Loud, pushy, and wrong – Study confirms what we already knew about bad bosses

According to a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, leadership is often about who’s the loudest, not who’s right.  In the first study, students were recruited and divided into teams with the task of creating fictional nonprofit groups.  Members rated one another on level of competence and influence over the group.  People who spoke up the most were rated as “intelligent” while quieter members were described as “uncreative”.

The second study aimed at being more quantifiable, and had team members solving math problems from the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).  People who spoke up first and more often were again rated as leaders.  Thing is, these “leaders” were not the ones giving the most correct answers.   U.C . Berkeley associate professor of organizational behavior, Cameron Anderson led the study and says “Even though they were not more competent, dominant individuals behaved as if they were.”  Bottom line, the people in charge of us may not know more, they might just be louder and pushier.  Your boss may not be as smart as she thinks she is. Duh.

Source: Time Magazine

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  • http://www.workingforwonka.com Monkey

    So interesting. Think at a gut level some of us may have suspected this all along. This “overly loud” characteristic is common among entrepreneurs–the subject of my bad boss blog (Working for Wonka). I will have to investigate further. Thanks for bringing to my attention!

  • athroop

    I thoroughly enjoyed reading this content. It's funny how we think our bosses know all – maybe some of them do, but I can definitely see some bosses using their aggressive and loud side to get to the top.
    We recently launched a quiz to find out which famous boss you are. It could be quite interesting to see which boss the “loud, pushy and wrong” ones are. You can check it out here http://bit.ly/dBRy5r
    Thanks again for the well written article.

    ** Which famous boss are you?? Let us know!