https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/23/unshowy-competence-brings-drawbacks-as-well-as-benefits

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Business | Bartleby

Unshowy competence brings drawbacks as well as benefits

Dullness and its discontents

[20230225_W]
Feb 23rd 2023
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The charismatic corporate climber is a common target for resentment
in office life. He--and research suggests men are particularly given
to such narcissism--hogs the spotlight in meetings, is adept at
grabbing undeserved glory, and is a pro at self-promotion. More often
than not, he is the boss's pet. But he rises on the back of another,
unsung, corporate archetype: the competent, diligent but unexciting
achiever.

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Studies find that plenty of confident egomaniacs, unsuited to the
subtleties of management, get a leg-up for being, well, confident
egomaniacs. Companies disproportionately promote narcissists. Perhaps
a fifth of chief executives fit the description, researchers have
found, a far higher proportion than within the wider population.
Self-absorbed CEOs can sap morale and, evidence suggests, produce
poor financial results.

A strong case for the dull striver was made by Tomas
Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychologist at University College London, in an
article for the Harvard Business Review in 2015 entitled "The best
managers are boring managers". Understated competence does not
intuitively scream leadership. Many totemic bosses of the age, from
bankers to tech founders, come with big egos, showy antics and
volatile tempers. Elon Musk may be accused of many things. Dullness
is not one of them. Even so, Mr Chamorro-Premuzic argued,
conscientious but unprepossessing characters tend to have
little-noticed but precious advantages. They can be depended on to
make decisions calmly, manage teams deftly and be emotionally mature.
They deserve promotion ahead of co-workers with "flash and vision,
and bold displays of confidence".

A seminal meta-analysis of research on leadership characteristics,
published in 2002 by Timothy Judge, then at the University of
Florida, and colleagues, indeed found a link between managerial
effectiveness and personality traits such as being stable, agreeable
and dependable. One explanation is that level-headedness makes it
easier to deal coolly with the many subtle problems thrown up by
human beings (who may all too easily infuriate a more volatile
manager). Emotional maturity is also an indicator of trustworthiness.
Studies have found that managers with dysfunctional traits such as
narcissism are likelier to get up to no good. Conscientious bosses,
by contrast, score highly for integrity.

The dull but diligent could be especially valuable now. As companies
claim increasingly to prize soft skills, such as being able to
communicate well with all sorts of people, emotionally intelligent
workers ought to be in demand. A volatile business environment in
which firms face problems from recession to climate change, pandemics
and war, favours the steady leader.

Chief executives face tricky decisions about how much risk to take in
pursuit of growth, as shareholders look on nervously. Startup bosses
who proudly moved fast and broke things are now falling over
themselves to look demure. "We are a very boring company," Oliver
Merkel, head of Flink, a grocery-delivery startup, bragged to the
Financial Times recently. The trend is visible in politics, too. Joe
Biden in America and Rishi Sunak in Britain rose to their countries'
top jobs partly because their boring dependability promised relief
from their predecessors' noisy incompetence. Testing times call for
cool heads.

For all that, quietly competent types hoping for greater appreciation
(and remuneration) should not sit still. To rise up the ranks, the
boring would do well to raise their profiles, whether by speaking up
in meetings or talking up their accomplishments. If they bag bigger
jobs they will anyway need to master show-offy things like
glad-handing clients, chairing meetings and holding forth on
strategy. Though Mr Judge's analysis revealed emotional stability and
general diligence were crucial to managerial effectiveness, extrovert
qualities such as sociability were also telling factors.

Companies' penchant for promoting the wrong people is deeply
ingrained, despite management theorists' admonitions. By default,
many of those dishing out promotions are themselves narcissists who
advanced by wowing their superiors. And showy sorts' shameless
self-aggrandisement fulfils a convenient function for bosses, giving
them a shortcut--no matter how misleading--to finding candidates for
elevation. Many managers are too busy to patiently unearth genuine
talent. After all, they have other important things on their
plates--like impressing their own bosses.

Read more from Bartleby, our columnist on management and work:
Why it's time to get shot of coffee meetings at work (Feb 16th)
The pitfalls of loving your job a little too much (Feb 9th)
The relationship between AI and humans (Feb 2nd)

To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology,
sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition
under the headline "Dullness and its discontents"

Business February 25th 2023

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From the February 25th 2023 edition

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