Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic || Why So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders

Thomas is the chief Talent scientist at Manpower Group, a professor of Business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and an associate at Harvard's Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He's the author of Why do so Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? And How To Fix It, as well as nine other books and over one hundred and sixty scientific publications. He's the co founder of Deeper Signals and Meta Profiling, and is a regular contributor to HBr, Fast Company and

Business Insider. Thomas, so great to chat with you today. Yeah. Likewise, thank you for having me, Scott. Yeah, what a interesting topic of a book. I didn't see that coming, you know, I've seen your other books, and then this one came out. I was like, huh, like, why that one? So maybe you could tell me the genesis of this topic, you know, I mean, I considered writing one with the title why do so many competent men Become Leaders? But we figured

it would sell less. Come on now, jokes aside. The book originated or came out of an article an essay I wrote for HBr in twenty thirteen that was a

reaction to Cheryl Sandberg's leaning argument. I felt that, you know, people needed an alternative in the form of a psychological explanation of why so many competent women failed to reach the leaders And in my view, the issue was not that they weren't leaning in or emulating men, but that we're not very good at judging competence in people in general, and women stake confidence for competence, you know, unfairly and incorrectly reward those who think very highly of themselves even

when they're not very good, and that that is to the detriment of those who have talent but maybe more modest stumble, et cetera. Yeah, so I'm trying to understand exactly what your narrative differs from the standard narrative. So most people focus on underrepresentation of women in leadership positions through reasons such as like discrimination, and some psychologists argue through motivation, you know, like that women are on average or not as motivated for achievement and social status and

things as men. And so you don't deny some of those reasons as well, right, But first of all, you don't deny alternative explanations. Yeah, basically multiple factors, right, correct, there's always multiple factors, right, And I definitely you know, don't deny the kind of contextual socio political, let's say, the macro factors that contribute to the glass ceiling. We all know, for example, that when countries change maternity and paternity laws to make them similar, it immediately creates a

big difference. You know, these are changes to regulations and laws would exist, and you know they are in enhanced the politicians. But then when it comes to the psychological reasons, typically people focus on either differences and ability or motivation.

And even though today there are a few data driven people who would argue that there are meaningful differences in the ability to lead, still often those same people would say, oh, you know, it has to do with differences in aspirations motivations. And actually, if you look at the science that has been published in the last ten fifteen years throughout the industrialized world, there aren't any differences anymore. Women are as

interested in being managers or leaders as men are. Oh really exactly so, even though there may still exist gender differences on other dimensions, like when we look at interest in like math, science versus education, psychology, et cetera, when it comes to leadership in particular, there does not seem

to be gener differences in motivation. That's correct, correct, And even if you take, for example, you know, the research which I know you're familiar with on you know, traditional gender differences invocational interested even if you look at that, which is based on kind of much older historical differences in gender differences in motivation or vocational interests, you would find that typically men are more interested in things, maybe ideas,

and women are more interested in people. Well, what does that tell you about interests in being a manager or being a leader, which is primarily about dealing with people? What a good point. So, if anything, you can make the argument that women are better suited for managing humans. Correct. Even when Google fired James deth More for quoting that research, actually they failed to interpret that. Even his own interpretation is what you have suggested that, if anything, women are

more naturally inclined to be managers. Yeah, so it's an interesting twist and I think it's a good point. So I'm glad I'm having you on the podcast today. Thank you. So I want to just talk about these reasons that you offer for so many incompetent men. You put forward three in this t X talk. I watched the viewers. I wondering if you can go through all three? Is that? Okay? Sure, and we can talk about each one, you know, okay, yeah,

absolutely so. Well, you know, the main reason is a disconnect which exists between people's leadership archetypes, what most people in their fantasized views or models of what it is to be a leader entails, and the attributes that are actually needed to be an effective leader. And so more more specifically, I dive into three attributes. The first is our emphasis on confidence rather than competence. The second is our empats. That's just like, let's go through each one

