How many assholes is too many assholes?

Had an interesting conversation with a friend recently. The gist was his assertion that in a fast-moving company, a certain number of assholes that are also brilliant performers may be acceptable, if not desirable. The logic is the value the assholes deliver through their brilliant performance outweighs the harm they do to the organization.  

Let’s define what I mean by “asshole.” The easiest way is the reverse of an L5 Leader as defined in Jim Collins’ “Good to Great.” An L5 leader is someone who prioritizes the company’s goals over their own while exhibiting a strong tendency toward modesty. An asshole, then, is the opposite of that. Someone who’s overtly arrogant and domineering and prioritizes their own success over that of their team or organization. This often results in someone putting themselves above others or making it a habit to blame others for things going wrong. 

Reds are not Assholes 

The Disc personality profile system defines a Red as a task-oriented, extraverted individual. That is, task-oriented as opposed to relationship-oriented, so you can see how someone like that, someone who’s not naturally aligned to creating and maintaining relationships with their directs or peers might come off as an asshole. 

The mistake is an easy one to make, but if you look around your org, I'd be surprised if you didn’t see a fair number of Reds in senior leadership roles. Those folks got there by delivering results, either on their own, or through others. Organizations value Reds precisely because they’re task-oriented and get things done. 

That doesn’t mean that their indifference to the relationship damage they cause in pursuit of their goal should be ignored. It’s no fun to work for someone who only sees you as a cog or, in engineering parlance, a code monkey. But what differentiates Reds from Assholes is that Reds can be reasoned with because their goals match your own: the success of the project/OKR/Company. That gives you a common ground to build on. 

An Asshole, however, is more concerned with their own success, and that means there is no common ground between you. That, in turn, means that an Asshole is immune to reason, no matter how well-put. You won’t win arguing with an Asshole. Heck, you won’t even be heard. 

The 0-Asshole Policy 

I believe that there’s no such thing as an acceptable number of Assholes. An organization that tolerates assholes for any reason whatsoever allows a culture of self-doubt to gradually set in. When the asshole in question has power over others, that self-doubt magnifies into active fear, and fear is a productivity killer. You can’t expect people to perform at their best when they’re spending significant mental cycles fearing for their job security or figuring out ways to avoid the asshole in question. Innovation stalls. Ownership disappears.  

Ostensibly, HR is supposed to be a bulwark against this sort of abuse. But, and I’ve seen this over and again in startup environments, they tend to be either unaware of the problem (both The Narcissist and The Controller tend to be great at managing up) or are unwilling to intervene. Larger organizations have successfully grown in part because they’ve weeded the assholes out of their midst, though a few do still slip in from time to time. Those become like the proverbial teaspoon of poison in the village well: the effects spread and ultimately impact everyone. In the better orgs, the leaders don’t tolerate this and weed these people out quickly. 

A call to action 

I believe every organization needs to have a CCO – a Chief-Culture-Officer, whose job it is to monitor workplace culture and correct issues as they come up, including weeding out the assholes. In lieu of that, the job falls to us. Do not suffer in silence. Do not take on the burden of self-doubt when confronted with malicious, rude, intolerant, or self-aggrandizing behavior. Engage with HR. Engage with your leadership. And if your leadership is the one perpetuating the problem, leave.