[rgifford]

You're missing what the previous commenter said.

There are a lot of ways in which companies can succeed simply by their timing, or a couple incredibly lucky early hires, or first mover advantage in a growing space, or the right VCs -- not because of good leadership but in spite of it. Leaders take credit regardless.

Often this is why technical folks deride soft skills. Folks that tout them sound like my friend who's "figured out slot machines." My response: "Dude, that's awesome!" I'm not about to burst his bubble on the random, ambivalent jitter of the universe. We all need our delusions, who am I to take his?

[borski]

There are also a lot of ways a company could fail due to randomness. In fact, many more failure modes than success modes. Startup success definitely includes some luck, but luck alone does not define success. Clubhouse is a great example of that. Lucky, but never found a retention strategy and wasn’t managed well enough to adapt. Startup success requires skill and countless hours of hard work, period, and the leaders who are successful rarely look the same. It also requires some luck, but you need both.

I also used to deride soft skills. I learned, over time, that they’re extremely valuable, and deriding them doesn’t take away their power.

I think nearly every engineer would be well served by attending a good conflict resolution and “how to influence people” course. My 21-year-old self would smack me for saying that, but I’ve learned things since then.

[rgifford]

I agree: Conflict resolution, public speaking, salesmanship -- they're all valuable. They make for better people in this world.

When it comes to how these traits translate to the success of leaders or companies? I have no idea. I'd guess causation there is noisy. I bet leaders get a lot of mileage out of bullshit like playing surreptitious games for social capital, managing risk in decision making by offloading it and/or shifting blame, carefully crafting turn-of-phrase to manipulate people against their own self-interest -- especially in favor of a compensation structure that has senior leadership making 300:1 versus their lowest paid workers.

In a modern secularized world corporate leaders of large companies seem to take on the role of psuedo-religious figureheads that grant absolution and purpose in the face of the unknown and rob workers blind in return. Like, why in the hell do we need company values? Never understood why workers collectively put up with that patronizing, condescending nonsense. But I guess they're there for some poor shmuck that doesn't know himself otherwise and will warp his identity to them and put in 15 extra hours per week for the privilege. You gotta feel for his wife and kids though, don't you?

It's all just soft skills though -- that's the differentiator, the secret sauce, what makes great leaders. So soft. So skilled. /s

[felipemnoa]

>>We all need our delusions

Not to be an a-hole but says who and why? I think I prefer utter honesty, but ironically I may just be deluding myself.

[dennis_jeeves1]

>>We all need our delusions

>Not to be an a-hole but says who and why? I think I prefer utter honesty, but ironically I may just be deluding myself.

Well, ahem, yes, most people will call you deluded :)