Bossiness

[Fabio Cecin]

On the latest blog post, The Leadership Myth.

Some people are bossy, others are driven to bossiness, driven by
social pressure or by personal ambitions.

Some people are sociopaths, others are driven to sociopathy, driven by
social pressure or by personal ambitions.

"Is" the person bossy or sociopathic, or is the person just "acting" that way?

It shouldn't matter. Bossiness and sociopathy should be shunned, and
by being shunned they would disappear. But for them to be shunned, the
social circle in which that shunning is to take place must have a
supporting structure.

A social circle that doesn't have a strong inner story will just
inherit the story of its outer social circle. A company that isn't its
own thing will just be a default capitalistic enterprise, and
capitalist assholes will take over and implement capitalism as-is
within it. That is the "death" stage of companies: when it isn't its
own thing, but just a default capitalist institution.

It seems that "structure" (social structure, e.g. "laws", "social
conventions", "culture", "myths", etc.) is a real, concrete thing for
humans. Once a story is set, we somehow cannot tell the difference
between changeable conventions and e.g. physical objects. What is
encoded in them is what things ARE. Milgram experiment, etc.: if
people are told that they are going to have this little temporary
circus where some act as cops and others as prisoners, it takes
minutes for some to start abusing others.

Legality is, in particular, very strongly drilled into us since we
were kids. The legal hierarchy of a company is REAL. It is like a
perpetual Milgram Experiment.

Also notice how "startups" happen: it suffices for a bunch of kids to
get together in a garage and declare the mere *intent* of registering
a given company structure within the legal framework of the
surrounding state to completely change things, to make it "real". It
already exists. It is a story. It drives how everyone will think and
act, at least until the story wears off or is replaced by another one.

You cannot shun bossiness if the fake support story (that is somehow
real to us) of the "work" social circle you're in will constantly
radiate and regenerate bossiness back to its place in the "body".
Anyone shunning bossiness will be doing a violent act against the
structure, that will have to be justified, whereas bossiness will be
the default state of the "structure."

Flip the story, and now bossiness can happen, but *that* will be a
violent act, and *that* will have to be justified whenever it happens.

A very wise colleague in my previous corporate job, seeing my state of
despair, was trying to help me survive and navigate the thing: "it's a
grid. it will try to force you into your place. you have to push back
the grid, create your own space." The "grid" is the social story. But
is it worth it? I don't think so. I'd rather flip the story and have
bossy MBA people fight to "create their own space" -- good luck
spending your life punching a sponge that always regenerates back into
its place, no matter how much force you do apply.

Fabio