Quote:
Originally posted by Johnny Rotten
Is has a lot to do with the values instilled in you, or drilled into you, by your parents or whatever authority had the most effect on you during your formative years, in my opinion. I also think that those who are the most driven to acquire money and power are usually the most insecure and paranoid as well. Some people are driven to advance up the ladder just because it's there.
Unfortunately, they generally do not make good leaders--they tend to crack the whip and make everyone work harder until a problem is solved, through sheer force. They are hated because they will use your energy to propel themselves higher by taking the credit for project after brutal project.
You'd think this type of person would just burn out by the age of thirty, but it's the thrill of the chase that gives them go power on a daily basis. They are true predators, and acquisition junkies. They have an almost elemental disdain for individuals even subtly below them in status, and a soul-battering fear of those who are, or even might be, above them.
Externally, they exude confidence and sociability, but inside that head, the clockwork is always, always moving.
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Boy, you've worked in high tech, haven't you? I've seen a lot of these guys -- marketing guys, product managers -- always proposing some crack-brained project that isn't really sound but that they think will impress the senior VP, at the cost of several months of 80-hour weeks for the peons. The thing, these guys think that if you're not a predator like them, you're nothing and are basically there to be taken advantage of.
As to why? Who knows? I've tried to figure out a number of power-seeking, money-seeking bosses in my day, and I've had a number of different theories about different people:
1) They're following the script somebody gave 'em. They've been told they're nothing unless they're on top, as children and teenagers. And they believe it. This is basically what Mr. Rotten says.
2) Bad boundaries. These are the guys who basically believe that the world belongs to them and should automatically work the way they want it to. Tend to be abusive, because when you don't do the thing they wanted (and they're often really bad at making it clear), they're royally pissed. Because you're supposed to KNOW.
3) Psycho. I worked with a marketing guy who was just out there, crazy, into winning every deal, getting every piece of cash, laying every woman, having the biggest house, no matter what, at all costs. Kept a gun in his desk, too, and once threatened to draw it on me. And people who knew him told me that he'd been this real, buttoned-down, shy management type at one point until he'd taken a job with some Reno-based casino entertainment outfit and run into lot of high-rolling, hard-knuckled gamblers and remade himself with a total personality change overnight. This is a guy who would sell out anybody, anything, for personal advantage. I googled him a couple of months ago, he's now president of a fairly large tech company.
And there are others. But the key ingredient is that they feel that other people are basically unimportant. And in our current iteration of capitalism, where the quarterly bottom line tends to trump all other considerations, these guys thrive.