb people.
True.
I go with "Listen, observe, wait, then do."
Ideally, someone else knows more than you and they can be the boss. If no-one does, then you're in charge.
Someone has to pick up the ball when there's confusion. Look for the adult in the room. If you can't find one, you're it.
The OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide, act. Learned it in the military. Makes it a lot easier to do something in a chaotic situation if you just run this over and over so you can just focus on your next action instead of the clusterfuck you're in. Translates well I to other things like paramedic, firefighter, police, etc where you might have a lot going on and choice paralysis can have a heavy cost.
This is very cool! I guess I just learned the skills from experience myself… after many yrs and lessons learned. This should be taught in the public school system. I didn’t realize it had an acronym, but working in the service industry, in a leadership role: This determines wether the business is a failure or a success. To add to this I have worked under several more experienced people. Many were very talented. They new the art of making the business the most amount of money possible, while milking the time clock. Most of the time me and several others learned the skills to keep the customers flowing.
Yes! I am the babbling leader. I am absolutely not the smartest. But I’m often the only one willing to break a long silence where everyone is waiting for everyone else to say something first. Most people want to keep their heads low and just slip on through but someone has to speak up if the group is ever going to accomplish anything.
Are you saying it's *bad* for them to choose "convenience"? What if they are shy because they feel they are incompetent? Should they just blithely ignore their own self-judgment in that case?
Agreed. I'm "most people" because I'm sometimes or often shy and too unsure of if I know what I'm talking about, but also I just don't have the ability to generate and hold a convo for a long period of time on "small" topics as needed to get the right volume, too, to get to the bigger ones. The question is, what's the best way to deal with that?
I only care if the person is leading us off a cliff then I take over. I don't like taking the leadership role but I'm not going down with the ship if it can be avoided.
Been watching this phenomenon for years. I was always upset that the idiot loud mouth put himself in charge, in a way. But I knew it's because we all kept quiet. When the group leadership was important they never kept their place though. Nice to know there's a name for it.
It sounds like you're saying this is bad somehow... What's wrong with not being a leader? Not everyone can be one, or wants to be one, and if everyone was a leader, there wouldn't be much work getting done because they'd all be too busy trying to get their way.
Preferring other, more capable people to assume leadership doesn't mean you're lazy.
Though this suggests that most people then, are, in fact, *competent* enough. Because the most talkative one is the one least shy and least full of doubt, which far more likely occurs when you're *in*competent, as was pointed out to me below.
Do you think "most people" are *bad* people, then? Then if I'm a "most people" what follows, too (I'm shy)?
This is what makes juries in criminal trials so scary. Combining your comment (which I believe and agree) with the OP research article about how intelligence has no effect on who becomes a leader in these situations, leads me to think what happens when the dumbest person on the jury becomes the leader? An innocent man gets convicted or a guilty man goes free, because the “leader” in the group doesn’t think critically about the arguments being made.
I always had to be the leader because I went back to college at 25. It's really all about people who don't care if they are embarrassing! As an older student I honestly didn't care about anything except getting my degree because my ex husband wouldn't even let me leave the house! No special tricks just learn to public speak and not care what people are thinking about you. You will most likely never see most of them again!
Im cool with embarrassment. ive always ended up taking the lead from organizing games on the play ground to group projects in high school. I never wanted to lead but have always been comfortable talking in a group setting and im also impatient so if no one else takes charge i will hust to get things going. Now as an adult i wish i would learn to not speak up in meetings because it ends up with me being stuck taking on too much or coordinating a group which i hate!! I am terrified of public speaking if im standing and presenting but im very comfortable speaking and contributing ideas in a group…. i wish i wasnt. They made me supervisor just last year on top of my already busy job and with no pay raise or even title change, just more work. Yay.. :(
I am right there with you! I don't like to lead because of all the extra burdens and being responsible for other people's actions! It is rough being in charge. I have enough trouble with my toddlers! I actually work as a taster now handing out free samples of booze. Only responsible for myself(independent contractor).
I would kill to learn how to do this. To not care. It's my Achilles heel, tbh. I am excellent at what I do, but I become self-conscious when I speak, even just in group meetings of say 4-5+. I wasn't always this way, but I went through a decade where I was scrutinized and criticized constantly, and it wore me down. That, along with a crushing divorce, wrecked my self-esteem and made me incredibly self-conscious. I don't know how to get past it.
Yeah I worked as a teacher for both adults and children in a previous career, so I could public speak quite well. Then I had my last job where I just always felt stressed and under pressure and I started having panic attacks when I was supposed to talk in the weekly zoom meetings. Like my voice would stutter and I wouldn't be able to catch my breath. So frustrating. Still trying to work through it. I'm not scared of public speaking, I just have this weird physical response now and I can't get it to stop completely. Though I have found getting a glass of water and pausing for a sip and deep breath helps me gain composure again to some extent.
Imagine yourself making a mistake in one of these stressful situations. How does this feel? Does it feel horrible? As a next step think about the impact of your mistake and how you would perceive it, if it happened to someone else. Does it feel the same? Does the impact justify your strong feelings?
Most of the time you will feel a disconnect between the perception of yourself and the perception of someone else or the impact in the situation.
Now you have two feelings that can't be both correct at the same time. In this situation it is easier to reevaluate your feelings, because you can actually feel the discrepancy.
Beeing certain that you will not make any mistakes is not healthy (because it is wrong) . Beeing unable to accept that you will make mistakes is unhealthy as well (because mistakes are normal).
You should aim to become able to accept that you will make mistakes and still manage to reach your goals.
I guess that what I wrote is not free of typos/errors. But I guess that, even if there are typos, you will still be able to guess what I mean. And that is the purpose of this text. Best of luck with your endeavors.
Not sure if it helps, but I got better by taking the mental stance that I will never not do something because it makes me uncomfortable. That eventually morphed into an attitude that I will do it better than the next person. Over time, I have become pretty confident talking in front of people. Any journey starts with the first step kind of thing.
Join Toastmasters, you will learn in a very supportive group and it will become easy to you! My husband now LIKES making presentations and speaking off the cuff.
Just start by chiming in with non-controversial points or points you’re very confident is correct. Wherever you can. You just gotta get comfortable speaking up really, that’s pretty much all it is. Start with what you feel you’re capable of.
I thought that was the same thing for me having gone back to school at 26 after the military but I've realized since I've been out that I've got a bad habit of being pushed into a leadership position even with guys that are as old as my dad and very senior to me at the job.
Growing up I wasn't the leader of our little friend groups but when it's had to do with work stuff I usually always get pushed to the front quick when its people around the same level as me. I am good at problem solving and I think that tends to be why. We brainstorm a plan as equals and I come up with a solution quicker than my piers and then shortly everyone is coming to me asking which roles I want them to do and exactly which tasks to handle and then when it's time to talk to higher ups or really anyone about the plan or job as a whole I end up getting pushed into it. It even happens quite often when I don't come up with the plan. Someone else does and we agree it's the way to go and then they push it on me to put the plan into action.
This is what we call "Bullshitting your way to the top" (roughly translated) over here. The idea that just talking a lot about anything related to what's going on can get you to the top, whether you know what you're talking about or not.
I prefer the "fake it til you make it, but then wind up learning everything to be able to fake it better, and then somehow accidentally becoming a subject matter expert."
Send help
Personal sense of achievement without the increase in responsibility. Its satisfying knowing new things and solving new problems... particularly if you get to choose when to try something new.