and then like have a discussion about it. Sure. So first, you know, people focus more on confidence than competence. What

that means is it's a lot easier to observe. Certainly if you look at how leaders are vetted or evaluated in most corporations, In most organizations, there's a very very strong focus on short term interactions, unstructured interviews, conversations, face to face meetings, et cetera, which means that for people, it's much easier to observe things like assertiveness confidence than

to actually figure out whether somebody has competence. In today's world, you know, leadership is very complex and unless you have great expertise, is going to be very difficult for you to evaluate whether someone has good technical skills, domain specific expertise. And then even things like intelligence, creativity, curiosity, these things

are not easily observable, but confidence is. And especially in the Western world and primarily in America, we habituated to this idea that when people are assertive or they seem confidence, they must be good, you know, the kind of fake it till you make it idea. Oh yeah, we really

do have trouble distinuision between these things. And I think, like, if I remember correct the Invisible Guerrilla book or that Christopher Shabree and co authored, and they talk a lot about about that's one of the strong biases among humans, is that in ability distinguished between those two, so that that's one reason for so many incompetentment. What's the second one. The second one is that we emphasize charisma instead of

focusing on humility. In fact, you know, we have been paying lip service to humidity for the past two or three decades, quoting books such as Jim Collins's From Good to Great saying, oh, yeah, the best leaders are humbled. But then if you look at our leadership choices, either in organizations or in politics, they very rarely reflect an interest in having leaders who are humbled. More often than not, we focus on whether they seem to have, you know,

the X factor, whether they're entertaining. In American presidential elections, I think the strongest predictor of who wins, other than height is who would you rather have a beer with? You know, and you know, that might be nice, but most voters we're probably not going to get to have a beer with the president, certainly not the current one who is a teetotaler. But in general, you know, it

doesn't matter if you select people with those characters. Is. Of course, one can be charismatic and competent, But if you focus so much on charisma and select people based purely on the impressions they make in televised debates or short interactions, you're gonna inadvertently hire a lot of people who are not that competent, including some people who might have some psychopathic tendencies and some dark side traits. Yeah. Yeah, there's a quote of yours you say there's a surplus

of charismatic leaders with a fascinating dark side. I thought that's an interesting quote, exactly, And you know, and it's kind of, in a way a vicious circle because we all love reading books or watching movies on those leaders because they are captivating. But let me tell you, people will be much better off if they were managed by leaders who are actually quite boring, predictable, and not that psychopathic. Yeah,

keep it to the television, right, correct, exactly. So the third one, yes, two, my third one, yeah, And then the third one is, you know, it's more recent in a way, but it's quite a common phenomenon, is that we're more likely to select individuals who are narcissistic, even if it you know, mild narcissistic tendencies, being entitled, self obsessed people who are their biggest funds and admirers, and who seduces with megalomaniac visions that are impossible to execute,

then people with integrity, I think certainly if you look at the vast number of scandals that have been reported in the past ten years, and if there's one big learning from the hashtag me to age is that for too long, we've selected individuals to leadership roles who feel so entitled that they think they can get away with murder literally, and they have no limits, and they're not

very good at self control. And you know, there is a general lack of integrity and morality in our choices of leaders And when I say choices, you know I mean both in democracies when people vote and elect candidates, and also in organizations or corporations when HR departments are

in charge of making these choices. Yeah. So, by linking this to narcissism to males, your citing research on the statistically significan difference on average between males and females in the tree, grandiose narcissism is that right, Yeah, that's correct.

