Cronyism 101: How to Fail Up and Call It Leadership
Pros
• Some incredible people doing their best despite being set up to fail. • A handful of strong leaders and mentors exist…if you’re lucky enough to land under one of them then your experience may be tolerable.
Cons
Where to begin? • Cronyism is the operating system. Promotions are rarely based on merit. They’re based on relationships, convenience, or leadership’s comfort level. Positions are often filled before they’re even posted, making the interview process feel like theater. Internal mobility is encouraged in theory, but undermined in practice. • Leadership insulates itself from consequences. There are directors and senior directors who bounce from department to department, torch everything they touch, then return to the scene later to “fix” the problems they either created or left untouched all while blaming others. It’s leadership by plausible deniability. • Critical thinking is punished. If you ask “why?” too many times, or try to actually improve CX, you’re seen as a threat. You’ll be labeled as difficult, combative, or “not leadership material.” • Gaslighting is part of the performance management process. No feedback documentation, no regular journaling, yet when it’s time for review cycles or promotions, leadership will lean on vague narratives like “lack of experience” (even when you have the experience) to justify their decisions. • Your rating is not your rating. Even if your team lead gives you a strong performance rating, it can and often will be overwritten behind closed doors for “calibration.” This manipulation then impacts your eligibility for RSUs, promotions, and even lateral moves. • The company was proudly remote well before COVID, but leadership tried to rewrite history to justify mandating RTO. The announcement? A video quietly dropped after hours featuring a VP (who is rarely in-office himself) sporting a $23k watch and preaching the importance of in-office collaboration from his empty, untouched office. • Equity incentives are now a lie. RSUs are effectively unattainable unless you’re in the inner circle. The performance bar has been rigged and even if you hit it, your manager may be “advised” to lower your score to keep your reward out of reach. • The culture is eroding fast. The new CEO has prioritized desk-level micromanagement over meaningful employee experience. Values are treated as slogans, not standards. Leadership has moved from enabling employees to controlling them. • Much like their management style, their software is outdated. Enjoy supporting a SaaS that hasn’t evolved all that much since 1997, but hey, maybe another acquisition will help!
