[adekok]

I know a number of people in the military, and there's a lot to be said for asserting command presence. Where it doesn't matter what the orders are, just that someone is there giving clear orders.

I've rarely seen that in managers. The issue I was talking about above was that managers really can think of themselves as "better" or having "secret knowledge" that enables them to lord it over the peasant engineers.

I have ethical issues with such an attitude. People are people, no matter how small.

[cerrelio]

My company's style is a culture of consensus. No one really "gives orders," because that's too aggressive, and someone might feel hurt. I find it fucking awful. If there's disagreement about something, usually another person is brought into the mix for "input," ad infinitum. This happens until the issue becomes a non-issue or a disagreement over a new issue occurs.

I might disagree with someone if they ordered me to do something I think is wrong, but I actually admire them for making a decision. There's nothing worse than making no progress because no one has the balls or authority to say "there's contention over this issue, but I think X is the best course."

[mirceal]

Oh yeah. Ye old "disagree w/ them until they don't care". It's terrible. Usually the most stubborn peasant will get his way. A toxic culture is born/consolidated. It drains any excitement that you may have for the job. The whole process turn into a huge circlej*rl.