I read somewhere in a list of"ten ways to tell your manager is a jerk" that one of them was "your manager compares himself to Steve Jobs".
I try and remember that, though likely not often enough.
Re:John Carmack: My Steve Jobs Stories
by Bromskloss on Tuesday May 15, 2018 @05:53PM
(#17078210)
Does the rule work for Steve Jobs himself? Maybe it does, actually!
I worked for someone who had most of those traits. However, he wasn't Steve Jobs. When I last looked at his LinkedIn, he had a long string of positions which had lasted 12-18 months until (I presume) reality caught up with him at each.
The problem likely is that he can continue to do this basically forever, and probably even get promoted along the way.
I have seen just this happen. I don't know how someone as basically incompetent as my former boss could do it, but he was made an IT manager for a huge government department, in spite of the IT department at my workplace having the worst reputation in town.
In the case of the guy I worked for, he was charming in half-hour increments and technically decent, and good at seeing new project opportunities. But bad at planning, sharing credit, and basic decency.
I don't think you have to necessarily be that influential to have at least part of the same power. In other words, I suspect there are mini-Jobs all over the place. The sad part is I think you can get a long way without much influence at all, as what keeps people around isn't how influential or amazing you are, but how much they perceive you to be, and some people are finely tuned producers of bullshit.