To think the professional world is full of middle aged men of very average abilities who still seem to have gone far

I said this same thing to DH yesterday. It drives me insane that our society values middle aged man bullshit over actually worthwhile roles like nurses and care home workers. Who the fuck says they should be paid less than some man pushing paper about making money for other people.

He said in his industry - marketing - it's not just men. I think marketing is one of the worst areas for it so to be fair it probably isn't.

@Thepeopleversuswork so every women you have worked with or under is always better ? There are a higher anount of men in senior jobs as a higher amount of men working and yes not having to take time off for kids so able to climb the ladder quicker
I have had some awful female bosses and bullied by them , never been bullied by a male boss though
The point is you just group a whole load of people together as one , so no good white middle aged men and you def could nit substitute white for anything else and it be ok

I'm sure in a decade or so we will see plenty of (BIPOC) middle aged women who are in positions of influence and leadership but just not very impressive or inspiring.

Give it time and the mediocrity will even out across the races and sexes with current hiring practices.

Oh my god yes.
Disclaimer - i've met some very smart, brilliant men but they are sadly outnumbered by the amount of curiously mediocre ones.
I find it fascinating.
Some casual observations on these men:

• They do not volunteer for stuff. Especially not anything 'admin' or 'team' related. However they are very good at picking the exact project or task to volunteer for that will look good to the seniors / sounds impressive but is actually simple or mostly complete or other people will do most of the work on. Or volunteering in front of the 'right' people.
• They have no shame in doing fuck all most of the time but then ramping up their visibility/effort/engagement dramatically if a senior is about/a promotion is on the cards
• They dont read emails properly if at all and will respond in a way that causes more work for other people having to explain/clarify things that have already been said. (And will never apologise this, or for having missed the information to begin with)
• Even if they have made a glaring error or oversight, they will never proactively apologise and if the error is ever gently pointed out (out of necessity) they will brush it off with a non - excuse or get defensive and argue. They can never just say 'Ah damnit, yep i screwed up that one - apologies i'll get that sorted'
• Will spend 30 minutes going through an agenda that could take 10.
• DONT BLOODY CHECK MEETING AVAILABILITY. Will put stuff in when 90% of the attendees cant make it. Will say 'whats your availability' and force everyone to message back and respond when its accepted practice in our org to just... check availability via outlook. Will try and organise a non-urgent meeting at a days notice and then get annoyed if people arent free.
• Wont bloody communicate with customers. Thinks 'getting to know the customer' is learning the name of the town they live in and saying yes to everything they ask, then throwing a strop if you point out that we only sell pigs, not flamingoes. The amount of time i've had a sales bloke bang on and on about how the customer wont accept a pig other than a flamingo (based on nothing) but if it gets brought up in conversation the customer is happy to accept a pig over a flamingo, and on further examination the customer has mentioned several times that they love pigs.

Add women too! This is more in the NHS, college and university sectors, the number of extremely average (in terms of intelligence, competence and professionalism) middle age women in positions of management is astounding. They are also rather hostile to younger colleagues 😂probably worried their incompetence shows up. I say this as a middle age woman myself. The number of impressive middle aged female professionals is low.

Yep it's not just men though. Increasingly its attractive females who know how to play the system.
One of the ways I've seen people progress is get involved in projects that are important to senior management, often vanity projects, made lots of noise about how great things are and move on before it falls apart. We had several people move up the hierarchy who never actually completed a project.
Ability isn't a major asset it's who you know and how well you fit.

Yanbu.

I do come across a few females like this but by and large it's a man thing.

I have climbed the career ladder but was always aware I needed to work twice as hard and be twice as good as a man to climb at the same speed as them.

Yes. My line manager. He doesn't manage us, doesn't communicate information up or down, doesn't listen, does innovate, doesn't take on board issues we raise. He's a 'nice guy' but useless as a leader.

The only thing that I would change in the title is white middle aged men to people.

There are a lot of people of all races and both sexes that are bloody useless and should never have risen to the position that they have and to use white middle aged men is just sexist and ageist.

You've just described the police force. Full of men like this bonus points if you play golf or rugby too

@Doje

To be fair to men HR is female dominated and there are a lot of below mediocre women who rise through the ranks there. I mean really just awful people.