So the Peter Harms study, and it's interesting in that very study meta analysis, you can see that there's a worrying chronological effect whereby in the last two or three decades, the gender differences and narcissism have been decreasing, mostly because women are becoming as narcissistic as men, but men still have an advantage. And more importantly, the main point I

make is that narcissists over index in leadership roles. They are at least three or four times more like to be in leadership roles than in the you know, in kind of employees roles or the over population. Is that not just narcissm, but would you say the whole dark triad? Yeah, you know, as you know, they are often confounded, right, So, and sometimes the measures that are use in the study might not be pure measures of narcissism, but have some

elements of Machiavelianism. Certainly, even if you look at much of the advice that the self help industry focuses on when it comes to helping people become leaders, preaches or foments Machiavelian tactics of manipulations. Right, if your way to help people become leaders is to help them show off, take credit for other people's achievements, blame others for their mistakes, brand and you know, be as their way up and develop politically political savvy. It looks a lot like a

House of Cards episode. And you know, there are certainly overlapping characteristics between that and being Machiavelian. Yeah, and then the third member of the Some people my listeners might not know what the dark triad consists of, but Macavelianism, narcisism, and subcritical psychopathy. But you know, there's this research try and understand what is the dark core of all these dark traits. There's even more, because some people have said

there's even more. There's like sadism, there's spitefulness, et cetera, et cetera. So there seems to be the stark core of callousness and manipulativeness correct and where there are generally speaking deficits in empathy and you know, bigger focus or attention on advancing one's own individuals self interest, even if it comes at the expense of others. You know, and I think in a way I like to use sometimes the kind of the evolutionary term of the free rider

phenomenon or effect, because you could see why. You know, certainly, if the system is moral enough and high functioning, it will always allow for a certain number of individuals who take more than what they give and take advantage of that system. Where things start going wrong is when the majority of people in that system, certainly those who are in charge, have these you know, parasitic effects, and that's

in a way organizations and will self destruct. But the problem is there's a lot of casualties and people that suffer the consequence. So we will be better off avoiding it by minimizing, you know, the dark side tendencies that people have when they are leadership roles. What are your own narcism levels? Look, you know, I always say I grew I grew up in Argentina, where you know, we are probably the most deluded nation underwater. So I think more than Americans. Yes, I think so. I think so.

I mean certainly because if anything, America still has the performance and the competence to back it up. Mostly right, you could argue, Okay, it's not as great as it was before, but at least it's still in most economic output measures, the world superpower Argentina was the superpower or a superpower in eighteen seventy. It's been declining ever since,

but people's egos are still intact and as high as ever. So, you know, I often describe myself as a recovering Argentine, and by that I mean that in the last twenty years, which is the time I spent away, I've been trying to work on decreasing my confidence and narcissism and becoming less entitled, more humble, more modest. And you know, it's

painful in the beginning, but it's very useful in the end. Now, are you going to run the risk of pissing off your fellow Argentinians when they listen to this podcast as well as like you make a similar argument in your tech talk text. Yeah, but you know, I think when you are really that sure that this is not about you because you're great. Something similar happened with my book

for a few years. I proposed to HBr to turn my article into a book, and they said, look, we can't publish this because seventy percent of our listeners are male executives and you are essentially insulting them. And I said, don't worry. Most of them won't realize that it's about them because that requires self awareness. Same with the Argentines. You know, they laugh at my jokes because they're like, yeah, other people in my country are deluded, but not me.

It's so like the better than average abais. Yeah, that saves you. That maya saves you book sales. So I just want to talk about this third point a second about narcissism and how you're kind of waking this to males because we found, you know, I think that one potential criticism of your work is like you're letting women

off the hook too easily. Like women on average, we found in our research score higher than men on vulnerable narcissism, a different kind of narcissism, which is more associated with self preoccupation and anxiety and self insecurity, and there's still an entitlement level there, which is what makes it part of the narcissm complex. So couldn't one make the argument that, like there's just that neither men or women are better or worse, but they kind of it comes out their

narcissism comes out in different ways. Yeah, I think that is a valid point, And you know, I think so I use kind of more broader terms and kind of maybe more exaggeratic terms to distinguish between sort of neurotic narcissism and psychotic narcissism. Right, so the first one is more insecure. I don't know if you watched the British version of The Offen. I haven't seen the American one, but in the British one, it's very clear that the

main character, played by Ricky Jervis is an insecure narcissist. Yes, regards is very much the female type, which you know, he thinks he's great, but constantly requires validation constantly, Yes, and it's very tiring, but actually not just for being an effective leader, but in general you can generally coach that profile or that type of narcissism easier than the psychotic or deluded, you know, the kind of megalomaniac narcisism.

