Acronyms

Acronyms used in this article are defined below:

WNISSCPMLCMM: Weak, Narcissistic, Insecure, Self Serving, Cowardly, Power Mad, Ladder Climbing Middle Manager

IMM: Incompetent Middle Manager

Introduction

This article postulates that the bad leaders we’re witnessing within corporate and government organisations are a result of the organisations being overrun by WNISSCPMLCMMs.

Note: For brevity, “Weak, Narcissistic, Insecure, Self Serving, Cowardly, Power Mad, Ladder Climbing” is condensed to “Incompetent”, and the remainder of this article will use IMM in place of WNISSCPMLCMM.

In an attempt to find relief from their constant feeling of insecurity, inadequacy and fear, the sole objective of an IMM is to climb whatever hierarchy they find themselves in, to seek power and status. When an organisation has weak leadership and is rife with IMMs, the interactions between hierarchical layers triggers a feedback loop where the strategies of all IMMs converge into two simple rules:

The Two Rules

1. Obey the hierarchy above you. Always comply. Do not question. They are superior to you. They are the mechanism through which you can climb the ladder. They also have the power to eradicate you.
2. The hierarchy below you must obey you. They must abide by rule 1. You are superior to them. Those that don’t comply shall be denied opportunities and / or be eliminated from the organisation. They can undermine your position in the hierarchy and thus threaten your ladder climbing ability.

Successful application of the two rules results in many IMMs initially climbing rungs in the hierarchy they occupy. Usually IMMs stagnate at middle management level because they are incompetent, self serving and harmful to organisations. However top level leadership eventually retire or move on, and if an organisation is overrun with IMMs they will slowly diffuse upwards, and eventually IMMs will inherit the top positions. And so we have bad leaders.

Results

The two rules yield the following behaviours that we observe in our leaders and in the organisations they lead:

• Outcomes don’t matter. Simply comply with the two rules, follow the process, and pretend doing so guarantees a positive outcome.
• No regard for truth. Pretend whatever the hierarchy above says is the truth. Force that supposed truth onto those below you. Lies are acceptable. Questions don’t need to be answered directly. All communication should be carefully crafted and manipulated to appease the hierarchy above.
• No regard for principles. Having principles could lead you to criticising the hierarchy above you, which would break rule 1.
• Exaggerate the positives of your organisation and deny the negatives. Always maintain the appearance of success. If you and the hierarchy above you have caused the current circumstances, then the current circumstances must be good.
• Don’t worry about fixing root causes of problems. Instead ensure those problems do not impact your ladder climbing ability. Apply band-aid fixes, do whatever sounds good to those in your hierarchy even if it doesn’t work, throw money at technology even if it doesn’t help, borrow money, print money, blame others, or delay the problem so that it becomes someone else’s problem.
• Do not admit to errors or failures (unless the hierarchy above you forces you to). Admitting mistakes could implicate either yourself or the hierarchy above you, threatening your ladder climbing ability.
• If an error or failure is so obvious it cannot be denied, never take responsibility, instead blame someone else. Blame external conditions, the market environment, the previous person in your role, those below you in the hierarchy, sub-contractors, disinformation, the racist people, the misogynists, the unvaccinated, climate change, Russian misinformation.
• Ordinary people may be initially convinced by IMMs but will eventually lose respect and trust. Ordinary workers become disengaged and ineffective. Ordinary voters vote for someone else or stop voting.
• Endless creation of roles for IMMs. This provides fake ladder rungs to enjoy climbing and maximises the available pathways to climb. It also shields IMMs from accountability – if there’s enough rungs in a hierarchy and something goes wrong, each individual in the hierarchy can claim they did nothing wrong. The organisation becomes bloated with middle management.
• Core responsibilities of the organisation that have historically been accomplished in-house become sub-contracted out to others. Technically incompetent IMMs who can’t actually do their job can still get the job done by sub-contracting it. Doing this also provides a scapegoat should something go wrong.
• Unnecessary rules, regulations and systems are perpetually introduced to help IMMs feel their power and justify their unnecessary roles.
• Hiring of incompetent people may become popular to ensure they don’t outperform the people they report to.
• IMMs cede responsibility to higher authorities despite those authorities not representing the interests of the organisation. Ladder climbers serve the highest masters they’re able to serve because it allows them to feel closer to the power source. Abdicating to higher authority also allows IMMs to force bad policies that ordinary people don’t agree with down the hierarchy, blaming those at the top for the bad policies whilst enjoying the use of power to enforce it.
• An organisation overrun with IMMs has no mechanism to correct errors made by the top of the hierarchy. Critical feedback would break the rules. This can lead to uncontrolled pathology.
• Instability arises at the very top of the organisation. There are no guiding principles, no overall vision, no ethics, no morality, no corrective feedback. Ideas are driven by the whims of the IMMs at the top attempting to consolidate and grow their power. Lies, cheating, stealing, corruption, fraud, lawfare, war, assassinations, genocides – anything goes if you think you can get away with it. The organisation tends towards corruption and tyranny.

Recent observations of IMMs operating in the world include:

• Politicians pretending everything is great despite overwhelming public discontent. Lie and hope for the best – make up a fake statistic that proves the public are wrong, maybe the complaining people will eventually get tired, maybe the repetition of your lie will make others believe it, maybe a pandemic or war will break out and frighten people into supporting the status quo.
• An Australian referendum campaign attributing its loss to racism and misogyny.
• Politicians refusing to consider policy changes in response to protests against high house prices, high inflation and increasing crime, instead labelling those involved as racist.
• Widespread systematic lying about a senile ex president.
• Supposed presidential candidates unable to articulate any lessons learned from past mistakes.
• IMMs hiring others based on sex or race even though they would prefer to hire based on competence.
• IMMs imposing government enforced medical treatment onto their workforce despite having an ethical objection to such practices.

The Solution

Have principles. Speak the truth. Listen to your conscience. Acquire status through hard work, competence and excellence and reward others who display those traits. Don’t virtue signal. Find meaning through a higher purpose rather than from serving your own selfish interests. Distribute power thinly, keep power close to the coal face, do not centralise power. Find solutions to problems that maximises an individual’s power and minimises the power at the top. Minimise hierarchical layers.

Learn to identify IMMs – listen for contradictions, listen for virtue signalling, listen for inability to admit mistakes, listen for blaming others, listen for never admitting one’s own contribution to a problem, listen for omissions, listen for denial of negative impacts / trade-offs of a particular policy, listen for those that rely on personal attacks to support their agenda, listen for “facts” being presented with emotive and biased language, listen for appeals to authority via cherry picked experts, listen for cherry picked or manipulated data that doesn’t match your experience, listen for responses to questions that don’t answer the question, listen for solutions to problems that accrue more power to those at the top. Listen to your bullshit detector. Learn to identify those that are only serving themselves, and strive to replace them with leaders who actually serve the people they’re leading.

The most important part of the solution is:

If you have something to say, you should say something.

There’s a good chance you have greater competence and superior ethics compared to the people above you in the hierarchy, since self serving power-mad narcissists are disproportionately attracted to leadership positions. You are part of the necessary corrective feedback that keeps leadership serving their people rather than serving themselves, and prevents virtue signalling minority mobs from ruling over weak leadership. Speak up when you think the hierarchy above you has got it wrong.

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See also:

Moral Superiority

A Message to YES Supporters

The Voice: Why You Should Vote YES

Engine Power and Driver Satisfaction

Why You Shouldn’t Support Mandatory Vaccinations

How to Catch Barramundi

How to Drive on Sand

XXXX Gold – The Great Mystery of the Top End

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