Oct. 23, 2017 "The six types of 'mean men' you meet at work": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:
Well before accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein surfaced, the movie mogul was one of Mark Lipton's poster boys for a troubling set of characteristics the management professor calls "mean men."
Well before accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein surfaced, the movie mogul was one of Mark Lipton's poster boys for a troubling set of characteristics the management professor calls "mean men."
Steve Jobs, Uber's Travis Kalanick, American Apparel's Dov Charney, disgraced cycling star Lance Armstrong, former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and the current President of the United States are also high on the list.
They are not just driven or tough. They are downright mean – showing signs of psychopathy – and Mr. Lipton feels it's important we understand the phenomena.
"At the extreme, we have people with psychiatric disorders leading organizations, companies and my country," says Mr. Lipton, a professor at The New School in New York.
You may work with a mean man.
It first surfaced for Mr. Lipton when he was working in the late 1990s with founders of some hot dot-com companies who troubled him: "There was a dark side to them I had not experienced before consulting with top executives." He was a management professor, not a psychologist, so when the consulting gigs ended, he drifted off.
But his unease stayed with him and he noted the phenomenon in other fields where people with an entrepreneurial mentality can thrive, notably sports, politics, elements of religion and non-profits. After six months on a fellowship at a psychiatric hospital, he was better armed to understand it and research his new book, Mean Men.
Entrepreneurs have various enviable characteristics that distinguish them from others but some, if too strong, can turn them into what he calls "monsters of management."
In particular,
need for achievement,
for autonomy,
for control,
impulsivity,
suspicion of others,
risk-taking,
and self-confidence,
all of which can be helpful, can also be dangerous, especially when you add in testosterone.
In particular,
need for achievement,
for autonomy,
for control,
impulsivity,
suspicion of others,
risk-taking,
and self-confidence,
all of which can be helpful, can also be dangerous, especially when you add in testosterone.
He says Mr. Weinstein's alleged actions were "not about sexual fulfilment but control."
Many of these figures Mr. Lipton studied are deceitful and difficult to work with – they start enterprises in partnership with somebody else, but that relationship is ultimately ruptured.
They lack empathy and are unable to feel emotions such as love.
They have a warped sense of confidence that turns into a dangerous narcissism.
As well, he says, "Their impulsivity runs amok. Entrepreneurs take risks but these guys are predisposed to take really big risks."
They lack empathy and are unable to feel emotions such as love.
They have a warped sense of confidence that turns into a dangerous narcissism.
As well, he says, "Their impulsivity runs amok. Entrepreneurs take risks but these guys are predisposed to take really big risks."
His sample group are all men, in part because the literature he studied of entrepreneurs in recent years was primarily male.
But on his office wall, he has a picture of hotelier Leona Helmsley, once dubbed The Queen of Mean, smiling as she is being booked by police for tax evasion.
Still, he says that females are taught from a young age to express their anger differently.
"While inherent goodness isn't gendered, how we react to and regard the expression of mean traits reflect a gender bias in society," he writes.
But on his office wall, he has a picture of hotelier Leona Helmsley, once dubbed The Queen of Mean, smiling as she is being booked by police for tax evasion.
Still, he says that females are taught from a young age to express their anger differently.
"While inherent goodness isn't gendered, how we react to and regard the expression of mean traits reflect a gender bias in society," he writes.
He delineates six types of mean men:
- The Opportunist: This version is arrogant, has callous disregard for others, and is adept at facile deception. They are unscrupulous and amoral in relationships, doing anything to get what they want. In the interview, he cites Lance Armstrong.
- Two Face: This mean man seems friendly, sociable and caring but it’s a façade. He points to Mr. Sandusky, who told the judge how much he cared about his students, many of whom he raped.
- The Cowboy: A thrill junkie who takes any chance to prove himself, infatuated with new possibilities and uncharted territory. He says Mr. Kalanick’s risk-taking led to Uber growing very fast but also ultimately put the company in a dire position.
- Mr. Dissatisfaction: Might also be called Mr. Aggrandizement. He feels life is not giving him his due. Feels highly insecure despite his achievements and is prone to conspicuous consumption. Meet Donald Trump.