So I think even there there is you know, small advantage to being a woman, even though of course we're still talking about small effects sizes ages, yea averages, right, But I think if you look at the whole picture and you look at, yes, on average, where women differ from men is because women tend to be less overconfident, even to the point of being more insecure, more kind

and caring, more altruistic, et cetera, and men are the opposite. Historically, that has been seen as a male advantage, but I think these are cyclical things. If we spend three or four decades selecting for an over masculine profile of a leader, there's going to be a need for the opposite. So I'm not arguing that forever, you know, we need to

have a more femine leadership style. But I think that many of the problems that we've experienced with our leadership in the last two or three decades are because of this over emphasis or over indexing of people who are overly abrasive, over confident, rectlyss you know, and hypermasculine. So a balance would be nice. Organizations that have managed to have a more mixed or cognitive diverse configuration of leader

profile tended to do better as well. I really like that point trying to get all my potential Christians out there, because that's what I do on this econoity podcast. So let me think of another one. So, you know, some people may feel like may really object to you, you equating hypermasculinity as like a bad thing, you know, like you know, there's this big controversial over this Chillette add that kind of painted some normal masculine traits is necessarily toxic.

But couldn't one make the case that's not fair to you're not being fair to men, you know, Like, you know, there's a lot of masculine qualities like just healthy assertiveness and perseverance and things that are just a you know, caretake and you know, like to manage as many people's possitive that could be actually very beneficial things. Yeah, I think you're right, you know, And just because I focus on some of the negative effects doesn't mean that I'm

not aware of the positive effects clearly. Also, at least the way I see it is, I see this as an issue of, you know, a continuum. There is a range of or in femininity and a range of or in masculinity. As you know, many biological males are more

feminine than some biological females and so forth. So, if anything, my argument is that for too long we've assumed that masculine characteristics of leadership or the masculine type is better than it actually is, and focused so much on that or selecting for that, that we ended up in many cases with leaders who overindulged and they displayed you know, antisocial behaviors bullying, harassment, and other tendencies that are so common that you know, it's almost the elephant in the room.

I mean, now they transcend it because there are so many famous cases. That is not to say that you have maybe healthy features or traits that you know we've associated with masculinity and that are an effect of masculinity, such as being competitive, you know, being as you said, confident to a healthy degree. So if anything, you know, there is the bright and the dark side of both

of feminine masculinity. My point is that we haven't emphasized enough the bright side of being a feminine leader, and actually we haven't been aware enough of the dark side of you know, masculinity. Yeah, that point, that's point's very well taken. Okay, So what should we do to improve the quality of our leaders and increase women leadership because that's important too, right, I mean, you don't want to just make the argument we just need to make more

men be like women. We also need more women, right exactly. Yeah, And so you know, this is a great question. So again I have three recommendations, which you know are part of the and how to fix it part of the book. The first is to follow the science and look for the qualities that actually make people better leaders, especially when

they don't usually make people leaders. So things like self awareness, curiosity, people's skills, emotional intelligence, and even technical expertise, humility, coach ability. Sometimes there is a theoretical understanding that these are desirable competencies and leadership traits, but there's still not much evidence that we actually select leaders on these trades. So basically focus on the right traits. That's the first recommendation. The

second one is to distrust our instincts. Even in today's age where there's so much discussion on being evidence based, data driven, big data now AI, etc. And you know, much of HR has been rebranded as people analytics, the dominant currency for making even these high stake decisions of selecting people to the highest ranks of power and leadership is intuition. Like this person who I just interviewed, Oh,

