I have worked in multiple American corporations including Amazon and Microsoft. I have noticed that most employees in US have created an aura around their boss/ leadership and are in a continuous state to please them. One of the Bloomberg article had mentioned this culture in Amazon which reflects my concern: Generally, the engineers and product managers at Lab126 quelled their own dissent before it reached Bezos, instead concentrating on giving the boss what they thought he wanted. “We spent so much time trying to anticipate what Jeff would do or say, and read into little words he would say in meetings,” said one former employee. “It would lead to so much additional work.” This office behavior is frustrating for me and I find it counter productive. I also find that people who get promoted are the ones who play this game well. Thoughts on how to handle this?
This is an issue throughout the tech industry. There is the myth of the "tech genius" who knows all. Microsoft has many of these untouchable entities who we are supposed to treat as demigods. The biggest issues I have with this is that while they are often very smart and capable in a few spheres there is an assumption that this extends to all spheres. Often, they begin to believe it about themselves, becoming arrogant prima donnas who don't listen to good advice because they know it all. And because they have so much influence, people start to align with them to improve their careers, which is very effective at insulating them from their mistakes and, as you mention, hurting team productivity. I have become cynical and will say that this is unavoidable in the industry at present.
Actually I found this more common in Amazon though one of the leadership principles is "Have a backbone". I remember one of the VP telling me that you get this as one shot in one year to have a backbone.
sounds like a cult, but OK, if it really gets you promoted and more money, practice to play along, human arent perfectly rational