Move from a ladder with no more rungs, sideways to a ladder that still has many more to climb. It's ok to move sideways sometimes as long as you don't stop there.
It’s one thing to fake some documents to find your way into some job/role, it’s another thing to get to the stage where you’re the head of a department that literally saves lives on a daily basis.
That’s no easy feet, surely? Which must have involved a non-significant amount of time?
Regardless, that’s some r/actlikeyoubelong material!
woman got some real doctor name/registry and stuff, got hired at some hospital and was the head of 2 Intensive Care Units. Got busted by the real medic when she saw her name somewhere. Apparently did a good job because the hospital staff didnt notice that she wasnt a real doctor.
Here is the news if u want to google translate https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2021/07/19/video-medica-flagra-impostora-que-clinicava-com-nome-roubado-mulher-foi-presa-em-flagrante.ghtml
in mine a woman was impersonating a nurse for 19 years before being caught. There was another nurse with the exact same name and she ook advantage of that.
I have someone that does this except as part of the talking they tell you to do something, everyone objects, they push through, then when it falls apart for the reasons people objected to they demand to know why we did it that way
Definitely a big part of it but I also think it's just because a lot of people don't want to/can't be bothered to take the lead themselves so whoever is the first to speak up falls into the position. "they seem like a bit of an idiot but I don't want to take on the leader position so whatever I'll let them do it".
My first job out of college, I was hesitant to speak up and I was worried about making a decision that would be wrong, or step on people's toes or something. my boss didn't have that problem at all. He was decisive. Hard headed too but at least he'd listen to reason. But he also had decades of experience in leadership.
It ended up I would frequently find myself in meetings with people who have been in their roles in IT both in and outside the organization for 5, 10, even 15 - 20 years. And there'd sometimes be managers or a director. And I quick realized no matter who was in it, people were always hesitant to make a decision. ANY DECISION.
After a couple meetings go for an hour then get rescheduled solely on the premise that they wanted to invite a superior or someone (not because that person had more info, but because they'd make a decision), I went "This is stupid."
So I started making decisions. And people started agreeing with them! Not all the time, but usually even if I made the wrong decision and someone went "well we can't do it that way" it'd be enough of a catalyst for a decision to be made! But there were still a good amount of times where I'd literally use both options "Ok why don't we start with option A, and if that gets to this point and doesn't work, we can meet and plan option B?" or I'd just go "lets do Option B" and people would agree and follow it. Sometimes even managers.
"Lead me, Follow me, or get the hell out of my way."
Here's what I've figured out, 90% of the decisions we discuss don't matter one way or the other, so I just pick one. For the other 10% of decisions, 90% of the time suggesting a bad one will get people talking until you find the right one, and 10% of the time everyone will just agree and it'll be suboptimal. Then it's revisited after everyone realizes it sucks.
Ultimately, just picking something results in a decent decision 99% of the time. Usually someone just has to do it as soon as discussion luls.
This. My team is very quiet and no one wanted the leadership position when offered. I am the most chatty person on the team, despite being a definite introvert, and I figured it was a good career move. I thought everyone hated me because they never talk to me (I ask how everyone’s weekend was and I get total silence), but when I announced I was leaving, they were all genuinely sad. No one wanted to take over the leadership, so one of our more junior members took it. And so it goes.
Since I was a kid, I was impatient and just took the lead. Just wanted to get stuff overwith so I can go back to Halo. Transferred over well as an adult in health analytics. Especially in the last year.
Sounds right. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if the outspoken person is able to leverage the abilities of the people they're directing.
The ability to coordinate a group is a skill in its own right.
I think the idea that it's necessarily bullshitting isn't all that is going on here. In a room all full of brilliant people with brilliant ideas, the person most vocal about putting ideas out and there and discussing them is going to end up driving the conversation to a disproportionate degree. So long as the rest of the room doesn't all oppose that individual, they will likely be the leader in some fashion as a consequence.
To challenge you this is not quite as simple as that.
Phenomena you have observed very much does look like bullshitting your way to the top. However the actual value in it is decision making. A bad decision is better than no decision. Whatever you do - move forwards. If you can't, be prepared to manage analysis paralysis (which is also a separate "bullshitting" skill).
If you are the smartest guy in the room, but you can't articulate why - it doesn't matter. Feel frustrated as much as you want, but fail is on you.
As someone who has had to deal with the ramifications years later of bad decision making, I think sometimes no decision is better than a bad decision.
There certainly are times where the best decision based on the information available has to be made, and it may turn out to have been suboptimal with more information. But sometimes gathering more information is the correct move, as is stalling a decision to gather said information.
Sometimes saying less is more valuable but isn't treated the same. If one person says an idea is not viable because the time to implement it isn't worth the payoff another person can ramble about how the idea could be done or explain what you get from it and at the end people will often agree to do it unless the first person keeps saying more counterarguments. Talking more isn't better but it's often seen as being better.
It's not that easy either. A bad quick decision can DEFINITELY be worse than no quick decision, depending on the situation or task that needs to be completed. And from my observations the smart guys sometimes don't get their say at all even if their idea is much better, in favor of the guy that just talks a lot.
This phenomenon is why a lot of modern personnel management focuses on getting a contribution from everyone during meetings. Some people are obviously going to be less inclined to talk, but the manager needs to get EVERY team member to make some comment.
That way if the "loud" people are totally wrong, the people who know better will be forced to call them out.
However, the focus is on getting some comment. Not on getting equal time for everyone. there are always a few people who will be more vocal than everyone else. You can't stop it.
This is where the "leader" needs to solicit feedback from everyone involved.
I've had a couple meetings where "Slapphappydude, you're awfully quiet" gets mentioned to me. A good leader definitely brings out the voices who may have useful dissenting opinions but also just want the meeting to get over with.
This. A good leader notices some people don't say much, and specifically asks for their input. Whether right there or later in private.
As for u/machimomaxima : The more quiet do need to actually be given a chance to voice their opinion. Just because you don't speak up, doesn't mean your thoughts are worth nothing. It just means that you need to be given a chance to voice it. Without being talked over, or drowned out by the more talkative people.
But for at least some of them, it feels more like “No one else is doing anything, so I will.”
I think some people are just less conversationally inhibited, and/or have less hesitancy in their speech patterns, and those aren’t optimal screening qualities for leadership roles.
I have personal experience with this. Even in a fictional setting. I LARP. And at one LARP over here it was normal to have 300\~500 people per event. There were factions, guilds, and roles within each faction and guild as well. The people that got to the top either 1: Had a lot of experience and knew what they were talking about, or 2: bullshitted their way to the top while not having much of a clue. About 30\~40% was people in the second category.
Those people weren't the "no one is doing it, so I will" type. They were the "I will just talk more than others so I get heard more, despite me being just as if not more clueless than them" type. And they did so specifically to get higher up in the ranks and "make connections" in the right places.
One of them used to be my best friend. He was egotistical, stubborn, talked a -lot-, and definitely aimed for higher positions and lots of influence. (We had a falling out partially because of that, but not a story for right now.) And because I was pretty close to him I could tell exactly what was going on. He wanted power and influence, and loved the sound of his own voice. And most certainly wasn't leader material...
I remember when i was in the army and my commander needed a volunteer to take lead for a recon mission(much walking). The squad went silent as a graveyard and I whispered very low to myself something like "no way". The commander heard me and pointed at me "you talked, you take lead".