they'll fit right in. You know. The same companies that are spending and largely wasting money on unconscious bias training would see that they hire on culture fit, you know, and that just replicates by is that are often hard to find because companies don't have tradition or a habit of actually measuring the performance of the leaders. So I like you during the interview, and then I'm in charge of your performance evaluation and I say you are great, and then hey, I was such a good you know,

assessor or evaluator of leadership potential. So second one is distrust our instincts. I mean, that's like a really really big hurdle for making progress in HR in general. Okay, let's pause because I feel like you're about to move on to number three. Let's take a pause. Am I right, You're about to move on number three? Yes? I was okay, cool, I could tell. So okay, so let's pause again because

this is you're saying so many juicy things. So you just like just quickly said, like yes, because we're wasting so much money on unconscious training. Well that's not obvious. Let's unpack that more because there are still a lot of companies that believe in unconscious bias training. Can you explain a little more unpacked from the science on why

you think money would be better spent elsewhere? So I think you know, first, of course, there is variability in the type of training that is offered, right, So, on the point of how effective this intervention is in interventions are, my main objection is that a lot of these interventions focus on making the unconscious conscious. And my argument here is that most biases are not even unconscious, they are actually conscious, and that a lot of the problematic biases

are conscious. In fact, you can create more problems that you're solving by making people aware of the fact that I don't know they're biased against women, Blacks, Hispanics, old people, or unattractive people. If I'm still relying on my intuition during an interview and all I'm thinking is I should not think that the person in front of me is Hispanic, Latino or female, I will only think about that and

I will have trouble focusing on everything else. And by the way, there's no evidence that even eliminating that bias will make me an objective assessor of that person's potential compared to science based assessments or some data driven interventions. Having said that, you know, my main objection is not that the training might not work, but that the same companies are, on the one hand, spending money on those interventions, and then on the other hand saying we hire on

culture fit. You know, they're almost incompatible because if you are going to select people who are just like everybody else in your company, that's a very conscious bias that drives your talent identification efforts. I see, I see. So focus more on what conscious values and decision the trees that we're making a selection criteria. Then, yeah, then you seem to have less faith that we can so easily, in like a two hour or a full day unconscious

bias session, convert the unconscious into consciousness. Yeah, that's for sure. Right, So certainly, you know, come here, I'll show you some slides or the nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties research on you know, I eights, et cetera, which, as you know, are still there's some interesting studies there and it's still a lot of discussion as to whether how effective they are and also what happens once you find out what

the iit. I tells you, Right, So I did the Harvard Implicit Associations Test of sexism, and your sexist well, interestingly, yeah, in favor of women, you know, compared to men, so which I sort of knew, so it might that makes sense concerning this book you've written. Yeah, you know, and so for example, what happens next, right, So that's the important thing. How do I address that bias once it

is conscious? But anyway, I think if you're doing that training and then at the same time you're saying here, we basically want people who are just like everyone else, you're not going to create an inclusive culture that is accepting of people who look different. By the way, also, if companies are really thinking that they're going to address their diversity and inclusion issues by appointing minority person as chief diversity officer and that's it, it's not very serious.

Well that's a lot of companies are doing that these days exactly. And you know, and I think the intention might be fine, but much like the leaning argument or like quotas, they often backfire because those who are in charge, you know, the elite, usually men, assume that these measures are breaking or kind of reducing a meritocratic order there is in place in their view, because you know, nobody is challenging the fact that there is no meritocracy at

the moment. Really really interesting point. Okay, so let's move on to your third one. Is that Okay, the third one, which kind of addresses the second part of the question, which is, you know, not just how do we get better leaders in place, but also how do we get more women in leadership roles? And what I actually argue is that the solution is the same for achieving both things. So the third one is, don't make it easier for competent women to become leaders, make it harder for incompetent

