Op-Ed: The boss is a fake? Yep, and you’re the ones helping him

The image of The Boss is more than a myth. For some reason, it’s not a joke, despite the basic Klutz In Suit ethos which has persisted since the sitcom era. People actually accept bosses, and the way they do that is downright scary.

A recent study has found that the “dominant” approach implies leadership and confidence, however idiotic the person may be. Recent studies suggest that the general impression of a Moron In Charge is pretty right. It’s just that group behavior tends to reinforce the role, and support the leadership. Which would explain an awful lot of human history, and the routine assassination and removal of so many historic leaders. Unfortunately this is always after they became leaders, so the recognition of stupidity and incompetence obviously isn’t exactly instant. Maybe it’s an echo of the cave society image, the guy with the big stick and tendency to beat up mammoths with his nasal hairs tends to be the boss. Or maybe it’s the modern version, the psycho fool with a brain like a lost suppository and his finger on the payroll. Either way, a recent study of groups has found some DIY fascism applies to groups of people regarding selection of leaders. Start with the basic premise that if you act like a boss, you’re seen as a boss, and if you speak up, (or in some cases shout everyone else down) and just keep supplying inputs of information, regardless of quality, you’ll actually be the boss. Pretty appalling, isn’t it? But it works, and a study by researchers Cameron Anderson and Gavin Kilduff at Berkeley has just proved that it works. Apparently the most talkative contributing people were rated highest among their groups for intelligence and their character, while those who said least were viewed negatively. During these tests, actual competence was never tested. It was implied. The behavior alone suggested competence. Like The Boss, there were no checks or balances, just social inertia. People took roles, and some came out on top acknowledged as dominant. If you apply that to a society, "those saying least" really means the critics. They’re the ones who have to speak less, because they have to interpret and reason their way through the logic of the speakers. As critics, their commentary is likely to be seen as negative, and so are their contributions, rightly or wrongly, according to the study. The ugliest result was that the groups tended to follow dominant individuals and the first response 94% of the time, and barely considered alternatives to the response. Either the researchers were using sheep as subjects, or a basic behavioral trend in human groups has been identified, and, unfortunately, quantified. It would explain such revolting spectacles of unquestioning Follow The Leader as the Cultural Revolution and Nazism very effectively. That, unfortunately, isn’t new in peer group studies or basic behaviorism. The Alpha society member is a recurring theme, and while a lot of effort has gone into investigating Alphas, not much has been done about finding a cure. There’s an inherent flaw in the Alpha role, for those whose abilities aren’t up to scratch. They may be dominant, but they’re also liabilities if unable to perform. The Peter Principle, which says that people rise until they hit a level of authority at which they’re incompetent, is the other classic study. The number of social disasters caused by pure mis-leadership fills history from start to finish. The idea of an Alpha class or social elite dates back to Plato’s Republic, at least. It keeps recurring, and the Executive Class is its latest generic model, a ridiculous modern myth which is seen to fail more or less continuously, but persists as an ideal. If there was a social command for "Fetch!" The great inflexible suburban imperative "Be an Executive" would be the equivalent. This is one social habit the human race can do without. We’ve just been watching what a pack of dominant but incompetent, delusional, psychotic apes can do to the global economy. These guys were acknowledged leaders in their fields, the Dominant Gerbils. It’s a matter of opinion if they were ever able to manage a corn flake, let alone hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of other people’s money. But they did, and were accepted as leaders of the world economy. Critics were predicting a train wreck for years, and were seen as negative. There's nothing wrong with the information gathered by this study. It's the subjects that need to improve. Anyone else think it’s time humanity grew up and started demanding results, not social fantasies?