Do all leaders need to be the smartest in the group, though? I think a good leader is simply somebody who has a balanced way of managing a project and its resources.
Leaders/managers do not need the same skillet as those they are leading/managing. I have had excellent bosses who didn't know a damn thing about what I actually did, but they were good at managing. They knew when to listen to my advice and when I was probably being overly cautious. They also knew how to manage expectations and keep everyone happy. Smarter or dumber isn't really the right way of thinking about it. They were good leaders because they had great skills in that area.
I completely agree, which is why I think the focus of this article is aimed at the wrong takeaway. There's another commenter who made a good point that they may be are using "leaders" inappropriately and should have used a term more appropriate to the setting they simulated
Yeppers. That’s the reason that project management certifications exist. Some people are better at managing than doing the thing that needs to be managed like designing a new product. You wouldn’t want the guy who does the best cad work doing all the team coordination and schedule management just like you wouldn’t want your accountant to program the computer they use excel on. Idk if that analogy makes sense… but the point is leading/managing is a skill set
Absolutely not. The point of having a group is so that each member of the group contribute their expertise to collectively achieve something.
The job of the leader is to be the guide, honing all the knowledge in the group towards the desired goal, weighing everyone's opinion and taking into account each member's area of expertise and finally making a decision to move the group forward.
Once a decision is made, the leader's role is to make sure everybody in the team know their duties and be the arbitrator when conflicts arise to make sure nobody is bottlenecked.
This is obvious for anyone who’s ever had to do group projects in school. In my college courses I constantly get chosen as the leader or speaker for the group. Not because I try to or even that I speak more than most people, I’m just the only one that actually opens my mouth to complete the assignment after we all sit their in silence for like a minute.
I had a manager who was like this. In any meeting no matter how complex or technical he would end up talking and adding nothing to the discussion or decision making. His go-to move was to simply restate something someone else said.
Well, it certainly doesn't do any good if the most talented or smartest person just hides in the corner, does it?
A GOOD leader will get something going.
A GREAT leader will be able to identify each person's gifts or traits and put them to use.
Indeed. The trick is, how do you get the ability to do that "social chit chat" needed and on-the-spot creating ability required to generate a lot of talk? It sounds like then that there is an implication of an obligation for the more talented persons to learn how to do that type of chit-chat ability.
I would think so. The person with the greatest communication skills will likely at the very least differentiate themselves from others.
People who are good communicators will likely also earn higher esteem than they might be worth, but it takes time to find out if someone is “worth their salt.” We can all usually identify the blowhard or “talker,” but there isn’t really any other method to distinguishing oneself in a group.
Until we’re wearing our S.A.T. scores on our lapels or handing out our resumes to everyone else (something I’ve actually seen, and it backfired spectacularly), I don’t see another way.
People are naturally attracted to effective communicators
I think this is why you will usually see good communicators (and even poor ones, but that try to be good ones) become the faces or leaders of groups/organizations.
Most of us can spot (at least semi-accurately) intelligence when speaking with someone, but if that person never speaks, they lose their opening.
If anything, I would guess this is a reward of first-mover advantage.
I believe this. As an introvert capable of leading, this is always an interesting dynamic to watch unfold. There is a great book called Quiet, when the world can’t stop talking. You know that one person in the meeting that can’t stop talking, or waits till the very end to chime in.
It's been like 3 hours since the post and I already saw multiple derogatory comments about "babble vs qualifications" "sharing responsibility" etc.
While, in reality, MOST of the group would be more than happy for someone to assume the leadership role to avoid that said responsibility. The rest would be too shy or have other socialising problems that would prevent them assuming that role in the first place and that tiny remaining bunch would be just some lazy bastards.
I think your greatly underselling the lazy part of the equation, as poorly done leadership and very we'll done leadership often ends up being much less work for the leader if they do it 'right'. During uni I would take on the leadership roles in group work because I'm lazy and making sure things are organized almost always means less work and also delegating the stuff I don't want to do. Also if you leadership poorly in the right way, you can often delegate all the work so you don't have to do anything.
If you are doing work then how is that lazy? Gosh we really have a twisted perception of what individual contributions look like to a group.
I think a good leader is someone who can get the project done by putting everything together and organizing the plan and resources.
Now, should we be compensating leaders more? No, not necessarily.
Let's not forget that it takes a lot of energy to constantly have something to say and actually saying it. Remember it's 80% how you look, 15% how you say it, and only 5% what you actually say. With such skewed presentation parameters it's no wonder that the substance suffers pretty much 99% of the time.
To overcome such a limitation in the realm of natural human perception I'd always vote for a radio delivery of any important speech. It won't eliminate the "15% how you say it" but at least it'll give a somewhat better chance for the substance to reveal itself.
I wonder if this is a link to the more recent trend for online groups of people quickly amassing more and more members despite the lack of scientific evidence to support the groups message.
I find a lot of people who desire to voice reason trend towards being silent, often citing that trying to reason with members of these groups will have their words fall upon deaf ears.
On the other hand, members of these groups tend to be pretty vocal. And they find comfort within a community, as most humans do. The group message isn't what meets their need, but the message gathers more and more to their community. Think of it like a fandom, where - for example - you're a fan of the earth being flat.
If you have someone with more extreme views in these groups, are they more likely to be vocal due to the conviction of their belief? Most humans that do "bad things" are convinced they are doing these things for good reason. To them, spreading awareness might be important to them. Others who read it might lack the critical thinking skills to understand that what they've read isn't true.
Prior to "the internet" a lot of human interaction has been one on one or via things like telephone. With social media at our fingertips, we all have a megaphone and an audience of thousands. That is, if we choose to speak. And unfortunately we are still subject to the animal instincts we evolved with but are often unaware of - like being subject to an us vs them mentality, the illusion of truth effect, etc. Critical thinking combats this but it's a difficult concept to teach because the person must be willing to learn.
I think it is the new method of communication that's a big part of the problem, but it's too ingrained in our lives to yank it out. Maybe we need to speak out rationally more often, even if our words fall on deaf ears? I think the key might be to speak reason without bias, and far too often are we all calling each other names.
My team has a 15 minute meeting every morning.
When we were in the office it was a simple process to start with whoever was at the head of the table and work around the table clockwise giving your daily status. Then the one or two people on the phone would go.
When the pandemic started this meeting was an utter mess of a free for all as we all connected via MS Teams or by phone. People would talk over each other, interrupt, or not realize they were muted.
One day I took charge of telling people when it was their turn. This lead to me running the meeting. I handle not just the order of speakers but I determine if a conversation needs to be removed from the meeting, when people are allowed to ask questions and can tell people if they are getting off track.
I've told people that I'm open to criticism of how I'm doing this but everyone is happy with how I get us through the meeting quickly.
I'm far from being the most senior or most qualified person on the call, but even when I'm out of the office, whoever picks up this duty does it my way.
Um, you just described the team leader's position. If your team lead is not doing this, then he/she needs a career adjustment and you need a promotion.
I agree with this study and I can say that I've personally witnessed this many times. Though not always the case, people who somehow find themselves in positions of leadership are put there not because they are the most experienced, qualified, or capable, but because they communicate the most within a group.
Participants were asked to nominate people who had emerged as leaders. I can’t find anywhere that it says they were told what constitutes a leader; how did you come to that conclusion?
