Do you need low empathy to climb the corporate ladder?

[Anonymous]

I've noticed the corporate world and even government is for psychopaths and people with low empathy and more logical skills? anyone in the corporate world want to explain there experiences?

[OneViewpoint]

Nope you've got it wrong. 95% of people get it wrong. Because a lot of people who are not leaders get promoted based on their individual contributions in a given area like sales, engineering, or finance. "Hey Dave's the beast engineer we've got, let's make Dave the VP of engineering." Only Dave doesn't want to be a manager. or worry about other people's career path. Or strategic planning. Or interpersonal squabbles on a team. Dave just wants to design circuit boards for graphics cards. So Dave hates his job and sucks at it, LOL. And that's what you end up witnessing.

What a lot (most) people struggle with as they begin to move up the ladder is change. And one of the fundamental changes that needs to happen is that you need to start shifting your skillset away from your education and experience as say an engineer or a finance guy and towards people skills and risk identification / management. Intangibles. Unfortunately, they don't teach that stuff in high school or university. And most businesses don't have any training for new managers or people being elevated to senior management.

So people are left to figure it out for themselves. Or not. But most people suck at it. They keep on doing whatever they were doing as an individual contributor because , the familiar is easy and change is hard. Rarely, you'll encounter someone who has those innate skills and self awareness. But more likely you'll run into someone who is pissed off and doesn't realize his job description changed with his job title and his paycheck. I've seen it a 1,000 times. In the military and the private sector.

But yes, there are also the occasional sociopaths or psychopaths who get by being the loudest asshole in the room and trying to intimidate everyone around them. They're relatively easy to spot and deal with.

The clueless people are tougher, they don't know they're clueless. They don't know how to mentor, develop, train, inspire, and hold accountable the team they are supposed to be leading. They run away from those things and hide in what's familiar to them.

[Pterodon]

I was an aircraft mechanic in civil service at a major depot level air force base. What I saw was the Peter principle everywhere. They don’t promote really good workers because they’re needed for production. They promote the fuckups instead of firing them or just move them to another area. I didn’t last long. I came from civilian aviation where most companies are normal and don’t use DEI or promote fuckups and instead promote based on merit and time
at company

[jennifer_bloom]

If you have high intelligence you can climb the ladder without being a psychopath or going to parties. I know people who achieved that.

[exitseven]

Yes, to get ahead you have to treat people like tools, to be used and then cast aside when they were out. I always had the backs of all the people that worked for me. I was often at odds with the big cheeses.

[slatyb]

That depends on the company, but generally rewarding unethical people is not good business.

[Anonymous]

It probably helps yeah

[Agape93]

No but it helps