They always want people to agree with them and they certainly have a bloated ego.
Your description doesn’t match my first hand experience of working with CEOs. A couple have acted like that, sure, but the vast majority were very stressed or miserable fighting to keep their organizations going. Honestly, seeing the job, I know I don’t want it.
How many CEOs do you know or have worked with directly?
I’d recommend you increase your sample size to give you additional perspective.
The problem is, I know, and everyone else knows, work culture originates top down. We’ve all had power hungry managers and we know their games.
This is too simplistic a view.
Yes, work culture originates from the top, but once in place the corporate culture is supported and re-enforced by middle managers and even the workers themselves. So once that original corporate culture is in place, swapping out the CEO doesn’t change it. It is very very difficult to change an org once it’s culture is set. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that a process can’t be changed “because we’ve always done it like this”. Sometimes purging existing culture means firing a number of managers and workers that are unconscionably enforcing the existing culture before new work culture can exit. Sometimes it means the entire org has to go.
What it sounds like you’re describing is more of a middle management problem. As in, you’ve been under micromanagers or straight up narcissistic psychos that rose to a position of power, and use their power to abuse those under them. If those kind of people ever rise to executive leadership or even a CEO that usually means the pretty quick firing of that person or the org goes under/gets acquired.
Your description doesn’t match my first hand experience of working with CEOs. A couple have acted like that, sure, but the vast majority were very stressed or miserable fighting to keep their organizations going. Honestly, seeing the job, I know I don’t want it.
How many CEOs do you know or have worked with directly?
At least one.
I could sit here and lie and say a million. Fuck, for all you know I’m the CEO of chucky cheese.
The problem is, I know, and everyone else knows, work culture originates top down. We’ve all had power hungry managers and we know their games.
I’d recommend you increase your sample size to give you additional perspective.
This is too simplistic a view.
Yes, work culture originates from the top, but once in place the corporate culture is supported and re-enforced by middle managers and even the workers themselves. So once that original corporate culture is in place, swapping out the CEO doesn’t change it. It is very very difficult to change an org once it’s culture is set. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that a process can’t be changed “because we’ve always done it like this”. Sometimes purging existing culture means firing a number of managers and workers that are unconscionably enforcing the existing culture before new work culture can exit. Sometimes it means the entire org has to go.
What it sounds like you’re describing is more of a middle management problem. As in, you’ve been under micromanagers or straight up narcissistic psychos that rose to a position of power, and use their power to abuse those under them. If those kind of people ever rise to executive leadership or even a CEO that usually means the pretty quick firing of that person or the org goes under/gets acquired.
Woo buddy, you know 2 ceos, that’s almost scientific!