Bad Managers

     During the first Trump administration, I observed -- and remarked more than once -- that the President and many of his Cabinet members behaved like the concentrated essence of every bad small-market radio station general manager I had ever worked for.  They appeared to believe they knew better than any subject-matter expert, that their own genius outweighed all the education and experience of anyone else -- and that it was much better to be feared than respected.

     Those small-market GMs had an excuse: the most common path to the job was through Sales (the only other suit-wearing job at small stations), and after years of schmoozing with local car-dealers, Savings & Loans functionaries, small businesses and big national accounts, a group with a large number of second- or third-generation owners, fast-talkers on the way up or down, and self-important blowhards, they were suddenly in charge of a very mixed bag of employees who shared few of their values, and responsible to far wealthier owners who wanted the money to keep rolling in with a minimum of bother.  No amount of sales experience prepared them for it, and they either grew into the job quickly -- or became obnoxious assholes (sometimes, both, and many of those guys eventually grew out of the "jerk" phase).

     Aside from "I know everything because I'm in charge," a common feature of such managers was the Dreaded Unspecified Meeting.  It would be announced a week or a month in advance, with no agenda, and rumor would run wild.  "Mandatory all-station meeting next Wednesday at 10:00!"  It might be a pending sale, a format change, a new Program Director; maybe someone you worked with was getting promoted, or maybe they were putting in automation system and everyone was going to be fired.  Maybe the station had lost their lease, and there was going to be an all-hands-on-deck effort to relocate over a day or two.  You never knew, and that was just how they liked it.  Even the people who worked overnights and weekends were expected to attend.

     So when Secretary of Defense* Pete Hegseth, a man of limited command experience, announced an in-person meeting in Quantico of some eight hundred top officers with no real hint of topic and let rumors fly however they would, I recognized the game.  News reports and social media pundits have piled on -- will he be trimming down the upper ranks?  Imposing new grooming standards (no, really, that's out there)?  Requiring an oath of personal loyalty to the President (yes, also out there, though I expect most officers would recognize that Rubicon without dipping a toe in)?  Nobody knows.  Supposedly it will be recorded and the recordings will be made public -- but it'll leak like a sieve long before the video's out.  You can count on it.

     Pete and his peers are not growing into their jobs.  It was predictable; their boss never has, and one of the sure and certain characteristics of the bad small-town GM was that they'd never hire or promote anyone who showed the slightest hint of having any more managerial talent they themselves possessed, and they usually had none at all.

     The generals and admirals know crap when they smell it, and they didn't get where they are without knowing how to grit their teeth and make the best of a bad situation.  Expect carefully measured statements -- and read between the lines.
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* I feel no particular necessity to use his position's nickname, quite different to the one assigned by statute.  If it makes him feel tougher, he needs to convince Congress to change it.