- The Hothead: He is usually infamous for his “adult tantrums” – unpredictable and sudden displays of hostility. Here he points to Mr. Weinstein.
- The Dogmatist: Everything for this person is a chance to nag and win an argument. Steve Jobs fit the bill.
If you're working for any of these types, you want to avoid being derailed by their emotional state.
Step back when you are off-kilter and try to assess what is happening, and how to extricate yourself. Limit your contact to the individual, even if he's your boss.
Step back when you are off-kilter and try to assess what is happening, and how to extricate yourself. Limit your contact to the individual, even if he's your boss.
Mr. Lipton talks of one woman who had people alert her when Mr. Charney was coming to her office and she would leave, to avoid him. Try to avoid their phone calls and slow their pace by not returning e-mail promptly.
They need action, and if you don't help, they may turn to others. It's no guarantee you will escape unscathed but if you end up working for a mean man you may need all the help you can get.
They need action, and if you don't help, they may turn to others. It's no guarantee you will escape unscathed but if you end up working for a mean man you may need all the help you can get.
And if you're a mean man, you also need help.
There are 78 comments right now and I only read a few:
Fedar
5 hours ago
Mean, manipulative, selfish people are everywhere and their sex has nothing to do with it. Its all about opportunity. Men have had more opportunity until recently but that is changing and so will the number of mean people.
21 Reactions
Jim-dandy
5 hours ago
Fedar , it is not 'changing ' it HAS changed . Have you checked the workforce figures at your local school , bank or city ?
10 Reactions
duali
2 hours ago
In reply to:
Mean, manipulative, selfish people are everywhere and their sex has nothing to do with it. Its all about opportunity. Men have had more opportunity until recently but that is changing and so will...
— Fedar
Explain Robert Pickton's farm with 26 dead women buried on it. Apparently, he confessed to actually killing 49.
There is one very significant differentiating factor: testosterone. Mean can become violent and even deadly very quickly with large amounts of testosterone involved.
10 Reactions
Oct. 31, 2017 "The gender pay gap and Harvey Weinstein": Today I found this article by John Doyle from the Globe and Mail. It's a TV column, but it's still relevant to work.
Oct. 31, 2017 "The gender pay gap and Harvey Weinstein": Today I found this article by John Doyle from the Globe and Mail. It's a TV column, but it's still relevant to work.
There's another way to extrapolate significance from the reverberations accruing from the Harvey Weinstein scandal and it's about this: Money.
As many pundits have told us, sexual harassment is often about power and subordination and money is – as we all know – emphatically about power. As long as women are paid less than men in Hollywood they have less power.
The significance was brought home to me while in Ireland recently and I watched the repercussions from the Weinstein scandal unfold locally.
It was mostly a matter of revelations by women about sexual harassment they'd experienced while working in Irish television and radio. A meteorologist who is a familiar face on TV there said that when she first started working in her job, a male colleague asked her out on dates so persistently it became harassment. She would turn him down and he would claim, "You're leading me on" because she had once smiled at him.
A former radio reporter and pundit recalled that when she was first working on RTE Radio (RTE, like CBC, is a public- and commercial-broadcasting hybrid), a male colleague would disrobe. "There was this guy who, if you were doing an interview live on the air or if you were more likely reading a story, he would come in and sit down beside you and he would remove all of his clothing below the waist."
These stories dated from about 20 years ago. But what is happening now at RTE, like the BBC, is a scandal involving gender-pay equity. At RTE, in just one example, a female TV news presenter, it turns out, is paid "considerably less" than her male co-presenter. At the BBC it has been revealed that only one-third of its top-earning stars are women. And, across all levels at the broadcaster, men are paid 9.3-per-cent more than women. This is a livid issue over there, and rightly so.
Two years before sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood became a major issue, the hacking of e-mails from Sony Pictures divulged that many major women movie stars are paid considerably less than lesser-known male co-stars. Regrettably, the issue faded.
One shocker was that Jennifer Lawrence did not have financial parity with her male co-stars Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale in the movie American Hustle. This seems unnervingly weird, even in the crazy economics of Hollywood movie-making. In this context "star-power" seems to mean something entirely different if you're a woman.
