[VoodooJuJu]

I mostly understand this, but it doesn't go deep enough.

Sure, I don't worry about what people consciously think of me, like "Does he think I'm incompetent because of that mistake I made? Does she like the way I'm dressed?". I'm more concerned with what they're not thinking, or rather the biases they may be unconsciously harboring about myself or others. Look at this [1], from a study on the relation of criminal sentences and attractiveness:

>Physical Attractiveness had a significant influence on judges sentencing. The more unattractive the criminal, the higher the sentence. Or conversely, the more attractive the criminal, the lower the sentence. The results of three studies show a minimum increase of 119.25% and a maximum increase of 304.88%.

That's pretty disturbing to me. It what other ways am I being treated and being shaped by the unconscious biases of others? Say Jim gets promoted into management and made leader of a project instead of me, because he's a "better fit" for the role. For what reasons is he a "better fit"? Imagine if the unconscious mind could speak. It might say something like this:

"Jim was made tribe leader because of his robust musculature. His square jaw arouses me to no end - such an indicator of higher testosterone, strength, and disease resistance will serve our offspring well. Broad-shouldered Jim can probably throw a spear hard enough to pierce fifty men. A warrior of his magnitude will surely lead us to victory against our ancestral foe, the Google tribe."

Okay, that's fine, but what does that have to do with shipping a profitable software product?

"Square. Jaw."

Completely absurd. We can never completely relieve ourselves of these kinds of biases, and of politics. But I believe we can mitigate it to a meaningful degree. We can have meaningful standards and metrics for evaluating people for certain roles. Horowitz talks about this kind of politics-mitigation in at least one chapter in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

[1] The Law Project. (2021, January 16). The Law Project. Retrieved from https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bia.... (The relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409)

[bonoboTP]

But what if it's a self fulfilling bias in the sense that he actually will be a better leader precisely because that little unconscious man in people's minds will say those kinds of things to them and they will actually be more likely to follow his lead than if you put a weakling in his place who is technically better versed in software.

As in, society is biased to pick the square-jaw guy for leadership, because society knows that society follows square-jaw guys in leader roles better.

[dunmalg]

>they will actually be more likely to follow his lead

Good leadership is less about convincing people to follow you than it is about being able to lead people in the right direction. David Koresh was highly charismatic and convinced a lot of people to follow him, but I doubt anyone would consider him a "good leader".

[bonoboTP]

Or perhaps it's more about synchronizing, like a musical orchestra under a conductor's lead. Whichever piece they play, it matters most that they play the same piece to the same beat and pulse, instead of everyone trying to play their own favorite melody.

Often among roughly equally talented people what matters is to have a clear vision, any vision and to orient a whole group towards the same direction. It's really hard to judge in advance who is better in long term vision and strategy. Experts don't have a great track record in this and CEOs also don't seem to have a great sense of direction (ie their track record quickly regresses to the mean).

Leadership is to a large degree about crafting a convincing narrative and fostering acting in unison. "To make people long for the sea" etc.

[kubanczyk]

> Completely absurd.

Where it matters, people and organizations are able to overcome bias. We got a square-jaw man to the moon, but the rocket itself was not designed by a square-jaw men.

The key phrase: where it matters.