Why do we celebrate incompetent leaders? | Martin Gutmann | TEDxBerlin

Management historian Martin Gutmann challenges us to rethink what great leadership looks like. While we tend to celebrate those with a proclivity for action and brash words, great leaders are often precisely those who don't need to generate excessive noise or activity. To make this point, Gutmann draws on contemporary research and historical examples, including the famed but disaster-prone Ernest Shackleton.

[captainobvious]

I’ve worked in IT my entire life, the people who’s infrastructure takes a dive and they end up pulling an all-nighter are celebrated, but if your infrastructure is always consistently working and there’s never any drama, you’re somehow ignored and treated as just an extra body when you’ve been the most reliable person there.

[revengebed]

_Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened._

[tiredperson]

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"

[DigSamurai]

The end message is why my favorite Einstein quote is "a clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it in the first place"

[seth]

Lessons we learned:

- speak more no matter what you say
- walk around confidently
- always acting like you are needed urgently and always on calls
- paint everything as a crisis

👍🏻 thanks for the promotion

[leedogification]

An old upper management I once worked for said "Many times you don't know what jobs a good manager does until they don't do them."

[SSNReactorOperator]

Something taught to me a long time ago: “Don’t confuse effort with results.”

[alangibb]

I have run several factories in the last 30 years and can't count the number of "action oriented managers" I have encountered (especially in sales). Invariably I have taken over under-performing production lines and been told that making the workers "work harder" is the key to success. After a year, or sometimes more, when the numbers are up, I have to explain that making people's jobs easier has been the key to the change.

[ysteinfjr]

Roald Amundsen is by no means forgotten in Norway. This guy Shackleton on the other hand is someone I barely have heard about.

[Indoor_Carrot]

His river example makes me think of soldiers we celebrate.
We fixate on extreme examples of heroism but ignore the smaller things that made a huge difference.
The men responsible for maintaining food and ammo to frontline troops are often forgotten but were invaluable.

[whateverrandomnumber]

It's not only about leadership.

Any good professional will make his work look easy to an outsider.

[thuvermolly]

There's a Chinese saying (I know...how cliche, but this one is real...) -- "the skilled warrior achieves no spectacular feats" 善战者无赫赫之功. Some competent leaders achieve wonderful results but just don't make enough noise to be noticed.

[katerbln]

Had a supervisor who talked a lot with our team lead, did not support the team in any way and was only talking down to us to repeat what team lead already told us. She got promoted and I was puzzled why. I realized then exactly that, people who make noise and appear to be busy get rewarded, even if they had done nothing for the team.

[sirsky]

One of the best TED talks I heard so far. As an IT specialist, I often had to present the problems I solved to my boss in a more dramatic way, even if they were relatively easy to resolve. After some time, I requested a pay raise and received a 10% increase. Now, I’m preparing my reports for the next six months to request another pay raise. It's unfortunate, but this is the reality of how management often thinks.

[joeszpak]

This describes perfectly my 37 year career both with the Government and Contractor business I was When my company picked internal “Leaders” to speak at our leadership symposiums for the last 15 years, they picked people who were part of the root cause of a major issue who were then flooded with resources to become the “hero” to get through the self imposed crisis. Haha, ANYONE with unlimited support can get through a tough issue….most people don’t even stop to think about why the issue happened in the first place and who are the real leaders who consistently prevent them!

[tom]

I noticed this within my life as well. If you're too competent, you're taken for granted because there's no obvious and visible example of struggle and "hardwork." This is even more true for family and friends than at work.

[yvettejon]

This was exactly what I needed to hear. My boss is asking for a report on staff morale, which I've told him repeatedly was low, and I've been resistant to doing it. I now know why. I've talked to him about it before to head off problems, but he inevitably ignores what i say, until the wheels come off. I'm exhausted. I think he doesn't realize how low my morale is as well. He dismisses people who are steady and reliable for those who make "busy work" for others to do to make themselves look good. This talk helped me to figure out how I want to address it again with him. Thank you, I need it.

[kishoresoma]

In life and leadership, we often mistake noise and drama for true capability. The allure of dramatic stories and visible action can overshadow the quiet, steady work of those who plan meticulously and avoid crises. Effective leaders are not those who constantly battle emergencies, but those who prevent them through careful preparation, deep understanding, and thoughtful execution. True success often appears effortless because it is the result of rigorous behind-the-scenes work. Therefore, we must learn to recognize and celebrate the quiet, diligent leaders who create stability and guide us smoothly through challenges, rather than those who thrive on chaos and spectacle. The best leadership often goes unnoticed because it is proactive, not reactive.

[Meower]

The "noise" aspect is a variation on Dunning-Kruger. Someone who knows a little bit about a subject tends to publicly exhibit more confidence WRT that subject. Someone who genuinely knows about a subject tends not to seem particularly confident. They're not loud. They tend to be quietly confident and genuinely make it all look easy. The clueless think it's easy because they genuinely don't know just what they're getting into.

When you know about Dunning-Kruger, it changes how you behave and what you look for.

[maximumkillmtg]

I'm an anesthesiologist, and we value those who never run into problems. As a profession, we have this mindset of avoiding problems in the first place and look down on those who can "fix problems" but keep on running into new ones to fix.