men to become leaders. They're occupying a lot of the jobs and roles that could go to competent women or competent people in general. But at this stage, you know, the main issue is that incompetent men are overrepresented in leadership roles. So in a way, what I argue, or the main implication for diversity gender diversity policies or interventions is that the best gender diversity intervention is to focus

on talent rather than gender. If you really do assess talent and potential well and select leaders on the basis of their talent and potential, you would not just end up with more women in leadership. You would probably end up with slightly more women than men in leadership roles, which would actually lead to us having to think about positive discrimination policies to help men get to leadership roles, so if anything, it would be a reverse instance from

what you have right now. And that argument sometimes upsets even feminists who think, oh, what you're saying is that you know, it's all about the business case and ROI, and it's not important to promote social justice or fairness, not at all. You know, I adhere to the social justice and social fairness cause, but I'm also saying that most corporations are not in it to improve social justice and social fairness, and their role in the world is

not to reduce inequalities. So if you're planning to persuade them, using that argument is not going to work, and it might backfire because they think, oh, we're you doing it because it's an altruistic reason that means there can be a business case and it's not meritocratic. My argument is, look, here is the business case, and that would also, by the way, take care of the social justice issue. But

we are simply doing this to actually make you more effective. Okay, so you're not necessarily a fan of quotas then, or a quality of outcome like forcing that we had that fifty hiring fifty women fifty percent men you're more in line with the like things will work itself out in a fair and equitable manner if we focus on talent and reduce our biases. Is that more along the lines

of what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely, And I think you know, use the right words, because I'm not a fan of quotas, but at the same time, you know, I'm not against them. So if there's no other way and we can persuade organizations to be more meritocratic, then fine, let's use quotas. But I believe there is a better way, which is to select on talent. And if you do selection in a gender blind way and focus on talent, the issue

takes care of itself. So let's talk about talent for a second, because unfortunately I wasn't able to get you on the Psychology podcast to discuss your prior book, The Talent Delusion, So let's try to integrate that a little bit into this discussion. So I see a connection there between that book and in your current book and this.

You know, the major argument of your prior book was that we need to really rely more on objective data and not on our intuition, which can lead us a right and you've made a similar argument today about how we need to override our intuitions in a lot of cases, or distrust our instincts as you put it. So it does seem like this book is a bit of a continuation. You're prior one. We say, that's right, Yeah, that's correct. And in fact, you could even see there is a

trilogy because before the Time trilogy. Yeah, I mean obviously not the same as the Star Wars or other, which is probably not even a trilogy, but you know, yeaheah, it's not bad to the future. But there's still three and that you know, the first one is a book on how confidence in general is overrated. We overrated in

ourselves and in others. That was the generic book. Then the talent delusion is we are not very good at evaluating talent in the context of jobs, works and most organizations played by ear and people don't get helpful feedback to understand what they're good at, what they are where

they can be more valuable, et cetera. And this one is combining both things but taking the discussion to the realm of leadership and adding, you know, injecting the gender variable so you know, you're absolutely right and in the talent delusion. I think the main point us that to some degree, you know, everybody, if they are put in a place where their attitudes, personality, interests and abilities are in the right place, they are going to be a

high performer. Okay, but at present that doesn't happen very often because we basically use the wrong criteria and the wrong tools to actually work out what people are good at. That was the talent division. Yeah, I could see the connections between all three, but moving zooming out even further from all three, what would you say is like a key thread of all your your entire life work individual differences leaders in the workplace. I don't know, what would

you see? That's an interesting question, you know, I mean, what would you think is the main one? Is this is a chicky one? Well, I just said at the most broadest level, I see you being very interested in individual differences personality, Yeah, in the workplace. But it could also be now like you've extended this to group differences as well differences. But I think you're right, you know, because even when I talk about group differences, it's, you know,

just the aggriate level of analysis. It's a consequence of individual differences. That are, you know, also fluster around there.

