[quantadev]

I just mean there's probably plenty of companies where there's a lot of unhappiness and with a boss who doesn't even care as long as they produce. Infamously this is how Steve Jobs supposedly managed. He was a very hard person to work for lots of the time but he produced results.

Ultimately everyone in management _should_ have their _loyalty_ to their boss, rather than to their subordinates, and different management styles can work. Of course it depends on the employees too. I've never tolerated even one slight bit of disrespect from a boss personally, even as a junior dev. If someone ever treated me badly I resigned immediately without even having the next job lined up, on pure principle. I would've lasted probably about one day working for Jobs, before quitting I bet! lol.

[melvinroest]

> I would've lasted probably about one day working for Jobs, before quitting I bet! lol.

Haha you rebel! ;-)

Isn’t this actually an incentive to keep your employees at least happy enough so they won’t quit?

A company in the same industry that is nice to work for has a competitive advantage, provided they know how to select the more competent people. Hmm, an opinion loosely held.

[quantadev]

Objectives can come into conflict. For example, if you have two employees who simply cannot work together, and you have no other team to move one of them to, you fire the guy who's less productive, because your primary objective is getting the job done. But if the lead guy is more of a troublemaker you fire him instead, but only if net benefit to "productivity" is positive. This is why managers cannot be "friends" with co-workers, because sometimes you have to let somebody go, and you'd never do that to a friend.