Not all psychopaths are in jail. Some choose positions of power in the community, at workplaces or in politics. They abuse power to torment people psychologically or physically. Since they are highly manipulative they often go unpunished till someone speak out against them but even then these wicked people feign innocence and make the victims look like culprits.
@psychologistmerlyn
I came across two interesting psychological scales, the bullshitting frequency scale and the bullshit receptivity scale, in two separate research studies.
It is said that people engage in two types of bullshit - persuasive and evasive. Bullshitting frequency is negatively correlated to sincerity, honesty, open-minded cognition, cognitive ability, and self-regard. Bullshitters are likely to present misleading information, fake news, and scientific bullshit.
Some people are more prone to receive bullshit than others. This is the tendency to view pseudo-profound things as "profound". In a study published in the journal of Judgment and Decision Making, it was found that people who are receptive to bullshit tend to attach meaningfulness to something that is proposed as "seemingly profound" but in fact is mere nonsense. Those who lack critical thinking skills are more likely to be receptive to bullshit than those who question, challenge assumptions, and seek evidence. The lack of cognitive ability explains why people are open-minded to accept widespread bullshit as true. Some people may have an uncritically open mind. As the idiom goes: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out”.
The biggest mistake that ineffective speakers make is not taking time to know their audience. More often they prepare content and assume that one size fits all.
To create an impact as a speaker, you need to answer the following questions:
Your content needs to be relevant. If the audience cannot relate to what you say, the impact is nil. This requires you to spend time getting to know your audience or the people who represent your audience. Listening and empathizing are the key elements to truly understanding their stories and struggles.
As a speaker, you need to spend time with people from different cultures, socioeconomic statuses, and age groups. Understanding their past and present will help you design content, narrate immersive stories and recommend solutions for a better future.
A middle school student recently told me that her teacher had complained to her father about her handwriting during a parent-teacher meeting. The student said the teacher instructed her to write 5 pages daily during the summer break. The student's father, a blue-collared employee, authoritatively insisted that the student follow the teacher's instructions without fail. The student came to me distraught as she did not wish to spend her summer break writing 5 pages daily. I asked her to send me a picture of her handwriting from one of the notebooks. When I saw the handwriting, I couldn't understand why the teacher thought the girl's handwriting was bad. The handwriting was legible, the words were appropriately spaced, and the letters were written in print format. Having worked with students with learning difficulties for years, I could not see anything that made the student's handwriting less readable.
I was beginning to think whether the teacher had taken the time to interact with and understand this student because if the teacher had she would have given the student feedback based on the insights she gained through the interaction. I asked the student whether she had ever interacted with the teacher or if the teacher had initiated interaction with her beyond Q&A in the class. She replied in the negative.
Apparently, the teacher gave the same recommendation to a few other students. It wasn't personalized feedback that these students received.
What may have stopped this teacher from developing an understanding of the few students she taught that she wasn't able to give them personalized feedback?
1. Was the teacher not trained for her role?
2. Was she caught up with repetitive administrative tasks that teachers are expected to complete on a day-to-day basis?
3. Did the teacher not have clarity on the type of feedback she needs to focus on?
4. Was the teacher caught up in the traditional mindset of teaching and learning outcome?
5. Did she not have the required social and emotional skills to connect with and get to know her students?
Let me know what you think.
The first industrial age that started in the 1700s had a significant impact on education. Schools became creators of submissive and obedient factory workers. Teachers were expected to carry out mechanical or meaningless work and simply follow orders from authority figures. The teachers in turn expected the same blind obedience from their students. The industrial model school and the industrial model leadership have survived for more than 200 years. Today, despite the radical advancement in technology the role of the leader is 'command and control'.
I've attempted to illustrate the characteristics of the industrial style leadership and compared it with the collaborative leadership that is the need of the hour.
Industrial leadership refers to individuals and institutions that believe in a top-down approach to getting work done. More than two hundred years since the Industrial Age and we still practice the mindset today in almost every sector.
Industrial leadership has the following characteristics:
Henry Ford once said, “Why is it every time I ask for a pair of
hands, a brain comes attached.” He was referring to assembly line workers who
are not required to make decisions or solve problems but engage in repetitive
tasks day in and out.
