I Would Prefer Not To . . . Notes from the Scrivener’ Desk
How Bad Leadership Breaks Good People
I’m not anti-authority — I’m anti-stupidity — and it seems, almost without exception, that those in authority are imbeciles. Not always, but close enough that the exceptions prove the rule.
They have no vision.
None.
What they do have is ambition, in spades.
And insecurity. An endless appetite for approval.
They live for validation, for the constant stream of pats on the head and “Good Boy” affirmations, like overgrown toddlers in suits.
Plato had their number 2,400 years ago. He wrote about the philosopher king, the rare ruler who governs not for ego, not for gain, not for status or validation, but from wisdom and a sense of justice.
For the common good: just rule.
But, Plato understood, through observation and reason, through reflection and ruthless honesty, that most — the vast majority — of people seek power for one reason: to serve themselves.
For money, status, and control.
Plato rightly called that tyranny.
Oligarchy.
Corruption dressed up as leadership.
And we’re not just talking about political parties here. This is everywhere. It infects every organization, every institution, every bureaucracy: academia, corporations, nonprofits, school boards, HR departments, church leadership. Anywhere there’s a hierarchy, you’ll find it.
The titles change, the dress codes shift, the mission statements get rewritten, but the game stays the same: people clawing their way upward, not because they’re capable, but because they’ve mastered the art of playing along, saying the right things, and never threatening the status quo.
Milquetoast: a person so timid, unassertive, or bland to the point of being completely ineffectual.
A person so meek and submissive, so lacking backbone, decisiveness, or presence, they can barely stand up for themself.
And that’s exactly what I’ve seen. I’ve worked with academic Deans — and yes, they’d say “worked under” — because their worldview is a vertical line, with them standing smugly at the top.
Nine out of ten of them fit the mold: not leaders, but petty bureaucrats desperate to be obeyed.
It’s pathological — this lust for power. This desperate need to control others, to be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants, to bask in the illusion that a title makes them wise or worthy.
It doesn’t.
It makes them dangerous.
And let me be crystal clear: I am saying — with no apology — that people who chase positions of power for validation, for ego, for a seat at the head of the table, are imbeciles.
I don’t care if they have PhDs, MBAs, or Rhodes Scholarships, because their fuel is self-interest, they are unfit to lead.
There’s a name for how these people end up in charge.
It’s called the Peter Principle — the idea that people in hierarchies get promoted to their level of incompetence. Not because they excel — but because they don’t fail loudly enough.
They float upward by doing just enough to stay invisible, to avoid blame, to nod at the right times and never rock the boat.
Competence doesn’t get rewarded. Compliance does. Mediocrity does. Play the game, and you rise.
And then . . . they arrive.
In a role that demands leadership, strategy, clarity — and they have none of it. They’re overmatched, overpromoted, and in over their heads.
But they’ve got the title now. The corner office. The authority. And no clue what to do with it.
So what we’re left with is an upside-down system, where the least capable run the show. A bureaucratic survival-of-the-fakest. A hierarchy of hollow people — insecure, power-drunk, and utterly unqualified — making shit up and pretending to lead while the whole structure rots from the top down.
There are good leaders out there, leaders that would make Plato proud.
I’ve come across a few — rare, but real — and I’ve had the privilege of working with them. And that’s one of the defining traits of a great leader: you work with them, not for them, not under them.
It’s a shared endeavor.
A shared purpose.
Mutual goals, mutual effort, and — most important — mutual respect. Authority isn’t hoarded. It’s distributed.
You feel it in the day-to-day: the dynamic is cooperative, not hierarchical.
These leaders make you feel like part of a team. They don’t micromanage. They’re not paranoid or insecure. They don’t hover over your shoulder or double-check your every move. They give you room to work, and they trust you to get it done — because they actually believe you’re capable.
And that belief?
It matters.
It changes how you show up.
They’re not in it for themselves. Not for glory. Not for the money.
Most of the time, they’re reluctant leaders. They didn’t chase the position — it found them. And if they did seek it, they did so to help, to build something better — not to collect another title for their LinkedIn profile.
I worked for 17 years behind the line at a Mexican restaurant.
Seventeen years.
It was the hardest job I’ve ever had. Long hours. A hot kitchen. Constant pressure. No breaks. No margin for error.
Every weekend was like the Super Bowl — two thousand people packed into a tiny space over the course of six hours. It never stopped. I didn’t have time to pee.
Waitresses with always more tickets. More orders. More chaos.
And just two of us on the line, making it all happen.
