Part 3: Nepotism & Favouritism: The Stupid in Charge Edition
Why hire the best when you can promote your buddy from beer league hockey? Nepotism isn’t just bad business — it’s corporate Russian roulette, only everyone’s holding the same gun and aiming at their own feet.
Somewhere out there, in the darkest corners of HR meetings and boardroom lunches, a question is being asked:
“Why bother with qualified candidates when I can give this job to my golf buddy, my sister-in-law, or that guy who once fixed my Wi-Fi?”
Thus begins the corporate fairy tale where yesterday’s shelf stocker becomes Head of Customer Service because they once watched a YouTube video on “inspiring leadership.” Suddenly, they’re the self-anointed expert on everything, including the things they don’t understand, which is — unfortunately — most things.
The results are predictable. Like watching a Monty Python sketch unfold in real time, you witness the newly crowned genius inserting their fingernails into every project, every meeting, every conversation. Not because they can help, but because they don’t know where their job ends — or where yours begins.
And oh, the self-importance! They believe they’re indispensable. Why wouldn’t they? They share a dinner table, a six-pack, or, let’s face it, something more personal with the boss. The higher they climb, the more the rest of the company slips into a race to the bottom — and it’s not a sprint. It’s a slow, painful descent where the air gets thinner, and the stupid gets thicker.
Meanwhile, the real experts — the ones with actual skills — leave. Quickly. They’ve seen this circus before and they know the ending: endless layers of unqualified “leaders” reinforcing each other’s mediocrity until the company becomes a living caricature of itself.
Public companies aren’t immune. Sometimes the nepotism is literally in the name — family-run empires where a non-manager from another department throws tantrums about how things “should” be run. Egos must be soothed, narcissism must be fed, and logic must be escorted quietly out the back door.
Hiring someone unqualified for the role is like handing them a loaded pistol and pointing them toward their own foot. The only difference is in corporate life, they somehow manage to hit everyone else’s feet too. And when they finally saw off the branch they’re sitting on, you’ll still find them smiling, waving, and calling it “strategic innovation.”
Lessons Learned:
Nepotism is not loyalty. Favouritism is not trust. Leadership is not a title. And if you think you’re being “brilliant” by giving power to the unqualified, just remember — it’s been tried, it failed, and you’re not the genius exception. You’re just another cautionary tale with better stationery.
Rule of Power #17: A kingdom falls not from the attack of its enemies, but from the incompetence of its allies.
In business, the enemy is rarely the competitor across the street — it’s the unqualified “leader” across the meeting table, placed there by friendship, family ties, or a well-timed pint of beer.
HOW NOT TO RUN THE COMPANY
Your boss is not your family - Slim Shady culture
Part 1: Corporate Positivity Culture is Killing Us
Part 2: Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts
Part 3: Nepotism & Favouritism: The Silent Killers of Good Companies
Part 4: Will the Real Slim Shady Stand Up?
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