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Why Are So Many Leaders Incompetent?
Why do so many truly awful people get promoted or elected?
At my first job, I got a lot of buzz due to how I was managing a design project. Mine was the only one that was coming in on-time and under budget.
There was a reason for this. I was not ruled by my ego.
I would have weekly meetings in which I gave brief updates. Then I shut up and let other people speak.
I listened, answered questions as needed, and stayed in the background.
I also kept to a tight schedule.
The meetings always started on time and the topics that would be covered were emailed to the group. If someone did not need information on the topics being covered that week, they could choose not to attend. I didn’t need an audience.
This worked so well people were talking about me and how well my project was running. I eventually even won an Award.
So when one of the engineering managers asked if he could attend my next meeting, I said he was welcome. I figured he wanted to learn about what I was doing.
Instead, he quickly took over my meeting. I had the conference room for an hour but my meetings seldom lasted more than half that time. Due to his non-stop blathering, it took…