It was brutal.
And also the best job I’ve ever had.
Not because of the work.
The work was insane.
It burned me out physically, mentally, emotionally.
But I stayed.
Seventeen years.
And, not for the money, because it wasn’t great.
And, I wasn’t the only one — the place was filled with lifers. Ten, fifteen, twenty years. Not because it was easy.
But because we had a great leader.
Rick Kempnich.
A Nebraska transplant. A former high school guidance counselor with a master’s degree.
He took a chance.
A wild, on-paper stupid chance.
He decided to open a Mexican restaurant in the whitest corner of northern Minnesota. In Dorset, a hamlet, really, not even a blip on the map, with a population of 55 rural souls.
This wasn’t Minneapolis. This wasn’t a college town.
This was lake country. Logging country. Meat-and-potatoes country.
And at the time, the idea of opening a Mexican restaurant there wasn’t just risky, it was insane.
The county had never had a Mexican restaurant. It had barely seen a taco that didn’t come in a yellow box. There wasn’t a single Hispanic soul around. The local palate was suspicious of anything spicier than ketchup.
Adventurous cuisine meant ordering the walleye sandwich instead of the burger.
But Rick didn’t care.
He wanted to live up north, by the lakes, in the quiet.
And he wanted to build something of his own. Something different.
So he did.
He brought a vision — flavors, colors, music, spice — into a place that had never asked for it.
And somehow, he made it work.
Not just work — he made it thrive.
For decades.
And, that’s what great leaders do.
He built that restaurant from the ground up, and he treated every single person who worked there like they were part of that construction project.
It was his restaurant, no question — but it never felt like it.
It felt like ours.
He gave credit. Real credit. Not fake flattery, not vague corporate speak, but real praise for real things. “I saw how you handled that rush.” “You held the line when we were drowning.” “That was a perfect plate, top to bottom.”
He noticed.
He paid attention.
And that kind of attention: it breeds loyalty, not obedience.
Rick respected everyone. Dishwasher to manager, line cook to bartender. If you did your job, he saw you. And he respected you. He led with praise, not criticism. And somehow, that made us all work harder, not because we were afraid of him, but because we didn’t want to let him down.
That’s good leadership.
It’s not about control.
It’s not about titles.
It’s not about sitting in the office and issuing orders through e-mail.
It’s about being present. It’s about creating a space where people want to stay, want to contribute, want to do well, not because they have to, but because they care. Because they feel seen.
Because they’re part of something real.
And good leaders?
They make that possible. They don’t need to rule over people. They know how to build with them.
But bad leaders: they do the opposite.
They don’t build; they destroy.
They don’t inspire; they demand obedience.
They rule through fear: fear of being demoted, humiliated, fired for displeasing Dear Leader. They don’t notice what you do right. They zero in on what you didn’t do fast enough, loud enough, exactly the way they imagined.
They criticize, sometimes subtly, but it’s always there, and undercurrent, like a faint hum of static behind everything you do.
They micromanage.
They hover.
They ruin lives.
Slowly. Quietly. Systematically.
And that’s why so much of the working world hates their jobs.
That’s why there’s burnout.
Quiet Quitting.
Disengagement.
But instead of seeing the problem, the privileged sit back and whine: “Nobody wants to work anymore.” They say people are lazy. They say people want handouts. They wonder why no one’s motivated, all the while presiding over toxic, soul-sucking workplaces that don’t give a damn about the people inside them.
Let’s be honest. If you’re one of those people, and, chances are, you are, one of the millions working under these deplorable conditions, ruled by a despot or just some bumbling, insecure middle manager with a title and a god complex, if you’re one of those who dreads Monday morning, who wakes up each day already exhausted, already counting the hours until you can leave: please hear this:
It’s not you.
It’s not your fault.
Yes, it sucks.
Yes, it’s unfair.
But you are not the problem.
You are living in a world dominated by piss-poor leadership — by people doing it for all the wrong reasons, people who have climbed just high enough to hit their own ceiling of incompetence and now spend their days protecting that fragile perch.
Plato saw this coming. He tried to warn us. He wrote about it two thousand years ago — and still, we ignore him.
But if you’re one of the lucky ones — if you have a good boss, a strong team, a healthy work culture where people actually respect each other, where you don’t wake up every morning filled with dread, consider yourself: blessed.
Seriously.
Take a moment each day to be grateful.
Because you’re living a version of working life that most people will never know.
You’re a gem.
You landed in rare air.
Hold on to it.
