Maybe. Agreeableness is often very high among the coddled set and that is a trait associated with doing well in the business world, especially for women (sometimes negatively associated when the subject is a man). However, it's also possible that these people ended up in their job due to a number of other factors that are correlated with helicopter-parenting: ability to pay for school, ability to participate in unpaid internships, etc. . . .

As young millennials and gen z (or whatever the fuck we end up calling them) start to occupy management roles we'll be able to make a better call in this regard.

>If they ended in high paying profession and are reasonably happy then maybe their decision to follow advice given to them was right.

Absolutely. These people make fantastic employees. But the world needs more than just employees.

Yes. The world also needs people who will promote the plentiful and great leaders already present in their society.

Until some minor setback happens. Then they have a mental breakdown.

Is this something that actually happens, in large? I'd be interested in studies that show this happens more. Meltdowns are far from a new thing in the world.

I mean, they make a nice narrative to shame people for overprotecting their kids. But this basically culminates in three of the major things that give me pause. a) Nice narrative, b) appealing argument without presented evidence, and c) shaming. Combine those and you typically have someone pushing or falling for an argument that has not been proven.

And yes, we all fall for those. All the time. I am not exempt.

> Is this something that actually happens, in large?

No, but it lets mediocre people feel good about themselves.

The mediocrity comes from the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. Overprotecting your kids feeds into that mentality as well. If everyone gets a trophy, why should you try harder than anyone else?

So you are okay with people with no spine basically running this country? Because that's what high paying professionals typically do. It may not be politics, but they typically have a lot of power and their spinelessness impacts a lot more people than just themselves.

I don't think this is at all a good thing.

Luckily, these people rarely have enough confidence to stay in positions of real responsibility.

#silverlining

But I don't know how much that mitigates the damage. If good leaders spend all their time cleaning up the mess left behind, it goes pretty far in preventing anything really good from happening.

Part of being a good leader (IMHO) is realizing you’re going to be spending time mitigating the actions of others who derail progress, for whatever reason (intentional & unintentional). You are the tip of the spear, blocking the impediment of progress for those who report to you.

I do a whole lot of that. I have aspirations of someday getting paid for (some of) it.

Based on my limited knowledge of you from your HN posts and your history in corporate america, you’d be a great fit for a Chief Of Staff role, or any other executive role where you’re unblocking progress through mediating relationships (internally) and partnerships (externally).

This seems orthogonal. You project incredibly lot to parent description that basically described someone boring - your average worker that does his job and causes no problems to anyone. Not all that great innovative improvement either which seemed to be his complain.

People who don't follow advice and insist on going out of box all the time tend to generate even more mess behind. And are not great leaders either.

There is plenty of middle ground between those two extremes. It is not a given that someone who can take a stand will pathologically feel the need to make a stink about absolutely every little thing and refuse to ever listen to any advice at all.