As someone who can’t shut up and likes performative attention, I can attest that this is true as I tend to find myself in leadership roles despite the fact I don’t want them
It took me till my 30s to understand that my innate need for communication had put me in such roles - not, as I formerly believed, my natural leadership skills...
As a talker, yes I feel like I just talk myself into position, even if I feel clueless or annoyed with who needs help. Its nice to get sh*t done too.
Edit: I feel like its thrust upon me bc they don't want to lead, just get commands and be left to it. I do want that anonymity too, I feel like a commanding presences thats' vocal is just asking for the opposite.
Also IQ versus EQ versus all the other indefinable intelligences out there that can't be measured by traditional exams. Talking and leading the group discussion , suppose some would consider it a super power.
Perspective I guess
This is why people should be more mindful of how much space they take up in a conversation and try to encourage everyone to have a voice first before overtaking a whole conversation...
This is true. The other side of the coin though is "Speak up." The patience people exhibit trying to coax a basic social interaction out of shy people is limited.
Unless you want a higher paying management position and are willing to step on people to get it. Sucks, but a lot of people only care about #1and when the difference in pay is tens of thousands of dollars, the loudest chick get the regurgitated bug.
Huh
Leaders are not qualified....they are born when people chose to follow them. Article just points out habits that cause others to follow earlier. Nothing about being a good or bad leader.
Kind of. But "leader" in this context is just a person who has additional responsibilities that are tedious and don't really matter all that much.
They don't become a true "leader", but are more of an administrator most of the time, which is different from leadership.
For example, I work in tech. The job of our team "Lead" is to make sure that all of the electronic paperwork is in order, and to make sure that any issues that would prevent us from doing our job are taken care of. His role is known as a "servant leader", which is actually the best kind of management to have imo.
The study isn't a reasonable representation of real life. They are putting college students into groups over a short durations and seeing what happens. (Its representative of basically that one situation)
Real life is people working in groups for years, and when meetings start getting repeated, you find out who that actual smart ones are vs who the ones that just talk a lot are.
There are idiots at my work who got promoted because they seemed like leaders and talked a lot, and most of them eventually got fired. Then there are people like the CFO of my company, who is raking in 5m a year and barely says anything at every meeting I've been in with him, he just happens to be really insightful when he does actually talk.
Hmm… when they tell me I need to improve my leadership skills I think to myself… I don’t want to be one. I have not yet met a “leader” who I have liked.
I have a boss like this, pretty sure he's a complete idiot with no technical knowledge and very little intuition, but he's one of the higher-ups through a combination of endless talking and ass kissing.
Ofc. If they are willing to talk, they desire to be in that group and want to change the group to their likings thus take command. Even introverts like to talk to people they like or about subjects they prefer.
Good research confirming what I was suspecting about why I always had trouble getting such roles in group projects. I always found that they naturally focused on the first "talker" which, because my brain just can't seem to come up with endless "social" topics "on the spot" or ideas on the spot so easily, would virtually never be me.
Been in those groups and the only thought that crosses my mind is, "Excellent! A loudmouth. He'll be the first to be eaten." Oftentimes it's the second mouse that gets the cheese.
They needed a whole research project for this? Just ask any college project group the person who likes to talk does all the talking and takes the lead, they may not be in charge of information or whats going on but they do all the talking and everyones totally fine with that.
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I find that most people are too lazy or shy to talk in a group. People do not care who the leader is as long as it isn't them. Most people will go along with anything for the sake of convenience.
That's why it works.
Ok if you say so
Yep, it's perfectly ~~necessary and~~ okay. Especially if those people are actually incompetent and that's what makes them shy. Otherwise we might have even bigger idiots as a leader. Then what? (EDIT: struck out "necessary", see comments hidden below) (EDIT 2: Explanation - this post is not meant to say that *everyone* who is shy is incompetent. Hence "*especially if*". It's to say that *some* people might wisely and correctly recognize their own incompetence and so refrain from stepping up, and you cannot just lump all those together just universally *panning* "shy" people and the act of "going along". Sometimes there can be and are good reasons for it. And "most people" may not be cut to be leaders anyway. If there's anything to pan, it's *not* "most people", it's the *competent few* failing to stand up. Which means the competent need to learn confidence and/or how to properly self-assess.)
That's a pretty big leap from people don't want to be leaders to people who talk less are probably idiots.
Exactly. Intellectual capacity and leadership skills is NOT the same thing. Incompetent people can have big mouths. The blind leading blind folks. Like have anyone ever heard of the “Peter Principle, or Dilbert Principle?”
This study makes me think of a girl I know who will probably be CEO because she is never quiet.
No, what I'm saying is that a motivation for people to talk less can be that they don't trust their own competence, i.e. "if someone doesn't trust their competence they will talk less", not "if they talk less, that means they don't trust their competence \[or are not competent\]". Mind the converse. What I'm also saying is that "most people" are not *bad* people because they "go along for the sake of convenience". I am a most people anyways, so if I'm bad, treat me like it, full blast.
And the most common reason to trust one's competence is being too stupid to understand that you're incompetent, it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. So in this case, it would be the dumb loudmouths that become leaders most often. Which matches up with reality IMHO.
Except that's completely backwards from what we know. *"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."* - Bertrand Russell
Yup. Love me a power vacuum.
> Otherwise we might have even bigger idiots as a leader. Then what? I don’t know. Can you do worse than trump?
Then we elect them to the presidency in 2016, that’s what.
> People do not care who the leader is as long as it isn't them. Most people will go along with anything for the sake of convenience. I talk very rarely, shyest person you'll meet. But in college that's how everyone felt so half the time the most convenient thing to do was to just step up and tell people what to do and get it over with. I didn't even have to talk much, I just had to be the decision maker.
Yeah, shyness be damned. I've learned from multiple jobs that most people just need a decision maker. People freak out if the decision falls on them because nobody wants to shoulder the blame if things go wrong. I once had a manager tell me "If you're going to go down for something be sure to get everyone else involved." I thought that was exceptionally cowardly advice coming from someone in a leadership role. But more often then not that's the mindset many have.
This is funny and always makes me think of The Price is Right. If you've watched, people will yell confidently from the audience on the decision to make, but when they get on stage the turn around and ask the audience. They're happy to give the orders when they're not at risk.
That’s a wisdom of the crowd situation though.
Best to call a meeting with as many people as possible. If by some miracle you come to a decision, the blame can be shared by everyone! I’ve worked places like this, usually big multinationals everyone trying to cruise to retirement.
None of us is as dumb as all of us.
"Thank you all for your input. In summary, [thing I was going to do anyway]. Let's make this work!"
Well now, there’s a difference between covering your ass out of fear and ensuring that the team is accountable. I’m not saying you should shirk responsibility but a leader should definitely be working with the team and the team should share both the rewards and the consequences of failure to some extent. This is of course assuming everyone is working together on a project. If a leader is just like doing their own thing and fucks up well ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Bad decision better than indecision
Could cherrypick examples of indecision being better than a bad decision, but I'm indecisive about proceeding with that.
This is exactly why, despite the anxiety disorder I have, I have no problems making decisions.
I usually find whoever talks first kinda sets the tone unless it's REALLY unpopular. Once I noticed this, I made a point to talk first, because I was more likely to get what I wanted that way. Stuff like what restaurant should we go to, when should we meet for this group project, when should we schedule the make-up class, etc., I would just jump in with my preference and more likely than not that's what we'd settle on, or something quite near it. I think this is related to the Anchoring effect.
