Relational Versus Results-Oriented Management

Agreeableness is a personality trait that can be described as cooperative, polite, kind, and friendly. People high in agreeableness are more trusting, affectionate, altruistic, and generally displaying more prosocial behaviors than others.1 Agreeable people don’t like to rock the boat. They want the team to all get along. Agreeableness isn’t inherently good or bad. There are environments where it does well, like formal education. However, it can be a disaster in a high-pressure business environment that depends on producing quality products or services, or a technical/scientific environment that requires precise facts and processes. Quality and facts neither care about or rely upon people getting along.

Women rate higher in agreeableness than men.2 They want to be liked and will take steps not to be disliked. Men get a positive chemical boost from conflict and competition, while conflict elicits negative chemical reactions from women, creating fear, stress and sadness. So, women will avoid conflict at all costs, even the destruction of the business. Yes, you can come up with women who are exceptions, but in most cases, this dynamic fits.

In my 30+ years in Corporate Amerika, my biggest problem with female bosses was that almost all of them were relational leaders. They focused on everyone getting along, above getting the job done. This is great if you have a team where everyone is ethical and engaged, but as soon as you get a toxic player into the mix, it falls apart. I have seen many female managers and directors turn a blind eye towards, or even cover for, these toxic people, rather than calling them out and risking turmoil in the team.

I tested this when I was ready to leave the work force and retire. I called out an unethical, corrupt contractor who was raking in money and destabilizing systems. I had video evidence of his lies and corruption, evidence of documents he had plagiarized, as well as technical evidence that he was incompetent and wrecking systems, but my female director and his female director both excused it as him “meaning well” and just being “overly zealous.” When I pushed it, I was marginalize, slandered behind my back, and forced out of the company. The contractor remained there, continuing to collect money for making things worse. Human Resources was almost exclusively female, so guess where they came down on the toxic player issue? All they did was back up the two female directors. I was the problem because I was not a team player.

To a relational boss, the greatest crime isn’t failing to deliver a project. It isn’t producing a poor-quality product. It isn’t incompetence, laziness, or even fraud. No, the cardinal sin is not being a team player. Raising any kind of objection or warning is seen as a threat to smooth relations within the team. Rest assured, they will passive-aggressively make you pay the price for doing so. They will never tell you to your face, because that would be confrontational. You will just be quietly discarded behind the scenes with nobody ever telling you why.

This dynamic doesn’t just apply to work teams. It also applies to outsiders trying to sell products or services. I repeatedly saw female managers and directors purchase whatever is sold by the most charming, pretty-boy salesman without listening to in-house warnings or recommendations. It wasn’t even a sexual thing. It was simply wanting to get along and not cause any hurt feelings. Hurting a salesman’s feelings? Give me a break. I personally witnessed or experienced this on more than one occasion, a technical person being chastised or even asked to leave the room for asking the salesman to answer a valid technical question. It was seen as being “confrontational.” I’ll bet car dealers love ripping you off.

They will maintain a “perfect mental state” at all costs, including the destruction of their own lives and everything around them. They will always go for the lie because of the comfort it provides in the perfect mental state, no matter how incompatible that is with the real world.  

Aaron Clarey

Below are some of the more common actions I observed from female relational managers during the course of my corporate career:

  • Failing to call out corrupt and incompetent contractors, because it might negatively affect the team, enabling those contractors to continue cashing in for destroying systems
  • Buying whatever tech is recommended by salesman without listening to in-house people’s recommendations or even performing their own due diligence
  • Prioritizing everyone on the team feeling good about things rather than producing results
  • Hiring people based on their “synergy with the team” rather than competence or abilities
  • Promising people things to make them feel good, but then never delivering

Their management actions are predicated on everyone getting along. They care more about smoothing things over than getting things done. They care more about a façade of agreeableness, than holding people accountable for shoddy work. They care more about cooperation than doing the right thing. They care more about not upsetting a contractor, than calling him on fraud or incompetence.

Cry and rant about my words all you want. Call me misogynistic. Call me toxic. Call me the latest man-shaming buzzword. I don’t care. It is the truth. Keep ignoring it and you will keep destroying businesses.

1Agreeableness, Psychology Today

2Gender Differences in Personality across the Ten Aspects of the Big Five

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Judging, elevating or favorably treating others by physical characteristics, or traits. Replaces racism due to the fact that there is only one race, human.

The overriding view that women are strong and independent, don’t need men, and are more competent and wiser than men. Men are to realize and admit that they are both inferior and toxic.

Giving too much attention and affection, whether through gifts, compliments, or acts of service as a way of seeking validation from someone else.

Instead of accepting responsibility and facing the uncomfortable situation head-on, the deflectors will try to move the focus from themselves, usually by passing the blame onto someone or something else.

Individuals are confronted with two choices, both of which have negative results. The choices are framed to produce an emotional response in the person, forcing them to choose or look bad. The individual will fail, no matter what choice they make. The abuser will use this as leverage to further manipulate the victim by depicting them as weak, flawed or ineffective.

The manipulative process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. The person being mind controlled is not aware of the influence process, nor of the changes occurring within themselves. They believe they are acting according to their own choices.

A declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc. to frighten and emotionally force a person to do something.

The intentional manipulation of another person’s emotions to induce feelings of guilt. It is a form of emotional blackmail that is often designed to manipulate other people by preying on their emotions and making them feel responsible for something they are not.