Lawrence addressed the issue in an oddly insider-ish forum, a newsletter distributed by Lena Dunham and Girls producer Jenni Konner. But she was blunt. "When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn't get mad at Sony, I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn't want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don't need."
Lawrence also made a telling declaration, writing that women stars who try to cut a deal for more money or higher wages worry about appearing "difficult" or "spoiled."
The same Sony hack compelled Salma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow and Meryl Streep to speak out about the gender-pay gap in Hollywood. Patricia Arquette used her Oscar acceptance speech in 2015 to demand, "It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America." The speech, as did the remarks by Paltrow and Streep, drew as much scorn as praise.
Now, it is hard to get worked up about the astronomical pay scales for Hollywood movie stars. And it is true that in television, pay-parity is easier to achieve because female stars of hit shows sometimes have the heft to negotiate massive fees.
Sofia Vergara of Modern Family and Kaley Cuoco of Big Bang Theory earn about $28-million (U.S.) a season, the same as Jim Parsons earns for playing Sheldon on Big Bang.
Sofia Vergara of Modern Family and Kaley Cuoco of Big Bang Theory earn about $28-million (U.S.) a season, the same as Jim Parsons earns for playing Sheldon on Big Bang.
But there is a direct connection between money earned and power. Women in Hollywood who earn the equivalent of men are not in a subordinate position and at risk of exploitation.
Money earned is a litmus test and represents the capacity to rebuff predatory and exploitative behaviour.
As long as women are paid less in the entertainment and media worlds, those arenas are rife with undisguised, observable subordination. Predators prey on subordinates in Hollywood and in life.
Money earned is a litmus test and represents the capacity to rebuff predatory and exploitative behaviour.
As long as women are paid less in the entertainment and media worlds, those arenas are rife with undisguised, observable subordination. Predators prey on subordinates in Hollywood and in life.
11 comments:
carmyk1
2 days ago
I'm not sure this makes any sense at all.
People like Weinstein have power because they control access to money and fame.
It's not the rich, established actresses who are being harassed. It's the ones who want to be rich and established.
It's not the rich, established actresses who are being harassed. It's the ones who want to be rich and established.
How many young women would have followed Harvey to his hotel room if all they could ever earn in Hollywood was the minimum wage?
6 Reactions
Once A Calgarian
2 days ago
Of course, this reality doesn't make sense to reasonable people.
Women should not have to accept lower wages because they are women, nor should they have to follow Harvey into his hotel room to earn more than minimum wage.
Is it the big words like harassment and discrimination that confuse you?
6 Reactions
Hide 1 reply
Male Matters
2 days ago
Thoughts in general on sexual harassment:
Both men and women sometimes want just sex. No romance and love, thank you. Both married men and married women sometimes want extramarital sex but do not want to leave their spouse.
Both sexes are open to pursuing a sexual relation at work because of the convenience.
Men adjust their approach to a woman according to what they want -- either a loving relationship or just sex.
If a man wants love, he may tell an appealing woman, "Hey, looking good today." Or "You're the best-looking woman in this building/town/bar." Such compliments are feelers to see how receptive a woman might be to a direct request for a date. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Cont'd.
If a man wants only sex, he may use an approach that includes sexual overtures. This works if the woman is in the market for the same thing. If she isn't, it doesn't work, though she may have wanted a relationship with the man.
Cont'd.
6 Reactions
Male Matters
2 days ago
Points/questions to remember:
Some -- but not all -- men persist, sometimes with success.
Many women have married their boss or co-worker after initially saying no to his request for a date and to maybe one or two other requests.
Consider:
"I asked her out," he said. "She refused. I kept asking. She kept refusing."
"I'm your adviser," she said. "It's not appropriate."
The "he"? Barack Obama
The "she"? Michelle, his future wife.
https://archive.is/jrLvR
Why are only men charged with sexual harassment, other than because most bosses are men?
It seems the male boss or co-worker more likely to be accused of harassment is unattractive. Think a George Clooney look-alike versus a Harvey Weinstein look-alike. More often than not, I've noticed, the harassed woman is attractive.