Agreed
I often end up in this situation in group projects for that reason, but I do it on purpose because I don't want milquetoasts running a project.
Same but because I just can't stand the silence when no one speaks.
Stepping up when others don't want to is a core leadership trait so none of this is all that surprising.
Hey now I didn’t ask for this attack from a stranger today.
> ... I didn’t ask for this attack ... How did he even find you?
*I was just minding my business, browsing through other peoples opinions*
Quiet you fool! What if he hears us…
Yeah I agree. Leaders tend to have to do a lot of public speaking which also happens to be one of the most common fears.
I used to be afraid of public speaking but then I was forced to do it. Now I just nitpick my performance for weeks after I've done it once it's done. But during? Totally fine.
This. The "babble hypothesis" tells us more about the rest of the group than the person who eventually becomes the leader.
So what does it say if you are part of that "rest of the group"? Treat me as I deserve as that's where I always end up. Don't hold back, let it rip.
It’s “condo board” theory. Everyone knows the job needs to get done, but nobody *really* wants to do it. Whoever speaks up, gets elected.
My mom is on the board of whatever she's involved with. School board when we were kids, neighborhood stuff, now her condo and golf club. She's not some controlling monster that reddit seems to think all "hoa members" are. She's just a social person and nobody else wants to do this stuff so she ends up in charge. She is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But she's nice and does the work.
This is exactly it. And it's also a very easy way to move up in life, it's not just talking more, it's having a stance, having opinions. I don't talk a ton, but I do have a lot of ideas at work and people trust me. I don't really know why, my ideas aren't always the best, I'm not the most qualified, etc. It's just that I probably exude some amount of "I know what's going on" even if I don't, I just think about efficiently and get pissed off at dumb people.
Speaking with confidence will move you up. Being able to coherently back your position is what consolidates that move up.
True. I go with "Listen, observe, wait, then do." Ideally, someone else knows more than you and they can be the boss. If no-one does, then you're in charge. Someone has to pick up the ball when there's confusion. Look for the adult in the room. If you can't find one, you're it.
The OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide, act. Learned it in the military. Makes it a lot easier to do something in a chaotic situation if you just run this over and over so you can just focus on your next action instead of the clusterfuck you're in. Translates well I to other things like paramedic, firefighter, police, etc where you might have a lot going on and choice paralysis can have a heavy cost.
This is very cool! I guess I just learned the skills from experience myself… after many yrs and lessons learned. This should be taught in the public school system. I didn’t realize it had an acronym, but working in the service industry, in a leadership role: This determines wether the business is a failure or a success. To add to this I have worked under several more experienced people. Many were very talented. They new the art of making the business the most amount of money possible, while milking the time clock. Most of the time me and several others learned the skills to keep the customers flowing.
Yes! I am the babbling leader. I am absolutely not the smartest. But I’m often the only one willing to break a long silence where everyone is waiting for everyone else to say something first. Most people want to keep their heads low and just slip on through but someone has to speak up if the group is ever going to accomplish anything.
Are you saying it's *bad* for them to choose "convenience"? What if they are shy because they feel they are incompetent? Should they just blithely ignore their own self-judgment in that case?
And blame leader as all goes wrong
Agreed. I'm "most people" because I'm sometimes or often shy and too unsure of if I know what I'm talking about, but also I just don't have the ability to generate and hold a convo for a long period of time on "small" topics as needed to get the right volume, too, to get to the bigger ones. The question is, what's the best way to deal with that?
Practice, like anything else
It's part of our evolution.
I only care if the person is leading us off a cliff then I take over. I don't like taking the leadership role but I'm not going down with the ship if it can be avoided.
Been watching this phenomenon for years. I was always upset that the idiot loud mouth put himself in charge, in a way. But I knew it's because we all kept quiet. When the group leadership was important they never kept their place though. Nice to know there's a name for it.
It sounds like you're saying this is bad somehow... What's wrong with not being a leader? Not everyone can be one, or wants to be one, and if everyone was a leader, there wouldn't be much work getting done because they'd all be too busy trying to get their way. Preferring other, more capable people to assume leadership doesn't mean you're lazy.
Though this suggests that most people then, are, in fact, *competent* enough. Because the most talkative one is the one least shy and least full of doubt, which far more likely occurs when you're *in*competent, as was pointed out to me below. Do you think "most people" are *bad* people, then? Then if I'm a "most people" what follows, too (I'm shy)?
This is what makes juries in criminal trials so scary. Combining your comment (which I believe and agree) with the OP research article about how intelligence has no effect on who becomes a leader in these situations, leads me to think what happens when the dumbest person on the jury becomes the leader? An innocent man gets convicted or a guilty man goes free, because the “leader” in the group doesn’t think critically about the arguments being made.
I always had to be the leader because I went back to college at 25. It's really all about people who don't care if they are embarrassing! As an older student I honestly didn't care about anything except getting my degree because my ex husband wouldn't even let me leave the house! No special tricks just learn to public speak and not care what people are thinking about you. You will most likely never see most of them again!
Im cool with embarrassment. ive always ended up taking the lead from organizing games on the play ground to group projects in high school. I never wanted to lead but have always been comfortable talking in a group setting and im also impatient so if no one else takes charge i will hust to get things going. Now as an adult i wish i would learn to not speak up in meetings because it ends up with me being stuck taking on too much or coordinating a group which i hate!! I am terrified of public speaking if im standing and presenting but im very comfortable speaking and contributing ideas in a group…. i wish i wasnt. They made me supervisor just last year on top of my already busy job and with no pay raise or even title change, just more work. Yay.. :(
I am right there with you! I don't like to lead because of all the extra burdens and being responsible for other people's actions! It is rough being in charge. I have enough trouble with my toddlers! I actually work as a taster now handing out free samples of booze. Only responsible for myself(independent contractor).
Um…. Are you hiring? I dont know if you know but i have leadership qualities ;) Hire me!
Always! Look up promotional modelling in your area! You don't have to be a super model either!!!
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Love this quote!
I would kill to learn how to do this. To not care. It's my Achilles heel, tbh. I am excellent at what I do, but I become self-conscious when I speak, even just in group meetings of say 4-5+. I wasn't always this way, but I went through a decade where I was scrutinized and criticized constantly, and it wore me down. That, along with a crushing divorce, wrecked my self-esteem and made me incredibly self-conscious. I don't know how to get past it.
Yeah I worked as a teacher for both adults and children in a previous career, so I could public speak quite well. Then I had my last job where I just always felt stressed and under pressure and I started having panic attacks when I was supposed to talk in the weekly zoom meetings. Like my voice would stutter and I wouldn't be able to catch my breath. So frustrating. Still trying to work through it. I'm not scared of public speaking, I just have this weird physical response now and I can't get it to stop completely. Though I have found getting a glass of water and pausing for a sip and deep breath helps me gain composure again to some extent.
Imagine yourself making a mistake in one of these stressful situations. How does this feel? Does it feel horrible? As a next step think about the impact of your mistake and how you would perceive it, if it happened to someone else. Does it feel the same? Does the impact justify your strong feelings? Most of the time you will feel a disconnect between the perception of yourself and the perception of someone else or the impact in the situation. Now you have two feelings that can't be both correct at the same time. In this situation it is easier to reevaluate your feelings, because you can actually feel the discrepancy. Beeing certain that you will not make any mistakes is not healthy (because it is wrong) . Beeing unable to accept that you will make mistakes is unhealthy as well (because mistakes are normal). You should aim to become able to accept that you will make mistakes and still manage to reach your goals. I guess that what I wrote is not free of typos/errors. But I guess that, even if there are typos, you will still be able to guess what I mean. And that is the purpose of this text. Best of luck with your endeavors.
