DO YOU NEED TO BE A DICK TO BE SUCCESSFUL?

Film director Max Joseph, the co-host of MTV show Catfish and the editor of Casey Neistat‘s viral Nike advert, has made a new documentary series with new social network Vero which asks whether you need to be a dick to be a successful leader. GQ spoke to him about Trump, his round-the-world trip with Casey, and how you create engaging films for an internet audience.

We can run down the major examples. Steve Jobs was an unbelievable jerk. He made a ton of people rich, disrupted multiple industries, and built the №1 company in the world. (Although that’s shifting.) Jeff Bezos, who ostensibly changed commerce, is purportedly a jerk. Amazon’s work culture is notoriously pretty awful. Wal-Mart has long been near the top of the Fortune 500; most people that have come to run it are authoritarian jerks in their own right. That’s three examples, which is the journalistic gold standard for “a trend,” but I’ll do one more. It’s nearly impossible to read anything about Travis Kalanick (Uber CEO) and not view him as an asshole. His Vanity Fair profile from a few years ago is one of the worst things you’ll ever cringe through.

Now, look, there are counter-examples. Google (Alphabet?) makes a bunch of money, and it mostly seems like a good culture — and guys like Page and Brin seem OK. (Well, OK, maybe Brin has some issues.) Berkshire Hathaway makes a ton of money, and Warren Buffett is America’s fiscally-aware grandfather. So you can be a good CEO, and possess leadership competencies, without being an asshole. But that’s the exception and not the rule. Why is this, though? Managers eventually become CEOs and all they know is productivity metrics and execution. Even if they’re not an asshole, they will come off like an asshole to most people who have to work under them. That’s Tier 1.

Tier 2 is that we have horrible definitions of success in most first-world economies. Making good money, buying a nice-sized house, and spending time with your family consistently are not markers of success. It’s all about more, more, more. You need to be a high achiever. Even if you absolutely despise Trump, hard to argue that he’s “successful” in our base terms. As such, America just minted perhaps its biggest myth. That’s fun!

For years, the path to this success/productivity has been “be a workaholic.” That becomes all some of these guys know. When they become CEOs, their perception of leadership competencies is “Everyone else should be working 18-hour days.” If some of those people have three kids under 10 or other interests, they begin to perceive their CEO as an asshole.

Once you realize the psychology of how most people approach work, these issues become more challenging. As generations rise up and automation becomes an increasing reality, I do think some of the “human touch” leadership competencies may return to the work world. It’ll be our best push-back against a tech-only future. But right now? This is a pipe dream for a lot of companies, many of whom still operate on 1991 metrics and bureaucracy-laden management tiers.

So is one of the core leadership competencies of a CEO that he/she must be an asshole? No. Not at all. But do we unfortunately frame it up that way frequently? Yes. Very much so.

What else might you add about leadership competencies and being a jerk?