Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses? (Update)

为什么有这么多坏老板?(更新)

Freakonomics Radio

社会与文化

2024-04-11

49 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We explain why firms keep producing incompetent managers — and why that’s unlikely to change.

单集文稿 ...

  • Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.

  • This week we wanted to share an episode from our archives that's one of our most popular episodes, perhaps because it talks about a problem that many of us have had.

  • It's called why are there so many bad bosses?

  • I hope you enjoy it.

  • And if by chance you have already listened to this episode, do stick around to the end for a career update from this person.

  • My name's Katie Johnson and I'm a data scientist.

  • Johnson is 33 years old and lives in England.

  • She grew up near Bristol, went to university in Birmingham, and held a series of increasingly impressive jobs at a series of companies.

  • These were all what are known as IC jobs.

  • IC standing for individual contributor, which means.

  • What it is, someone who makes, as opposed to managing people who make.

  • Johnson loved being an IC.

  • She loved analyzing data and she was really good at her job.

  • But after a while, she thought it might be nice to become a boss.

  • Yeah, I wanted to manage more and more people.

  • And you wanted to manage more people because why?

  • You were just power hungry like the rest of us?

  • I think there's a couple of reasons.

  • So the first is that I wanted to start getting more autonomy over what I was working on.

  • I would be working on stuff in my IC role and I think this isn't the most important thing.