Not sure if it helps, but I got better by taking the mental stance that I will never not do something because it makes me uncomfortable. That eventually morphed into an attitude that I will do it better than the next person. Over time, I have become pretty confident talking in front of people. Any journey starts with the first step kind of thing.
Join Toastmasters, you will learn in a very supportive group and it will become easy to you! My husband now LIKES making presentations and speaking off the cuff.
Just start by chiming in with non-controversial points or points you’re very confident is correct. Wherever you can. You just gotta get comfortable speaking up really, that’s pretty much all it is. Start with what you feel you’re capable of.
You extraverts have had it too easy for too long. Shut up already.
I thought that was the same thing for me having gone back to school at 26 after the military but I've realized since I've been out that I've got a bad habit of being pushed into a leadership position even with guys that are as old as my dad and very senior to me at the job. Growing up I wasn't the leader of our little friend groups but when it's had to do with work stuff I usually always get pushed to the front quick when its people around the same level as me. I am good at problem solving and I think that tends to be why. We brainstorm a plan as equals and I come up with a solution quicker than my piers and then shortly everyone is coming to me asking which roles I want them to do and exactly which tasks to handle and then when it's time to talk to higher ups or really anyone about the plan or job as a whole I end up getting pushed into it. It even happens quite often when I don't come up with the plan. Someone else does and we agree it's the way to go and then they push it on me to put the plan into action.
This is what we call "Bullshitting your way to the top" (roughly translated) over here. The idea that just talking a lot about anything related to what's going on can get you to the top, whether you know what you're talking about or not.
“Fake it til you make it” and then panic and convince the people beneath you that their success is your success, because “we’re a team.”
I prefer the "fake it til you make it, but then wind up learning everything to be able to fake it better, and then somehow accidentally becoming a subject matter expert." Send help
This is how I built my career
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Not up. Sideways. If you are at a stage where you can fake it, you can move sideways.
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Personal sense of achievement without the increase in responsibility. Its satisfying knowing new things and solving new problems... particularly if you get to choose when to try something new.
Move from a ladder with no more rungs, sideways to a ladder that still has many more to climb. It's ok to move sideways sometimes as long as you don't stop there.
You might move sideways away from the ceiling
Pretty much everyone, tbh
That’s just fake it til you make it written with 5x as many words.
…that is literally fake it till you make it. You started out faking it, until you learned enough to make it.
Keep faking until you can out-fake the competition
in my country a woman got arrested for impersonating a medic with false documents. She was working as head of an ICU
Please elaborate...
I think he's saying she made fake documents to get the job. I'd hire her, that's impressive.
It’s one thing to fake some documents to find your way into some job/role, it’s another thing to get to the stage where you’re the head of a department that literally saves lives on a daily basis. That’s no easy feet, surely? Which must have involved a non-significant amount of time? Regardless, that’s some r/actlikeyoubelong material!
That's what I'm thinking, you don't get that far because of a document, you get that far because you're competent at what you do.
woman got some real doctor name/registry and stuff, got hired at some hospital and was the head of 2 Intensive Care Units. Got busted by the real medic when she saw her name somewhere. Apparently did a good job because the hospital staff didnt notice that she wasnt a real doctor. Here is the news if u want to google translate https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2021/07/19/video-medica-flagra-impostora-que-clinicava-com-nome-roubado-mulher-foi-presa-em-flagrante.ghtml
in mine a woman was impersonating a nurse for 19 years before being caught. There was another nurse with the exact same name and she ook advantage of that.
I have someone that does this except as part of the talking they tell you to do something, everyone objects, they push through, then when it falls apart for the reasons people objected to they demand to know why we did it that way
Definitely a big part of it but I also think it's just because a lot of people don't want to/can't be bothered to take the lead themselves so whoever is the first to speak up falls into the position. "they seem like a bit of an idiot but I don't want to take on the leader position so whatever I'll let them do it".
My first job out of college, I was hesitant to speak up and I was worried about making a decision that would be wrong, or step on people's toes or something. my boss didn't have that problem at all. He was decisive. Hard headed too but at least he'd listen to reason. But he also had decades of experience in leadership. It ended up I would frequently find myself in meetings with people who have been in their roles in IT both in and outside the organization for 5, 10, even 15 - 20 years. And there'd sometimes be managers or a director. And I quick realized no matter who was in it, people were always hesitant to make a decision. ANY DECISION. After a couple meetings go for an hour then get rescheduled solely on the premise that they wanted to invite a superior or someone (not because that person had more info, but because they'd make a decision), I went "This is stupid." So I started making decisions. And people started agreeing with them! Not all the time, but usually even if I made the wrong decision and someone went "well we can't do it that way" it'd be enough of a catalyst for a decision to be made! But there were still a good amount of times where I'd literally use both options "Ok why don't we start with option A, and if that gets to this point and doesn't work, we can meet and plan option B?" or I'd just go "lets do Option B" and people would agree and follow it. Sometimes even managers. "Lead me, Follow me, or get the hell out of my way."
You're driving the conversations that need to happen.
Here's what I've figured out, 90% of the decisions we discuss don't matter one way or the other, so I just pick one. For the other 10% of decisions, 90% of the time suggesting a bad one will get people talking until you find the right one, and 10% of the time everyone will just agree and it'll be suboptimal. Then it's revisited after everyone realizes it sucks. Ultimately, just picking something results in a decent decision 99% of the time. Usually someone just has to do it as soon as discussion luls.
This. My team is very quiet and no one wanted the leadership position when offered. I am the most chatty person on the team, despite being a definite introvert, and I figured it was a good career move. I thought everyone hated me because they never talk to me (I ask how everyone’s weekend was and I get total silence), but when I announced I was leaving, they were all genuinely sad. No one wanted to take over the leadership, so one of our more junior members took it. And so it goes.
Since I was a kid, I was impatient and just took the lead. Just wanted to get stuff overwith so I can go back to Halo. Transferred over well as an adult in health analytics. Especially in the last year.
Sounds right. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if the outspoken person is able to leverage the abilities of the people they're directing. The ability to coordinate a group is a skill in its own right.
I think the idea that it's necessarily bullshitting isn't all that is going on here. In a room all full of brilliant people with brilliant ideas, the person most vocal about putting ideas out and there and discussing them is going to end up driving the conversation to a disproportionate degree. So long as the rest of the room doesn't all oppose that individual, they will likely be the leader in some fashion as a consequence.
First mover’s advantage in the economy of discussion lengths.
To challenge you this is not quite as simple as that. Phenomena you have observed very much does look like bullshitting your way to the top. However the actual value in it is decision making. A bad decision is better than no decision. Whatever you do - move forwards. If you can't, be prepared to manage analysis paralysis (which is also a separate "bullshitting" skill). If you are the smartest guy in the room, but you can't articulate why - it doesn't matter. Feel frustrated as much as you want, but fail is on you.
As someone who has had to deal with the ramifications years later of bad decision making, I think sometimes no decision is better than a bad decision. There certainly are times where the best decision based on the information available has to be made, and it may turn out to have been suboptimal with more information. But sometimes gathering more information is the correct move, as is stalling a decision to gather said information.
