The Unexpected Benefits of a Boring Boss

Most people don’t want or need their boss to be their BFF, they just need someone who’s got enough EQ to help their professional development.

Few topics are more widely researched in the social sciences than leadership. Academics have exhaustively studied the traits, attributes, and behaviors that make some individuals generally more effective at building and maintaining high-performing teams, which is the essence of leadership.

We tend to think that leadership is strongly dependent on the situation, including the particular role, team, organization, and industry relating to a leader’s remit or assignment, as well as the actual talent, expertise, and personality of their teams and followers. Yet some factors tend to emerge over and over again as positive drivers of leadership effectiveness, and they are pretty agnostic to the specific situation a leader is in.

Most notably, the most effective bosses tend to be quite conscientious (well-organized, self-controlled, disciplined, and cautious), extraverted (socially curious and interpersonally confident), open to new experiences (intellectually curious and creative), and emotionally stable (cool-headed, calm, and predictable).  

They are also kind and diplomatic, preferring to get along with others than to create overt conflict or drama. Note that these factors alone explain nearly 50% of the variability in leadership success, trumping things like expertise, situational factors, and indeed learning ability, which adds another 9% or so (yes, good leaders tend to be smart).

It should also be noted that to be effective, leaders benefit from keeping their counterproductive and antisocial tendencies in check, as research has repeatedly highlighted negative associations between dark side leadership traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, and effective leadership. Paradoxically, these dark side traits often underpin salient case studies of famous leaders, including eccentric billionaire entrepreneurs, which distort popular views on what good leadership is about.  

For example, daily media stories abound on self-made tycoons who relish engaging in politically incorrect, immature, and self-centered antisocial behaviors —online or offline—without much repercussions, and often being celebrated and cheered as heroic anti-establishment figures. Make no mistake, few people want to work for such personalities, unless they are masochists (or if you prefer a euphemism, extremely resilient). Unlike these mega-successful entrepreneurs, the vast majority of bosses who behave in such obnoxious ways don’t even have the talents to back it up. 

In essence, most people prefer to work for a boss that is predictable, stable, safe, and quite boring, a bit like the person driving the car in front of you so that they don’t add to their already existing sources of stress. In an era where work demands, societal pressures, and the daunting uncertainties of conflict, economic volatility, and advancing AI cast a long shadow, alongside myriad challenges that affect entities globally, leaders must embody serenity and steadiness. They must stand as pillars of peace, projecting skill and assurance in the now, while also charting a hopeful vision for the future. 

A leader’s ability to look beyond themselves, and regulate their emotions, particularly in high-pressure scenarios, constitutes the essence of emotional intelligence. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t about being charismatic, entertaining, funny, or socially dominant, but rather about being phlegmatic, cool-headed, and emotionally nonreactive. Bosses are like sports referees: the more you notice them, the worse they probably are.

There is also no indication that most people want their boss to be their best friend or someone to go on vacation with. What most people want from their boss is someone who can make them better, who can help them add value to a team and organization, and help to advance a meaningful collective objective, as well as develop professionally and make progress in their career. 

Typically, bosses are more likely to do this if they are focused on you rather than themselves if they provide clear directions, structure, and feedback, and if they manage to treat you fairly and equitably. This requires diligent attention to what you do, understanding your potential and performance, and making an accurate assessment of your contribution. 

The boring predictability of a good boss also means you will not be surprised by their feedback; they will be clear on what they expect from you, and what you need to do to deliver, and you should never expect the unexpected when you walk into a performance review or conversation with them. 

Working for a boring boss is a good strategy for accelerating your career. If you have a choice between a competent, ethical, kind, selfless manager who puts their team first and is humble and open to learning from them, accepts their own mistakes, and focuses on turning a group of people into a high-performing team, and an entertaining, eccentric, overconfident, charismatic narcissist who is power-hungry and excels at advancing their own career, irrespective of their actual effectiveness as a leader, it should not be a difficult decision.

Written by:  Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Chief Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University, cofounder of deepersignals.com, and an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, for the  Fast Company blog.