Management Should Be Messy
There are many celebrated adages in the business world. Old chestnuts like, “The customer is always right.” Or adjacent notions like “It takes money to make money.” And when it comes to the management side of business, we often find people espouse the corporate ideal:
“Our most important resource is our people.”
There is something noble about that sentiment. Those who embody it have a hallowed spot in the pantheon of leadership. But they probably have a less-lofty spot in the pantheon of capitalism.
Indeed, when it comes to the titans of industry, everyone can do a google search right now and find something less-inspiring about the way employees have been treated by the likes of Bezos, Jobs, Welch, Walton, Gates, Ellison, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc. So it seems like we have a divide. Do you want to be a brilliant, dominating capitalist or a warm, charismatic leader? Right brain or left brain? Execution by command-and-control or aspire-and-inspire?
No recognizable leader has been completely one-sided in this dichotomy. Some appear to have come close, though. For example, I don’t think 1990’s Bill Gates had the charisma to conjure a Steve Jobs-ian reality distortion field. Not that he needed it. He had the blunt force leverage of a pre-installed operating system to ensure his company’s success.