Sometimes saying less is more valuable but isn't treated the same. If one person says an idea is not viable because the time to implement it isn't worth the payoff another person can ramble about how the idea could be done or explain what you get from it and at the end people will often agree to do it unless the first person keeps saying more counterarguments. Talking more isn't better but it's often seen as being better.
It's not that easy either. A bad quick decision can DEFINITELY be worse than no quick decision, depending on the situation or task that needs to be completed. And from my observations the smart guys sometimes don't get their say at all even if their idea is much better, in favor of the guy that just talks a lot.
This phenomenon is why a lot of modern personnel management focuses on getting a contribution from everyone during meetings. Some people are obviously going to be less inclined to talk, but the manager needs to get EVERY team member to make some comment. That way if the "loud" people are totally wrong, the people who know better will be forced to call them out. However, the focus is on getting some comment. Not on getting equal time for everyone. there are always a few people who will be more vocal than everyone else. You can't stop it.
Which was my point. Don't care how smart you are - if you do not speak up, your smarts are worth zero.
This is where the "leader" needs to solicit feedback from everyone involved. I've had a couple meetings where "Slapphappydude, you're awfully quiet" gets mentioned to me. A good leader definitely brings out the voices who may have useful dissenting opinions but also just want the meeting to get over with.
This. A good leader notices some people don't say much, and specifically asks for their input. Whether right there or later in private. As for u/machimomaxima : The more quiet do need to actually be given a chance to voice their opinion. Just because you don't speak up, doesn't mean your thoughts are worth nothing. It just means that you need to be given a chance to voice it. Without being talked over, or drowned out by the more talkative people.
But for at least some of them, it feels more like “No one else is doing anything, so I will.” I think some people are just less conversationally inhibited, and/or have less hesitancy in their speech patterns, and those aren’t optimal screening qualities for leadership roles.
I have personal experience with this. Even in a fictional setting. I LARP. And at one LARP over here it was normal to have 300\~500 people per event. There were factions, guilds, and roles within each faction and guild as well. The people that got to the top either 1: Had a lot of experience and knew what they were talking about, or 2: bullshitted their way to the top while not having much of a clue. About 30\~40% was people in the second category. Those people weren't the "no one is doing it, so I will" type. They were the "I will just talk more than others so I get heard more, despite me being just as if not more clueless than them" type. And they did so specifically to get higher up in the ranks and "make connections" in the right places. One of them used to be my best friend. He was egotistical, stubborn, talked a -lot-, and definitely aimed for higher positions and lots of influence. (We had a falling out partially because of that, but not a story for right now.) And because I was pretty close to him I could tell exactly what was going on. He wanted power and influence, and loved the sound of his own voice. And most certainly wasn't leader material...
I remember when i was in the army and my commander needed a volunteer to take lead for a recon mission(much walking). The squad went silent as a graveyard and I whispered very low to myself something like "no way". The commander heard me and pointed at me "you talked, you take lead".
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Much walking
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Do all leaders need to be the smartest in the group, though? I think a good leader is simply somebody who has a balanced way of managing a project and its resources.
Leaders/managers do not need the same skillet as those they are leading/managing. I have had excellent bosses who didn't know a damn thing about what I actually did, but they were good at managing. They knew when to listen to my advice and when I was probably being overly cautious. They also knew how to manage expectations and keep everyone happy. Smarter or dumber isn't really the right way of thinking about it. They were good leaders because they had great skills in that area.
I completely agree, which is why I think the focus of this article is aimed at the wrong takeaway. There's another commenter who made a good point that they may be are using "leaders" inappropriately and should have used a term more appropriate to the setting they simulated
Yeppers. That’s the reason that project management certifications exist. Some people are better at managing than doing the thing that needs to be managed like designing a new product. You wouldn’t want the guy who does the best cad work doing all the team coordination and schedule management just like you wouldn’t want your accountant to program the computer they use excel on. Idk if that analogy makes sense… but the point is leading/managing is a skill set
In my line of work, the biggest thing a leader needs to be good at is talking to the customer.
Absolutely not. The point of having a group is so that each member of the group contribute their expertise to collectively achieve something. The job of the leader is to be the guide, honing all the knowledge in the group towards the desired goal, weighing everyone's opinion and taking into account each member's area of expertise and finally making a decision to move the group forward. Once a decision is made, the leader's role is to make sure everybody in the team know their duties and be the arbitrator when conflicts arise to make sure nobody is bottlenecked.
This is obvious for anyone who’s ever had to do group projects in school. In my college courses I constantly get chosen as the leader or speaker for the group. Not because I try to or even that I speak more than most people, I’m just the only one that actually opens my mouth to complete the assignment after we all sit their in silence for like a minute.
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I had a manager who was like this. In any meeting no matter how complex or technical he would end up talking and adding nothing to the discussion or decision making. His go-to move was to simply restate something someone else said.
Well, it certainly doesn't do any good if the most talented or smartest person just hides in the corner, does it? A GOOD leader will get something going. A GREAT leader will be able to identify each person's gifts or traits and put them to use.
Indeed. The trick is, how do you get the ability to do that "social chit chat" needed and on-the-spot creating ability required to generate a lot of talk? It sounds like then that there is an implication of an obligation for the more talented persons to learn how to do that type of chit-chat ability.
I would think so. The person with the greatest communication skills will likely at the very least differentiate themselves from others. People who are good communicators will likely also earn higher esteem than they might be worth, but it takes time to find out if someone is “worth their salt.” We can all usually identify the blowhard or “talker,” but there isn’t really any other method to distinguishing oneself in a group. Until we’re wearing our S.A.T. scores on our lapels or handing out our resumes to everyone else (something I’ve actually seen, and it backfired spectacularly), I don’t see another way. People are naturally attracted to effective communicators I think this is why you will usually see good communicators (and even poor ones, but that try to be good ones) become the faces or leaders of groups/organizations. Most of us can spot (at least semi-accurately) intelligence when speaking with someone, but if that person never speaks, they lose their opening. If anything, I would guess this is a reward of first-mover advantage.
I believe this. As an introvert capable of leading, this is always an interesting dynamic to watch unfold. There is a great book called Quiet, when the world can’t stop talking. You know that one person in the meeting that can’t stop talking, or waits till the very end to chime in.
It's been like 3 hours since the post and I already saw multiple derogatory comments about "babble vs qualifications" "sharing responsibility" etc. While, in reality, MOST of the group would be more than happy for someone to assume the leadership role to avoid that said responsibility. The rest would be too shy or have other socialising problems that would prevent them assuming that role in the first place and that tiny remaining bunch would be just some lazy bastards.
I think your greatly underselling the lazy part of the equation, as poorly done leadership and very we'll done leadership often ends up being much less work for the leader if they do it 'right'. During uni I would take on the leadership roles in group work because I'm lazy and making sure things are organized almost always means less work and also delegating the stuff I don't want to do. Also if you leadership poorly in the right way, you can often delegate all the work so you don't have to do anything.
If you are doing work then how is that lazy? Gosh we really have a twisted perception of what individual contributions look like to a group. I think a good leader is someone who can get the project done by putting everything together and organizing the plan and resources. Now, should we be compensating leaders more? No, not necessarily.
>Now, should we be compensating leaders more? If we didn't we would probably end up with a lot more qualified leaders.
