Do you really need to be a ‘‘jerk’’ to succeed in today’s Corporate world?

A friend who used to be a part of my team and is currently interviewing for new opportunities commented to me about how so many senior(ish) leaders she has met recently as part of the recruitment process came across as arrogant and rude. She joked - “it seems like that being a ‘jerk’ is a prerequisite to succeed in today’s workplace”.

I looked up the meaning of the word ‘jerk’ online. The definitions range from “a contemptibly foolish person” to an “insensitive, selfish, ignorant, arrogant person who is inconsiderate and does stupid things.” One description from Urbandictionary.com was quite interesting and caught my attention “Mandatory mind-set for self-survival within corporate America”. My friend’s comment would indicate that it is pretty much the same in Corporate India as well.

During the course of my career, I have worked with many challenging peers and senior colleagues; which would be true of most of us who have spent adequate time in the Corporate world. Some were demanding, some wouldn’t take decisions or more dangerously would flip flop on their decisions but the ones who left the most lasting, unpleasant impressions on me were those who were mean, arrogant, insensitive and often hurtful - as a practice, not one - off incidents. When I started my career, I believed that ‘respect’ and ‘courtesy’ towards others would be a basic tenet to be employable in any workplace and organizations would reinforce it. As I grew in my career, I realized that wasn’t always true. There are quite a few ‘jerks’ in the Corporate world and some of them are in senior and powerful positions.

I have also read about how some of the most successful and well known leaders in the world including Steve Jobs fell into this category and were difficult to work with. In fact, a most interesting article I came across referred to research done in the University of Amsterdam where they found that semi-obnoxious behaviours not only can make a person seem more powerful, but can make them more powerful, period. The same goes for overconfidence. The point being made here is that rudeness and immodesty can make a person seem more powerful. Strange, huh? Perhaps it's how others respond to these 'jerk' behaviours that is equally dysfunctional and needs reflection.

The other question to ask is how do these ‘jerks’ become successful and reach these positions of power? In most cases, these employees were probably good individual contributors – driven, focussed, and aggressive and that gets them promoted to a manager level position. However, they then became responsible for others and nobody taught them that power and intimidation is not leadership. Maybe they had a manager they admired in the formative years of their career and they weren’t able to discern their strengths vs. the not so good qualities. Maybe they managed up really well (the well-known phenomenon of kissing up and kicking down). The point is that many of them are producing ‘results’ for the businesses / functions/ teams/ organizations they lead (the lens for results here is typically short – term, financial results.

So especially for those of you who are starting out in your careers - is there a business case  for you to be a ‘jerk’ at the workplace to be successful and advance your career? The answer is a big resounding NO.

Courtesy, respect, kindness and good manners are not over-rated. They usually increase your probability of success - more people will want to work with you and root for your success. You can and must be tough; not tolerate sub - standard work and demand excellence – and for all this you don’t have to be a ‘jerk’. Like with a lot of others things in life, the key is to find a balance and it is often a very delicate balance. It’s good to be confident, it’s not ok to be arrogant. It’s appropriate to challenge/ criticize work/ deliverables, not people. It’s ok to be tough and not rude. That is if you want to be respected and not just liked.

Being a ‘jerk’ doesn’t bring any benefit to your team – it likely will fail you in the long term. ‘Jerks' have big egos and so they think everything depends on them – hence their teams never shine or come up with great ideas. They generate a culture of fear – so nobody takes risks. It creates mediocrity and over dependence on the person and at some point, the organization will recognize it and they will pay the price.

Last but not the least, these ‘jerks’ didn’t succeed because of their obnoxious behaviours but despite them. Think about it; think about how much further they could have gone if they didn’t have these behaviours. Not that they will ever recognize this fact – because they aren't really burdened by self-doubt!