Using sarcasm and put-downs to increase fear and self-doubt in the victim. Manipulators use this tactic to make others feel unworthy and therefore defer to them. Manipulators can make one feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them or say no.

Attempting to establish a perceived close bond with someone very quickly to overcome their natural caution and use them for money, resources or work. This is often involves a quick push for friendship or intimacy.

A manipulative tactic where someone portrays themselves as a victim to gain sympathy, attention, or caregiving. The goal is to make the person eliciting pity seem like a victim, which can make it easier to get what they want without being seen as a bad guy. This is because people are naturally inclined to help those they pity.

A woman is simultaneously a victim and empowered, until something happens. Then she chooses which state benefits her the most.

A woman is simultaneously a victim and empowered, until something happens. Then she chooses which state benefits her the most.

A Chad is a stereotypical alpha male. He is depicted as attractive, successful, muscular, cocky and very popular among women. He has a tendency to play the field and will not commit to any woman.

An enabler of a highly narcissistic person or someone with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). A flying monkey is an agent who acts on their behalf.

Projection involves taking an unacceptable part of oneself, disowning it, and placing it onto someone else. The manipulator describes the victim and paints them in a light that more accurately portrays the attacker himself.

Toxic amnesia is a tactic where the perpetrator pretends to not remember abuse, betrayals, lies, and other hurtful and dysfunctional behaviors they've engaged in. Its a form of gaslighting. Its purpose is to make you doubt your perceptions and memories.

Narcissistic rage can be triggered by various situations, such as criticism, perceived rejection, or being ignored. The reaction is often extreme and disproportionate to the event or comment, as the narcissist's fragile ego struggles to cope with the perceived attack on their self-image.

Triangulation is when a toxic or manipulative person, often a person with strong narcissistic traits, brings a third person into their relationship in order to remain in control. There will be limited or no communication between the two triangulated individuals except through the manipulator. It may appear in different forms, but all are about divide and conquer, or playing people against each other.

The action or practice of lavishing someone with attention or affection, especially in order to influence or manipulate them.

Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.

To gaslight someone means to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences or understanding of events. ~ American Psychological Association

Because their sense of self is determined by what others think of them, narcissists use relationships for self-enhancement. Everyone must feed them. In addition, they seek validation and attention in their public and professional life. Other people are used as objects in order to provide their supply. For example, they may need constant compliments or applause, more status and money, or may check their appearance in the mirror several times a day. ~ Psychology Today

Fraud that targets people belonging to a particular community or group, typically that in which someone pretends to be a member of the group in order to gain the trust of others.

Second Attack
Second Attack
First Attack
First Attack
Initial Dispositions
Initial Dispositions
ZSU 23-4
ZSU 23-4 Anti-Aircraft Gun
TOW Missile
TOW Anti-Tank Missile
T55 Tank
T55 Tank
SA7
SA7 Surface to Air Missile
M113
M113 Armored Personnel Carrier (APC)
M48 Tank
M48 Tank
Hawker Hunter
Hawker Hunter Jet
BTR-50
BTR-50 Armored Personnel Carrier
BM21 Stalin Organ
BM21 Stalin Organ
Howitzer
Howitzer
AT7 Anti-Tank Missile
AT7 Anti-Tank Missile
AT3 Sagger Anti-Tank Missile
AT3 Sagger Anti-Tank Missile
120mm Mortar
120mm Mortar
AT4 Anti-Tank Missile
AT4 Anti-Tank Missile

Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

A religious leader uses valid verses or concepts from the Bible about following and obeying God to generate enthusiasm in people, then misdirects that obedience to himself as a representative of God. The group believes they are following and obeying God, but in reality are obeying the leader.

A fictional, exaggerated version of an opposing viewpoint, especially one that is intentionally created to be easy to dismiss or argue against and to make one's own argument seem stronger. Straw man arguments can be made unintentionally, but most are made on purpose to make the other side seem evil, incompetent, or extremist.

The religious leader distracts members from mentally registering what he is doing.  Screaming praise to God when something he proclaimed does not come to pass.  Acting like a bad thing is really a good thing.  Just keep talking and talking and talking, while ignoring that nothing is happening. It is the same thing politicians have done successfully for years.

The leader calls members flattering adjectives or nouns, like righteous, holy, or saint.  These are often vague and difficult to define, so the member feels the leader’s superior knowledge has recognized something good in them.  Conversely, if the leader later withdraws this praise, the member is eager to toe the line to recover it.

Manipulation of a person or group's emotions in order to make them believe something is factual (or false) in the absence of any evidence. The manipulator tries to draw on the recipient's inward feelings such as fear, pity, or joy with the goal of convincing them that the statements being presented are true or false.

Essentially a black-and-white worldview with the leader as the ultimate moral arbiter. This creates an atmosphere of guilt and shame, where punishment and humiliation are expected. It also sets up an environment wherein members spy and report on one another. Through submission to the guilt-inducing and impossible demand for purity, members lose their moral bearing.

The use of jargon internal to (and only understandable by) the group. Constricting language constricts the person. Capacities for thinking and feeling are significantly reduced. Imagination is no longer a part of life experiences, and the mind atrophies from disuse.

The process whereby the group becomes the ultimate arbiter and all nonbelievers become so-called evil or non-people. If these non-people cannot be recruited, then they can be punished or even killed. This process creates an us-versus-them mentality that breeds fear in followers who learn that life depends on a willingness to obey. This is when individuals merge with the group’s belief.