Oddly enough, women still generally prefer a male boss, according to a recent poll. Google it.
5 Reactions
Male Matters
2 days ago
Years ago Cosmopolitan magazine, at an earlier time of sexual-harassment frenzy, told women how to get relationships going IN THE WORKPLACE and to unintentionally act in ways that set themselves up for sexual harassment.
Read on:
"How We Waded Into The Sexual Harassment Quagmire -- And How to Dig Out"
http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-sexual-harassment-quagmire/
http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-sexual-harassment-quagmire/
This may be the most thorough analysis you can find of what I think has for many decades been the sexes' most alienating and destructive behavioral difference. I believe this difference results in much of what is called sexual assault of women.
3 Reactions
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MandiGoodly
1 day ago
It has been shown, over and over and over again that there is in general no "wage gap". When controlled for education, hours worked, on the job experience etc etc men are women are paid the same, except in the case of young people (under 35 IIRC) where in fact men are paid less than women.
6 Reactions
Vision Quest0
18 hours ago
Wow, now I don't know WHO to trust. Mandigoodly's unsubstantiated claim? Or StatsCanada & The New York Times? Hmm, what to do, what to do?
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/gender-pay-gap-a-persistent-issue-in-canada/article34210790/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/opinion/lets-expose-the-gender-pay-gap.html
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/gender-pay-gap-a-persistent-issue-in-canada/article34210790/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/opinion/lets-expose-the-gender-pay-gap.html
3 Reactions
MandiGoodly
17 hours ago
A repeated lie, like the existence of a gender wage gap, is still just a lie.
2 Reactions
Vision Quest0
11 hours ago
Yours is a Trump move, Mandigoodly. Keep making a demonstrably false claim over and over--while providing no evidence for your position whatsoever--while suggesting the OTHER guy is doing what YOU are doing.
Like Trump bleating the phrase 'fake news' while he models and champions its use (his birther conspiracy being an early example).
You can cite sources here (use cut and paste, it's a word processing function). Accept or refute this link with another. Or, Trumpishly repeat your assertion, your call.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/08/dispelling-the-myths-why-the-gender-pay-gap-does-not-reflect-the-choices-women-make
Like Trump bleating the phrase 'fake news' while he models and champions its use (his birther conspiracy being an early example).
You can cite sources here (use cut and paste, it's a word processing function). Accept or refute this link with another. Or, Trumpishly repeat your assertion, your call.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/08/dispelling-the-myths-why-the-gender-pay-gap-does-not-reflect-the-choices-women-make
3 Reactions
MandiGoodly
7 hours ago
< this comment did not meet civility standards >
MandiGoodly
7 hours ago
Or since wage discrimination based on gender is illegal you could list a few dozen of the what must thousands and thousands of lawsuits filed by women being paid less than the guy beside them while doing the exact same work, for the same number of hours etc.
I mean to get an _average_ of $0.70 on the $1 it must be going on everywhere. Some women must be getting $0.35 on the $1 to get that average so low. The courts must be grinding to a halt dealing with all the suits.
I mean to get an _average_ of $0.70 on the $1 it must be going on everywhere. Some women must be getting $0.35 on the $1 to get that average so low. The courts must be grinding to a halt dealing with all the suits.
2 Reactions
ctheorist
23 minutes ago
In reply to:
Wow, now I don't know WHO to trust. Mandigoodly's unsubstantiated claim? Or StatsCanada & The New York Times? Hmm, what to do, what to...
— Vision Quest0
— Vision Quest0
The first article here, which is comprehensive, explicitly says the wage gap it is referring to does NOT control for differences in occupation even--it's just adding up all the salaries of women and all the salaries of men then dividing by the number of people.
As it states, men may on average be working more demanding high-stress and higher paying jobs than women. For instance, a lawyer is going to make more than someone working retail--are we arguing they should be paid the same?
The second article is an opinion piece.
As it states, men may on average be working more demanding high-stress and higher paying jobs than women. For instance, a lawyer is going to make more than someone working retail--are we arguing they should be paid the same?
The second article is an opinion piece.
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