To be an effective leader you have to be willing to take risks. Most of those risks are interpersonal in nature. You run the risk of offending people when you tell them they can do better than they currently are. You’re essentially calling them out for not working hard enough, or having wrong assumptions, or any of the other normal human failings that everyone is subject to. If a leader doesn’t call those things or then the whole team slips and backslides until all progress stops. Doing the right thing as a leader often earns you the title of asshole and you have to be ok with that. It isn’t carte blanche to be petty and cruel for no good reason though, your actions should reflect the needs of the project not your own whims.

I agree with the first part. But you can have high standards, call out incompetence and fire people without being an asshole (or without being perceived as one). A good example is Ray Dalio.

The thing is, Elon Musk is emotionally immature. He's extremely thin-skinned and narcissistic. He likes to take revenge. There's a difference between firing someone because it will help the project and doing it because you're angry and it will make you feel good.

Who is Ray Dalio?

The personality and behavior that you find repulsive is probably the most conducive to progress. I am not one of those (if I do say so myself). I don't like to step on other peoples' toes or piss people off. I value the happiness of certain other people over my own, mostly. I am unwilling to sacrifice certain things (family) for other goals that I might have.

These traits (some might say virtues) are limitations on what I can accomplish. People without these limitations are often perceived as assholes, but with the right combination of other traits/virtues, they can really do great things.

That's how I see it anyway. I'm not making excuses for myself, and I still intend to do something great, but I don't have expectations of changing the world or being the greatest.

I mostly disagree. Acting in a way that is optimal for the project doesn't require you to be narcissistic, thin-skinned, revengful, etc.

Empathy can be a hurdle in making the right decisions, for example firing a low performing employee. You could argue that someone who takes pleasure in the pain of others could be a better leader. Possibly. But first, I would still find them repulsive and second, I think you can be both decent and a good leader who makes the right decisions. Personally if I were in a leadership position I would try to "hack" my emotions and convince myself that e.g. firing someone who doesn't do a good job is a good thing overall.

I think about this all the time.

I love Miles Davis' music. Love it.

And by multiple accounts, Miles was probably a bad person.

Can I love his music while not loving the man? How do I reconcile that?

I still don't know.

I think people that become prominent, especially businesspeople, get accused of being bad people for the rest of their lives. Their lives are scrutinized, other prominent people that control newspapers have friction with them, they do something not too nice at some point and can never live it down. It is easy to call someone a shitty human being, but is he a better person than say, your neighbor down the street? Have you ever done or said anything that, if you were to become prominent tomorrow, people would call you a shitty person for? I think almost everyone on earth has.

Edison was an asshole too. And Franklin.

Examples of assholes abound, sure.

Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Being an asshole isn't a required characteristic.

Einstein's breakthroughs happened alone, in a tiny window of highly productive years in his twenties. The rest of his life contained little of note and he never needed to build a huge/excellent team to accomplish what he's famous for. The "asshole" aspects of famous business leaders occur because they need to drive enormous groups of people beyond what they thought they were capable of.

May I be as unsuccessful as Einstein someday.

Sub in Tony Hsieh, or Costco's CEO, if you prefer. Both are known for being particularly protective of their employees' well being.

>Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow.

Except to his wife.

If we're setting "never had a failed relationship" as the bar, virtually everyone's an asshole.