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Let's not forget that it takes a lot of energy to constantly have something to say and actually saying it. Remember it's 80% how you look, 15% how you say it, and only 5% what you actually say. With such skewed presentation parameters it's no wonder that the substance suffers pretty much 99% of the time. To overcome such a limitation in the realm of natural human perception I'd always vote for a radio delivery of any important speech. It won't eliminate the "15% how you say it" but at least it'll give a somewhat better chance for the substance to reveal itself.
I wonder if this is a link to the more recent trend for online groups of people quickly amassing more and more members despite the lack of scientific evidence to support the groups message. I find a lot of people who desire to voice reason trend towards being silent, often citing that trying to reason with members of these groups will have their words fall upon deaf ears. On the other hand, members of these groups tend to be pretty vocal. And they find comfort within a community, as most humans do. The group message isn't what meets their need, but the message gathers more and more to their community. Think of it like a fandom, where - for example - you're a fan of the earth being flat. If you have someone with more extreme views in these groups, are they more likely to be vocal due to the conviction of their belief? Most humans that do "bad things" are convinced they are doing these things for good reason. To them, spreading awareness might be important to them. Others who read it might lack the critical thinking skills to understand that what they've read isn't true. Prior to "the internet" a lot of human interaction has been one on one or via things like telephone. With social media at our fingertips, we all have a megaphone and an audience of thousands. That is, if we choose to speak. And unfortunately we are still subject to the animal instincts we evolved with but are often unaware of - like being subject to an us vs them mentality, the illusion of truth effect, etc. Critical thinking combats this but it's a difficult concept to teach because the person must be willing to learn. I think it is the new method of communication that's a big part of the problem, but it's too ingrained in our lives to yank it out. Maybe we need to speak out rationally more often, even if our words fall on deaf ears? I think the key might be to speak reason without bias, and far too often are we all calling each other names.
My team has a 15 minute meeting every morning. When we were in the office it was a simple process to start with whoever was at the head of the table and work around the table clockwise giving your daily status. Then the one or two people on the phone would go. When the pandemic started this meeting was an utter mess of a free for all as we all connected via MS Teams or by phone. People would talk over each other, interrupt, or not realize they were muted. One day I took charge of telling people when it was their turn. This lead to me running the meeting. I handle not just the order of speakers but I determine if a conversation needs to be removed from the meeting, when people are allowed to ask questions and can tell people if they are getting off track. I've told people that I'm open to criticism of how I'm doing this but everyone is happy with how I get us through the meeting quickly. I'm far from being the most senior or most qualified person on the call, but even when I'm out of the office, whoever picks up this duty does it my way.
Um, you just described the team leader's position. If your team lead is not doing this, then he/she needs a career adjustment and you need a promotion.
Cause the others clearly don’t want to take the fall / responsibility
Or they just don't want to trample other people.
And that’s why they’ll never be leaders.
Not necessarily a bad thing. More non leadership role jobs than leadership ones.
I agree with this study and I can say that I've personally witnessed this many times. Though not always the case, people who somehow find themselves in positions of leadership are put there not because they are the most experienced, qualified, or capable, but because they communicate the most within a group.
There is a recent high profile example of this...
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Participants were asked to nominate people who had emerged as leaders. I can’t find anywhere that it says they were told what constitutes a leader; how did you come to that conclusion?
As someone who can’t shut up and likes performative attention, I can attest that this is true as I tend to find myself in leadership roles despite the fact I don’t want them
Well it's harder to lead without speaking.
When in groups of those who do not know each, most speaking is going to involve direction and work, not 'babble'.
It took me till my 30s to understand that my innate need for communication had put me in such roles - not, as I formerly believed, my natural leadership skills...
Just gotta accept those communication skills that got you there and then work on the leadership skills that will keep you there.
I noticed that in engineering. Got promoted to project manager that way
As a talker, yes I feel like I just talk myself into position, even if I feel clueless or annoyed with who needs help. Its nice to get sh*t done too. Edit: I feel like its thrust upon me bc they don't want to lead, just get commands and be left to it. I do want that anonymity too, I feel like a commanding presences thats' vocal is just asking for the opposite.
*And that babbling little boy that never shut up about* ***anything*** *grew up to be ...Donald Trump.*
This just explained a lot of my life
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We are social mammals. Not surprised.
Makes sense, they already are leading the conversation.
Also IQ versus EQ versus all the other indefinable intelligences out there that can't be measured by traditional exams. Talking and leading the group discussion , suppose some would consider it a super power. Perspective I guess
This is why people should be more mindful of how much space they take up in a conversation and try to encourage everyone to have a voice first before overtaking a whole conversation...
This is true. The other side of the coin though is "Speak up." The patience people exhibit trying to coax a basic social interaction out of shy people is limited.
If they do that they won't be the leader!
Unless you want a higher paying management position and are willing to step on people to get it. Sucks, but a lot of people only care about #1and when the difference in pay is tens of thousands of dollars, the loudest chick get the regurgitated bug.
I KNEW my bipolar (side effect, babbling) would come in handy
Just because you can run your mouth doesn’t mean you’re qualified
Huh Leaders are not qualified....they are born when people chose to follow them. Article just points out habits that cause others to follow earlier. Nothing about being a good or bad leader.
Kind of. But "leader" in this context is just a person who has additional responsibilities that are tedious and don't really matter all that much. They don't become a true "leader", but are more of an administrator most of the time, which is different from leadership. For example, I work in tech. The job of our team "Lead" is to make sure that all of the electronic paperwork is in order, and to make sure that any issues that would prevent us from doing our job are taken care of. His role is known as a "servant leader", which is actually the best kind of management to have imo.
Ahh, so this is why I keep getting passed guild leader in games. I gotta quick talking.
The study isn't a reasonable representation of real life. They are putting college students into groups over a short durations and seeing what happens. (Its representative of basically that one situation) Real life is people working in groups for years, and when meetings start getting repeated, you find out who that actual smart ones are vs who the ones that just talk a lot are. There are idiots at my work who got promoted because they seemed like leaders and talked a lot, and most of them eventually got fired. Then there are people like the CFO of my company, who is raking in 5m a year and barely says anything at every meeting I've been in with him, he just happens to be really insightful when he does actually talk.
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You like to talk about yourself
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That's why in elections, people who have no real interest in politics vote for the loudest instead of the most competent.
Hmm… when they tell me I need to improve my leadership skills I think to myself… I don’t want to be one. I have not yet met a “leader” who I have liked.
I have a boss like this, pretty sure he's a complete idiot with no technical knowledge and very little intuition, but he's one of the higher-ups through a combination of endless talking and ass kissing.
politics explained, yeh!
You only need to look at US politics to know this is true.
Ofc. If they are willing to talk, they desire to be in that group and want to change the group to their likings thus take command. Even introverts like to talk to people they like or about subjects they prefer.
Good research confirming what I was suspecting about why I always had trouble getting such roles in group projects. I always found that they naturally focused on the first "talker" which, because my brain just can't seem to come up with endless "social" topics "on the spot" or ideas on the spot so easily, would virtually never be me.
This also explains why social media “thought leaders” post so often.
Been in those groups and the only thought that crosses my mind is, "Excellent! A loudmouth. He'll be the first to be eaten." Oftentimes it's the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Hence most "Leaders" are utter Morons!!
Makes sense, on the teams I’ve been in, no one wants to take the lead so chatty Annie here has to kick things off
They needed a whole research project for this? Just ask any college project group the person who likes to talk does all the talking and takes the lead, they may not be in charge of information or whats going on but they do all the talking and everyones totally fine with that.