Being such a nice chap, Clarke’s having writing the Bastard CEO in his soon-to-be-published business novel. Ironically it is incredibly easy for someone in a position of power to become an arse-hole: all they have to do is ignore their elevated rank.

In Gore Vidal’s historical novel Julian, the newly created emperor is taking a bath while discussing politics with his uncle, a distinguished senator, when his friend Oribasius arrives:

I submerged for a moment, eyes tight shut, soaking my head. When I came to the surface, Oribasius was sitting on the bench beside my uncle.

“That is no way to approach the sacred presence.” And I splashed Oribasius very satisfactorily. He laughed. My uncle Julian laughed too, for I had soaked him as well. Then I was alarmed. In just this way are monsters born. First the tyrant plays harmless games: splashes senators in the bath, serves wooden food to dinner guests, plays practical jokes; and no matter what he says or does, everyone flatters him, finds witty his most inane remarks. Then the small jokes begin to pall….

Before he became emperor, Julian would have received some censure for splashing a senator: he has now lost that feedback; as emperor he now must either have the discipline and self-awareness to be an accurate judge of his own behaviour or becomes another Nero or Caligula.

Fortunately our managers and CEO’s don’t quite have the power and privileges of Roman emperors, but they often run mad in their own smaller ways. This is especially true if they believe their own myths about their “open door policy”, or “speaking their own mind and expecting everyone else to do the same”. One of the lessons I took from the Deep Dynamics of Agile Teams course I helped organise a few years ago was that figures in authority cause resentment when they do not recognise their own rank. Behaviour which is acceptable between peers, can be inappropriate when coming from a high ranking individual: for instance gallows humour about the likelihood of redundancies is okay amongst work colleagues, but in extreme bad taste coming from a CEO.

I imagine Harry, Clarke’s fictional CEO, to be someone lacking Julian’s astuteness; he has come to believe what is implied by the behaviour of his subordinates that he is a particularly witty, interesting, and wise individual who’s views everyone is eager to hear. I would expect a Bastard CEO like Harry to

• talk the most and for longest during meetings avoiding soliciting, listening to, or giving much time to other’s views or questions
• make inappropriate jokes about other’s abilities, timeliness, or diligence (a joke about installing closed-circuit cameras to stop people slaking off for instance, would be great for demotivating a stressed-out development team)
• organise meetings (or more likely get his PA to do it) and turn up very late, or not at all. After all, no-one ever complains and Harry’s time is more important than everyone else’s time.
• lecture others at length and in detail on how their jobs should be done, without any regard for the other’s skills, experience, or actual productivity
• Blatantly appropriating other’s ideas as his own by copying entire emails or documents and signing them “Harry”, after-all when he owns the other person that person ideas are his own. Besides he probably inspired them anyway.

The corrupting influence of power is often about losing basic social feedback. Finding ways to give the individual feedback on his or here behaviour can be a way of making working with them at least tolerable. It can be a dangerous game though; sometimes it’s best to just stay out of the way.