So you know, ultimately, like, even though I'm very focused on what happens in the workplace and business environments and people's kind of careers, You're right, I think my main interest is ultimately using science and applying that science to understanding or decoding the most individual level of analysis of what people are like, right, and so yeah, in the tradition of individual differences or differential psychology, is trying to

understand what people's typical or default tendencies are, which doesn't mean that they're not going to change some time, you know, from one situation to another. And you know what I mean, right, yeah, yeah, So I'm wondering what has been the reaction to your book. I mean, I hope it just hasn't been purely stereotypical in the sense that the women applaud you and love you and want it'll be like, oh, Tomas, I want to hug you, you know, and all the men like

hate your guts, you know, like for like selling us out. Like, I hope it hasn't simply been that stereotypical. Please tell me that it's not just been the reaction. Yeah, you know, I think You're right, it hasn't simply been that, and it's not the only reaction, but let's say that maybe thirty percent of it is that, which, yeah, there's some of that, right, Yeah, there's some of that for sure. I think the title is somewhat of a double edged sword,

you know, or mixed blessing. It definitely gets people to pay attention to it, but it also stops people in some instances from actually reading the book and they have views on it. You know. The reaction suggest that they actually they haven't actually read the book. Yeah, but they have opinions about the title. That can be you know,

the title can be polarizing in a way. So I'm going to talk about the remaining third, the one consider the most promising, most rational, and at least more rewarding reaction, which is always when people reframe certain misconceptions and maybe they thought, oh, okay, you know, so what you're arguing is that we are, for example, focusing less on the qualities that make people more effective as leaders and the

things that actually we all assume. Because if you ask even educated and liberal and you know, professional experience people, what is the number one competency or ingredient of leadershy potential, they will the most common answer will be confidence, you know,

just helping them reframe that is important. And then I think the one that I have, you know, been probably happiest about is people who work in the diversity and inclusion space and are maybe from whatever reason, role, job, or part of their occupations, trying to promote gender equality. They've often said, oh, you know, this is a different argument, and I can see now how some of the things that we've taken for granted might not just not help,

but actually backfire, you know. So I think the timeliness, if anything, is that we have entered, I think a phase in the discussions of diversity, gender, diversity and equality where the conversation is a little bit more mature, more rational, more evidence based, and where organizations are moving from pretending

that they care to actually caring. Yeah, and again, you know, I see a lot of people really agree with that, and then I see some people saying, you know, there's just so much piling on men these days, you know, like it can lead one to kind of think, what was there anything good about men? You know, Yeah, I think it's certainly, you know, there has never been a worse time in history to be a man. But at the same time, it is still much better to be born as a man than as a woman anywhere in

the world, you know, including Scandinavia by the way. So I'm not saying the solution to the past historical injustices would be to reverse it and make the world you know, overly challenging towards men and too easy for women. But even if that happened, you could argue that it's not the most immoral scenario, given how hearted has been for the past few hundred years, at least for women, how easy it has been unfairly easy for men. So I'm not advocating for that, But if that happened, then I

can't necessarily sympathize and say, oh, poor men, you know. Yeah, I do, hear saying. You know, I think the important thing is just keep up the open conversation and mutual understanding across both sexes and both genders. And yeah, I think you've really contributed an important addition to this ongoing to cultural war. But it's also a reckoning, a male reckoning. You know, men are starting to be accountable for a lot of their bad behavior, and you know, like it's undeniable.

There's a lot of bad behavior among men. There's bad behavior among women too, right, correct. And I think you know, the interesting kind of more geeky and theoretical or even philosophical team that underpins this or some of these issues, which I know you've researched and written about a lot, is that kind of intersection or tension between cultural evolution

and biological evolution. You know, how the degree to win and watch one emerges because of the other, and to what degree they are intention and one tries to undermine the other. So I think that's very interesting, certainly, that the fact that, yeah, you know, there's a thing that

always has been and will continue to be. But then at the same time, you have huge cultural differences today between different places that show that culture can do a lot to erode, suppress, or counteract some of these biological factors. It can, And that seems to be the focus of your book, right is what can we do as a culture to have a more equitable workplace that also just has more actually competent people running the ship exactly exactly.