They do not volunteer for stuff. Especially not anything 'admin' or 'team' related. However they are very good at picking the exact project or task to volunteer for that will look good to the seniors / sounds impressive but is actually simple or mostly complete or other people will do most of the work on. Or volunteering in front of the 'right' people.

This x 100%! In one way I have to admire the people who achieve this - volunteering only for the exact tasks and projects that will get them noticed and further their career.

Even when I try and think strategically about what to put myself forward for I still seem to end up doing projects that are either more trouble than they’re worth and/or are never noticed by the ‘right’ people.

I guess in a way it’s is supremely skilful, some people just seem to have a sixth sense of what to volunteer for and focus on.

I can see all sorts of POVs here . In the 90s I know I did not get a pay rise because "her husband has a good job" - meant to be done on merit.

DH is is a manager and not a way in the world is he Old Etonian , Old boy's club. He judges people on their merit. I do believe this even if my DH , I know he would. ( He is middle aged white - just what he is)

When I was younger I was advised by my manager to not tell people I was pregnant because he was trying to get a promotion put through . Dreadful but true. ( He was trying to help me )

So there can be mediocre people of all types but not every middle aged white man is dreadful . Those who are - then they should be castigated,

Unless you think that the men who choose teaching as a career are disproportionately high calibre, this statement makes no sense

Doesn't it? More men go for promotions. More women go part time or don't go for promotions because of childcare or caring reasons. That doesn't mean the men are higher calibre. Among those in promoted positions, I have not not noticed there being a higher proportion of mediocre ones among the men than the women.

I can assure you it was more productive than listening to anything he had to say 😬

Couldn't agree more. And I don't agree the title should be changed to 'people' either, as it's definitely a gendered issue.
Ime the women who have risen to higher positions are almost always exceptional in some way, highly talented, extremely driven and hard working, whereas the men seem to coast along by comparison, and get promoted by default, as a result of being in with the boys, or by senior managers recruiting in their own image.

I think I've been very lucky. I worked with some incredible women colleagues and a couple of good women managers, but others have been ok to poor. But all my male managers, bar one, have been brilliant. Supportive and knowledgeable that taught me loads in a very selfless way.
I haven't found that good leadership has had anything to do with sex or race.

Not just a thought OP, it’s a fact. And it goes much further than the workplace; the world is overpopulated by white middle aged men with inflated opinions of themselves.It is a huge issue that is directly related to racism, sexism, ageism and every other negative behaviour in our societies. It is directly related to the disproportionate numbers of POC and single mothers living in poverty, to the epidemic of violence against women and children, to the toxic drinking culture, to rape culture, to the incarceration rate of people of colour.

I am so grateful to work in an organisation that hires on merit and values people.

Yeah, I think that a lot of what this comes down to is that people who get into these roles that are specifically being conceived as "leadership" are the people that can do well in the kinds of interviews that those hiring for these jobs give.

And a heck of a lot of interviews are pretty shitty. They don't really give an accurate picture of the individual or how competent the person is. It rewards shmoozers and people who can easily answer questions in a plausible sounding way.

They tend to overlook people who are more difficult to get to know by nature, who are more retiring, but may have a lot more depth.

As nicely as I can say this (really) all my awful bosses were white men and all were happily married to women. Their wives thought the world of them, when we met at socials.

Those same men were brutish and sexist to female juniors, worked us all to ill health, promoted their favoured junior men and fired / gently removed women who had families. The number of settlement agreements signed…

If anyone here thinks their husband might be a good manager, look at those they employ. Who do they promote, who do they hire (don’t say the talent isn’t there, you make it).

YANBU!!!
I wish more young women entering the workplace knew this!

100%. My current boss is minor public school > unimpressive A-Level results > Sandhurst > army logistics > not-for-profit management > CEO. He hasn't done well in any part of his career but has just been good at interview as far as I can tell. He's absolutely shit.

Yes.

I worked with a lot of military and what came over most was confidence. Even though they often knew sod all they spoke with confidence and could often get their way. They also excelled at inter personal skills, they spoke well and made it sound as if they cared but actually just wanted rid of you.

I actually got on well with the men, better than with the women, once you understood them you could use them to your own advantage.

What really surprises me about him, given his background, is that he is unable to deal with conflict in any way, to the extent that he'll avoid being in the office when things get difficult. He also tells everyone what they want to hear instead of being clear/accurate, which leads to huge problems, and never takes responsibility.