calling all boss haters

[Originally posted at: Weird Things]

Do you think that your boss doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Does it seem that the only reason that he’s boss is because he talks a big game and people without any other ideas listen to him with little regard to the facts? And does your boss seem to think he’s great despite his seemingly obvious short-fallings? Well, science says that you’re probably right in your assessment much of the time. As it turns out, being a boss often means that you just have to confidently talk like one and managers tend to hold an overinflated opinion of themselves and their performance.

The evidence? A study by social psychologists at the University of California not only confirms the axiom that talking like a leader makes you seem like one in people’s eyes, but proves that the more dominating your personality, the easier it is to get away with incompetence. By taking a group of people and presenting them with challenges, the researchers tried to evaluate what makes someone a leader. The study’s participants generally tended to assign leadership roles and favorable ratings to people who spoke the most and seemed the most confident with little regard for the quality of their answers and suggestions.

[Read the rest of this post at: Weird Things]