"When it comes to leaders, we do not care about competition as much as it should, neither in politics nor in business."
So says Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic, psychologist and author of "Why So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders" (Why so many incompetent men become leaders).
In his book he argues that this may be one of the reasons why it is difficult for women to reach leadership positions: as a society, we love incompetence in men to the point of rewarding them for it.
• Why does incompetency win?
Having people skills is key to being a good leader, and it is something that is often overlooked.
In choosing a leader in politics or business, we face considerable responsibility but, incomprehensibly, we select these people without "testing or verifying if our choices are good for us, for our organization or even for the country to which we put them. charge, "says Chamorro-Premuzic.
We make decisions, says the psychologist, but "we lack data to really see if those leaders are doing well or not." As a result, we look much more at their style and what they seem to be able to put on the table, rather than his real ability to lead. "
First, "we focus too much on trust and too little on competition," says the expert, and "we often make a decision based on a short-term interaction, such as a job interview or a televised debate (in politicians). ) ".
Second, "we focus a lot on the charism and not enough on humility."
According to Chamorro-Premuzic, we pay attention to humility, but ultimately we prefer fun, charming and charismatic leaders.
But "how do you know they will perform well on your team?"
And, thirdly, and perhaps most worrying: we love leaders with narcissistic tendencies, according to the psychologist.
• Why it's better not to have a nice boss
"When someone seems to be very self-centered, and interested in advancing their own personal agenda, or even vain, instead of dismissing it, we think 'this guy must have the wood of a leader'".
According to the data collected by various personality studies, over decades and around the world, the three descriptions mentioned above are more common among men than among women, and that explains the prevalence of bad leaders and male leaders, "says Chamorro. Premuzic.
Reasons why we keep repeating the same mistakes and choose the wrong leader.
Maybe we do not really want the "best person" for the position, says the psychologist. "In theory, yes, of course, but where is the evidence?"
What Chamorro-Premuzic can say when looking at the statistics is that "most of the time, the Human Resources department focuses on the same short-term objectives as other executives of the company, such as 'this person will make me look good' or 'will solve this problem quickly', or even 'will not require the organization to change, it will do what I say'.
- How can the circle be broken?
Remember, the competition on trust: tennis player Roger Federer "does not win tournaments because he is a man or has a lot of confidence, but because he has an exceptional talent".
There are three key steps in any company, or democracy, as the case may be, that everyone should follow if they want to have incompetent leaders, says Chamorro-Premuzic.
- Whether you're hiring or voting, look carefully at all the signs and look for the qualities that make someone a better leader. The features you are looking for are:
• Competition
• Gift of people
• Humility
• Self-awareness
• Integrity
• Curiosity and learning skills
- We need to learn to distrust our instincts. Forget about following your intuition or having a feeling, and instead look for data.
Whenever possible, look for hard data, such as results of predictive evaluations, figures of psychometric or performance tests, based on real leadership effectiveness and not on someone's ability to play office politics.
"Organizations are full of data," says the expert, but "most are not used and candidates are chosen who feel they" like "them.
- Face gender diversity, and you will have solved a big problem, although Chamorro is critical of positive discrimination per se: "Most of these interventions fail because they focus on gender and not on talent."
If you want to find a solution, propose an approach that does not "lower the level for women who are already competent, so they can become leaders, but instead raise the level for men who are incompetent," says the psychologist.
- Are women the solution?
For Chamorro-Premuzic, the goal should be talent and potential, not positive discrimination.
"The solution is not women, the solution is 'let's take seriously the evaluation of talent and potential,'" concludes Chamorro-Premuzic.
If an organization has talent and potential as an objective, "it will not only end up with more women in leadership, but with more women than men in leadership."
Tomás Chamorro-Premuzic is a psychologist who works mainly in the areas of personality profiles, people analysis and leadership development.
According to the available data, Chamorro-Premuzic says that "women slightly surpass men in characteristics such as humility, the ability to motivate, self-awareness, the gift of people and, above all, competition. developed, women outnumber men in universities, even in postgraduate studies. "
Article taken from: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-48041760
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