And I think ultimately men have always and by men I mean mankind, right, So men and women in mankind has found ways to truscend their own biology and nature. I am creating tools and machines and technology that actually advanced the speeches as well. And that's you know, at the core of much of the conversation around technology and AI today as well. Even if we don't become androids

anytime soon, hopefully not, well, I don't know. Maybe it would say it would actually help us in a lot of ways, but we don't need to get into that quest. At least, you should reassure your audience that you are a human and I am a human, and also remind me that neither of us is an incompetent man. That's important to state. Oh, that's very kind of you to think I'm a competent man. Well, I try my best, and I try to be better every day, you know, and I think that's the best we can do, right

For sure, Trying is half of the battle. Okay, what's the other half of the battle, Well, it's succeeding at it, right. But I think a lot of the issues, and this is a serious topic that fascinates me. If you look at another literature, which is the coaching and leadership development literature, which shows very clearly, some interventions are more effective than others. Yeah, that's always going to be the case. And the main determinant or driver of whether an intervention is effective is

not the coach is not. The methodology is the co g right. The old joke in psychology, which is how many psychologists it takes to change the livebut one so long as the live bulb really wants to change, you know. Can people change, Yes, but mostly they don't because they don't try, you know, or they don't get the right feedback,

or they're happy where they are. So I always say the paradox in the world of coaching is that it works with those who needed the least, because there are the people who were already curious, self critical, and eager to change. And conversely, those who have none of these attributes are a uncoachable and those who needed the most and they're the ones at the top. Yes, and we won't give specific examples, but yeah, it can be the

very very top. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or you know, I mean, I think it's fair to say that this is quite a common feature in many many, if not most heads of states. Yeah, you know, seventy percent of the world is run by people who have no shortage of confidence and charisma, but are not very humble, not very curious, not very coachable. And maybe things are better than they were, but I would argue that they could also be much better.

And the countries that are run well and where people are happiest and thriving and improving themselves tend to be run by more competent and humble people. I really like that. So I want to ask you a final question here, unless there's anything else you want to talk about. But you know, there's an age old question, and I'm going to ask it to you. Do you nice guys finish last? This is you know, sometimes I think it's the correct answer, sir. It doesn't have to be the case. It's a real yeah.

My book would focus on the fact that they do right, because even though I make the case for more women in leadership, I also make the case for nicer guys in leadership. I think we need more nice guys to be in leadership roles. And right now, when you often show that you are a nice guy, you are you know,

overlooked or ignored for leadership roles. Yeah, nice manner discriminated against as well, exactly, absolutely, And so I make that point in the book, so for the purposes of our conversation, I would say yes, but it doesn't have to be the case. Oh no, it should be the other way around, especially because as a leader, you are responsible for the well being, the performance, the success, and the fate of

your team, your followers, your subordinates. So they're going to benefit much more if you are a nice guy than if you're a nasty dot dot dot. Yeah. So I wish more people. I wish a lot of people listening to this podcast episode who are in leadership positions or can choose leaders, and hope they choose more wisely based

on your work. Absolutely, and I think you know the men who have expressed positive comments and feedback on the book, and they are also more likely to mentor and support the female case often say look, I mean I am myself disadvantage or handicapped at work because I display some of these feminine characteristics. So absolutely, yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for chatting with you, Thomas, and I wish you all the best of this important research program.

Thank you so much, Scott, thanks for listening to the Psychology podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com. Also please add a reading and review of the Psychology Podcast on iTunes. Thanks for being such a great supporter

of the podcast, and tune in next time. From more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity m from Bush some f