Being an Asshole will get you promoted?

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Why are you like this? 😂 Ordinary truth and Y’all already wishing me bad. Last week’s Sunday Newsletter really triggered a lot of our readers. So let me clear the air

Even though I got a lot of “F*ck you responses”, as long as it got you to start being more intentional about your career, then I’m good.
Also, Dear Shady, I have not been chased o. We recently launched a daily newsletter called CareerBuddy Daily. This means you’ll hear from me only on Sundays. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely let you know when I leave CareerBuddy.

That being said, every last Sunday of the month, I love to throw out a community question where we all can share our perspectives on pressing work issues.

I thought of a lot of questions to ask you. Questions like, “Have you gotten your PVC?”, and “Has January’s salary finally entered?”. BUT! Here’s an article that caught my attention and I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

Do you believe that Jerks are more likely to get ahead at work?

I mean the workplace in itself is often portrayed as this brutal & dog-eat-dog world. You hear stuff like,

Nobody is your friend!

Your boss does not care about you

Your colleagues are not your friends

She got fucked up ‘cos she was too nice

And when you look at bosses like Elon Musk, Ebun, and other terrible bosses around the world, you’re almost forced to believe that only wickedness & tyranny will help you secure the bag.

In his research, organizational psychologist, Cameron Anderson, found that the students with disagreeable personalities weren’t any likelier to rise to positions of power than their nicer counterparts. And even in the most toxic workplaces, being an asshole didn’t help people get ahead.

So gleaning from my years of experience in the corporate world and also reading up on some of the studies done, here’s my take:

It ‘looks’ like Jerks tend to succeed more at work because their manipulative & narcissistic attitude is leveraged by one of the most important qualities for success – Assertiveness
What should matter to you most is truly caring about people and building allies. It’s not about being naively agreeable and foolishly nice.
You need both dominance and communality to win at work.
You can’t overthrow the bad guys at work by being ‘badder’. However, you can’t also win by just being “a good person”. You need to be more skillful, assertive, and bold.

As the famous saying goes, “To stop a bad guy with a gun, you need a good guy with a gun”.

Even if you work in a toxic place where a wicked person is getting promoted, it’s not because of their bullish attitude. It’s because they have built dominance & influence through results and skill so their bad behavior is often overlooked.

What are your thoughts on this?

Do you believe that only jerks get to rise in the corporate world?

I’d love to know your thoughts

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