Middle managers embrace wokeness because it increases their influence and job security, new paper says

Fortune ^ | 2/8/23 | Will Daniel

[DallasBiff]

Middle managers might be using “wokeness” to climb the ladder at work and keep their jobs during tough times, according to a new paper.

“We suggest that going woke is an emergent strategy that is largely shaped by middle managers,” wrote Nicolai Foss, a strategy professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Peter Klein, an entrepreneurship and corporate innovation professor at Baylor University. “Wokeness arises from middle managers and support personnel using their delegated responsibility and specialist status to engage in woke internal advocacy, which may increase their influence and job security.”

[DallasBiff]

Wokeness is a sickness.

[Jonty30]

It makes them look good and guarantees none of their underlings are competent enough to pose a threat.

I’ve been saying that liberalism is all about ensuring that liberals have an economic hedge to protect their interests by pushing down non-liberal whites and promoting liberal non-whites above non-liberal whites to ensure that other whites cannot rise because they have to pass through the colour barrier in order to get ahead.

[cgbg]

Interesting post—lots to discuss here—hope lots of folks give good comments.

[maddog55]

Middle managers are like middlemen.. get rid of them because they’re not needed and usually F’ up what upper management wants when relaying to the folks that get shxt done.

[fwdude]

My brother fits the bill.

[xoxox]

upper mgmt isn’t all that, either

[lurk]

The downside, they live in fear that somebody will notice that they are poison.

[Tench_Coxe]

"“This leads to frequently changing internal agendas as the internal bar of moral righteousness is constantly being raised in a game of purer than thou,” they wrote."

[Tench_Coxe]

"“This leads to frequently changing internal agendas as the internal bar of moral righteousness is constantly being raised in a game of purer than thou,” they wrote."

[AndyJackson]

More importantly it ensures that none of their competent underlings are a threat because in evitably they spend their time doing their job rather than attending to required DEI training thereby showing that they are ineligible for consideration for promotion.

[ansel12]

It also took place in the military, Carter introduced the idea of being managers rather than leaders and that was followed by weak NCOs and officers actually preferring females in their units because they were easy to manage and it made the leader look good on paper, the females didn’t brawl, or wreck their motorcycles and were just less trouble of the kind that got recorded.

[Indy Pendance]

The company I worked for (before woke), fired all of the “vice presidents” when the CEO’s son took over. There must have been 30 of them. All they did was hold meetings, spew the latest and trendiest language, “More bang for the buck”, implemented policies that couldn’t be kept. Had no idea how manufacturing worked. Glommed onto the latest new policy, ie, QS9000, Kaizen, ISO for the environment (whatever that number was) and everyone followed it for about a month before the audit, and dropped it after the audit.

There was no substance to anything. All the engineers and department managers who had a brain were ignored. Eventually we were all gone, they lost a talented group of people. “This won’t work, here’s the reasons”, “that won’t work, here’s that reason”, what a waste. One of the reasons I quit.

[G Larry]

Management had predetermined who they wanted for the job to meet their DEI quotas for promoting women.

-She had no experience in the discipline. -No experience with the tools (applications) necessary to execute the job. -Some related experience on the Program.

I had -25 years experience in the discipline. -5 years experience with the tools. -Prior experience on the Program.

I retired early 6 months later and have never been happier.

[ClearCase_guy]

"It makes them look good"

But look good to whom?

I think the answer is Human Resources. You do NOT want to get on the wrong side of HR. Management wants to do what HR wants them to do.

So the real source of the problem is Human Resources who incentivize Wokeness. And who works in HR? A bunch of DEI hires.

[The Fop]

Wokeness was created by the wealthy and powerful to keep corporate/government workers frightened and obedient, beginning in high school and college, when they’re mapping out they’re whole wage slave future.

It’s part and parcel of the Soviet style upper middle class they want to create. The goal is to eliminate all small family owned businesses and middle class economic independence.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“ Middle managers might be using “wokeness” to climb the ladder at work and keep their jobs during tough times, according to a new paper.”

The same study found that the sky is blue

[clearcarbon]

"Middle managers embrace wokeness because it increases their influence and job security, new paper say"

Since nothing about wokeness is intuitive, how to they stay up to date in the spontaneously changing subculture of political correctness and still be able to be productive in the real world?

[sauropod]

A disease.