On the Banality of Execs, A Short Introduction
Fear not the sociopath, but the average and the mundane exec as they are legion
When I was first contemplating writing a series of posts on the endemic challenges faced by middle management, I imagined an extended book version titled The Banality of Execs: [Subtitle].
When my peers complain about their bosses—almost always a CxO—there is always either an underlying or a direct accusation of them being purposefully evil. I believe it’s merely random people making arbitrary decisions in accord with their own biases, just like everyone else. When their decisions hurt us, we are inclined to see them as malicious. But in reality, in most cases, they are just mediocre.
Hannah Arendt, one of the most prominent political theorists of the 20th century, coined the term as the subtitle of her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil1. Without going into detail, the narrative before the trial was that Eichmann was some Marvel-esque supervillain with inhuman intelligence, a fanatic Nazi hellbent on achieving their goal of Holocaust.
What showed up at the trial was a lame middle manager who was
just following orders aka Befehl ist Befehl
merely upholding the law
trying to do his job (and he wanted to do it well)
absolved of any responsibility or guilt, because the decisions were already made by his superiors
Combined with his dispassionate demeanor and overall lack of empathy during his trial, Arendt observed what she called the banality of evil—instead of a extraordinary fanatic, his portrayal was one of average and mundane.
Arendt notes: he claimed supreme intelligence, but failed to finish high school or vocational training2. He was a joiner all his life; he joined the SS after failing to get into other organisations. He was fluent in ‘officialese’—i.e. legal or corporate speak—to make Nazi policies more palatable. When he saw that the rank-and-file of the German civil service displaying enthusiasm to be accessory to mass murder at the Wannsee conference, he felt like Pontius Pilate—his moral responsibility shrunk.
My aim is not to literally liken execs to Nazis. It is more about Arendt’s observation of how individuals under strict regimes—where power dynamics are fundamental dictators of action—may need not be extremists to inflict great societal harm.
Most, almost all, companies have a hierarchy that similarly incentivises a cog in a machine middle manager; do you not
need to do what your boss tells you
follow company procedures
want to do your job and do it well (so you get recognition/promotion)
feel that the [unpopular] decision has been made already, and you are merely the messenger
It is also about the percentages. Statistically, there will be way fewer truly villainous bosses than the mundane and the average (duh). While it will suck greatly if your boss is indeed a psychopath—apparently 1 in 5 CEOs are, compared 1 in 100 in the general population— you are still much more likely to suffer at the hands of an unremarkable boss, as they are legion.
Further, similar to what I wrote recently on the art of disagree and commit, you want to replace the self-victimisation narrative with one of agency.
You will be spectacularly ineffective under an evil boss, imagined or real. In case of real evil, you should change jobs. Otherwise, in the same vein of various variations of Hanlon’s razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity and ignorance and forgetfulness and neglect and incompetence and…
Things You Can Do to Empower Yourself
Stop thinking it’s about you: Humans are ridiculously self-centred. We mostly think about ourselves, and when we think of other people, we think about what they think of us. The adage of not caring about what others think of you when you get old? It’s more like realising no one really cared in the first place.
Assume good intentions but bad execution: Everyone is busy, including the execs. They probably have good intentions, but they could be distracted, stressed, neurodivergent, drowning in imposter syndrome, being a first time parent etc. This does not necessarily excuse their behaviour (if it keeps happening and they don’t address it), but you should…
Empathise—this will be you one day: When you get to be the boss, you will mostly be the same person as you are today. But now you are at the top, you will make similar decisions and some of your employers will think you are evil. Are you evil? Probably not.
On a closing tangent, I’m a bit saddened by two prominent members of the statistical jargon—average and mediocrity—having a negative connotations in everyday speech. Circa 1930s, they widely meant general expectation; e.g. the average of three excellent workers (assume no friction etc.) is excellence. The original title of the regression to the mean concept is regression towards mediocrity, which you gotta admit sounds much cooler.
First published as a five-part article in the New Yorker.
To be fair, one can be rather intelligent and not finish high school.