Do you need to be a dick to be successful?
Film director Max Joseph, the co-host of MTV show Catfish and the editor of Casey Neistat‘s viral Nike advert, has made a new documentary series with new social network Vero which asks whether you need to be a dick to be a successful leader. GQ spoke to him about Trump, his round-the-world trip with Casey, and how you create engaging films for an internet audience
Your first film on Vero is called Dicks. There seems to be a resurgence of dicks at the moment. Why is that happening in the US?
I don’t know if it’s just the US. I think that there are dicks everywhere right now. What’s actually interesting is that in the book by one of the guys I interview, Aaron James, he wrote a book called “Assholes”, and he’s actually since written a spin-off of that book about Trump, specifically as the, kind of, asshole par excellence.
He explains in this book that there is a culture of creating more assholes than ever. He ties it to something to do with capitalism and the embrace of ego-driven entertainment. He breaks down all the different kind of assholes there are. There’s the cable news asshole, there’s the pundit asshole. It’s funny and it’s worth looking into. But I think that what naturally happens in politics especially, is that the pendulum swings one way. We’ve had Obama for eight years, who to me is a model of integrity, sensitivity, empathy, he’s wise, he’s patient, he maintains his composure, and I would have voted for him again. But now I think the pendulum naturally swings to the other side where they’re tired of the stately, patient leader who’s not an asshole, and instead want someone who’s fiery, unstable, impatient, intolerant. I don’t agree with that and I don’t want that, but I think that in part explains the Donald Trump phenomenon.
Can you be a successful leader and not be a complete fucking asshole?
I feel like this is a pertinent question of the modern age: can you be a good leader, i.e. possess leadership competencies and drive growth/revenue, without being an asshole? I’m honestly not that sure.
We can run down the major examples. Steve Jobs was an unbelievable jerk. He made a ton of people rich, disrupted multiple industries, and built the №1 company in the world. (Although that’s shifting.) Jeff Bezos, who ostensibly changed commerce, is purportedly a jerk. Amazon’s work culture is notoriously pretty awful. Wal-Mart has long been near the top of the Fortune 500; most people that have come to run it are authoritarian jerks in their own right. That’s three examples, which is the journalistic gold standard for “a trend,” but I’ll do one more. It’s nearly impossible to read anything about Travis Kalanick (Uber CEO) and not view him as an asshole. His Vanity Fair profile from a few years ago is one of the worst things you’ll ever cringe through.
Now, look, there are counter-examples. Google (Alphabet?) makes a bunch of money, and it mostly seems like a good culture — and guys like Page and Brin seem OK. (Well, OK, maybe Brin has some issues.) Berkshire Hathaway makes a ton of money, and Warren Buffett is America’s fiscally-aware grandfather. So you can be a good CEO, and possess leadership competencies, without being an asshole. But that’s the exception and not the rule. Why is this, though?
Leadership competencies and success/productivity
I don’t want to belabor points we all somewhat know, so I can keep this relatively short. First: from about the time of Henry Ford, work has been about productivity and very little else. That’s how we train managers. Managers eventually become CEOs and all they know is productivity metrics and execution. Even if they’re not an asshole, they will come off like an asshole to most people who have to work under them. That’s Tier 1.
Can you run a high-growth business without being a total asshole?
Tier 2 is that we have horrible definitions of success in most first-world economies. Making good money, buying a nice-sized house, and spending time with your family consistently are not markers of success. It’s all about more, more, more. You need to be a high achiever. Even if you absolutely despise Trump, hard to argue that he’s “successful” in our base terms. As such, America just minted perhaps its biggest myth. That’s fun!
For years, the path to this success/productivity has been “be a workaholic.” That becomes all some of these guys know. When they become CEOs, their perception of leadership competencies is “Everyone else should be working 18-hour days.” If some of those people have three kids under 10 or other interests, they begin to perceive their CEO as an asshole.
But you can only drive productivity and growth by being an asshole, right?
I would call that “The Myth of Steve Jobs.” It’s not really true. You can drive revenue through compassion, although it admittedly seems fluffy. Revenue growth can also come from being a more empathetic company. Most research-based concepts around managerial skills (i.e. leadership competencies) lean much more towards soft skills than hard, revenue-pounding skill sets.
Look, there are people who slack off. In fact, there are many of them. When you have those people on your team, you need to drive a little bit harder, sure. However, there are solutions to this problem: for one, if you have a lot of these people, fire them. It’s OK! Second: understand that “hard-driving” is not the only path to increased productivity. Sometimes relationship-building does that just as well, if not better.
I love me some accountability and all that, but listen. If you put some Type-A bell-ringing ass clown in front of who’s screeching about metrics every second, I will half-ass every project he gives. Who cares anymore? You know that type of guy isn’t advancing you. He mostly cares about himself. Now if you put a manager in front of me who cares, sets priorities, talks to you, etc … I’ll work 3x as hard. Maybe I’m abnormal or naive, but I don’t think so. Hell, my therapist says I’m pretty well-adjusted, f*ck you very much!
The self-sustaining mentality of the asshole culture
One problem, often glossed over: once a few asshole guys get into the upper ranks, they mint/promote their friends. Now the whole senior team is a bunch of bell-ringing, KPI-chest-pounding jagoffs. Leadership competencies that matter (soft skills) just died in the flood. Instead, you have a self-sustaining, consistently-repeating culture of assholes. Once you’re in it, it’s hard to break out. I don’t know the internal culture of Microsoft, but they seemed to have done it. Ballmer seems like a jerk from afar, and Nadella seems like a nice, reflective guy. But I may be totally wrong there.
Could we get better about promoting the right leadership competencies upward?
You’d hope, but probably not. We gussy up work in lots of buzzwords and terms, but let me break it down for you right quick and clean. The power core wants to be surrounded by like-minded individuals that don’t push back on them, and they want to share together in the perks of the company’s successes. That’s the simplest answer to “why hierarchy still exists.” Hierarchy alienates about 100x more people than it helps, but those people getting helped are really getting helped. And since they have the power, why would they change anything? You ever wonder why most change management processes at a job are such a train wreck? It’s because secretly the executives could care less. They root everything in buzzwords because they know that won’t go anywhere, or they kick it to HR because, well, ditto. If change actually happened, it would threaten their existing perch. Who wants that?
Once you realize the psychology of how most people approach work, these issues become more challenging. As generations rise up and automation becomes an increasing reality, I do think some of the “human touch” leadership competencies may return to the work world. It’ll be our best push-back against a tech-only future. But right now? This is a pipe dream for a lot of companies, many of whom still operate on 1991 metrics and bureaucracy-laden management tiers.
So is one of the core leadership competencies of a CEO that he/she must be an asshole? No. Not at all. But do we unfortunately frame it up that way frequently? Yes. Very much so.
What else might you add about leadership competencies and being a jerk?