暴君老板进化史

    麦肯齐•贝佐斯看起来似乎对《万有商店》（The Everything Store）作者布拉德•斯通在书中直言不讳地描绘出她丈夫的形象并不满意。书一出版，她立即写了一封言辞激烈的评论【当然是在亚马逊网站（Amazon.com上）】，声称该书“有倾向且误导读者”，过分关注员工之间的“紧张时刻”——她可能不想过于强硬地回击。强调亚马逊（Amazon）的这位CEO喜欢对下属大发雷霆，实际上可能帮了他和他的公司。

    “炸药包”不仅已经是美国企业文化的固定构成，也成为了很多科技行业最成功CEO的管理风格核心，包括史蒂夫•乔布斯、比尔•盖茨和拉里•埃里森。管理专家认为，如果处置得当，这种风格甚至可能对员工和公司整体有益。

    斯通披露，亚马逊员工用“发飙”来描述老板的暴脾气。贝佐斯最喜欢说的话是：“你为什么要毁掉我的生活？”“如果我再听到这个说法，我会杀了自己，”和“我们必须动用一些人类智慧来看这个问题。”这些言语大炮固然有其不利面，可能疏远员工，最终导致他们跳槽，但也能帮助激发辉煌的成就。

    不过，也不总是这样。20世纪下半叶的大部分时间里，谦逊礼让是美国企业董事会的主流特质。举例来说，20世纪80年代，福特汽车公司（Ford）和美国电话电报公司（AT&T）都聘请了质量管理运动之父、已故的W•爱德华茲•戴明。他的信条是要提高效率，公司需要“驱散员工心中的恐惧”。那个年代，大公司的市场份额基本上已经划定，年复一年，旱涝保收，所谓看管CEO们基本上是主流，他们创造了一团和气的工作环境。

    但随着技术变革不断颠覆商业模式，有远见的领导人开始取而代之，发号施令。这些CEO们特别擅长创新方式来改变世界，但伴随这种创新的通常是许多个性缺点。总部位于华盛顿的咨询公司Maccoby Group的总裁、《孤芳自赏的领袖们》（Narcissistic Leaders）一书的作者迈克•马可比说：“当今许多最成功的商界领导人都具有全面的人格失调症，特别是高科技公司，”斯坦福大学(Stanford University)商学院学生进行的一项研究采用了马可比制订的一份问卷，研究发现，科技公司CEO中10个有9个有自恋型人格失调症，定义症状包括自我膨胀、缺乏同情心以及偶尔的“暴跳如雷”。这些领导人，马可比表示，根本不知道如何能不失冷静地应对沮丧情绪。但自恋者通常会在建立亲密关系方面存在问题，他们适合管理公司。

    当然，暴力领导人并不是什么彻头彻尾的新事物。贝佐斯和他的同类科技暴君们就像19世纪末最初将美国带入工业革命的豪门强盗一样。那一代人中一个往往被忽视的重要成员是亨利•J.•亨氏。

    出生于1844年的亨氏是与同名公司的创始人，亨氏如今也已成为番茄酱的代名词，美国番茄酱这么多年来少有变化(这家公司最近被沃伦•巴菲特以280亿美元收购)。但1876年，这家公司刚刚创立时，亨氏（H.J. Heinz Company）是当时的高科技公司。就像贝佐斯和乔布斯，总是被称为“火暴脾气之王”的亨氏也一样一点就着，但同时也创意十足。

    As unhappy as McKenzie Bezos appeared to be with author Brad Stone's unflattering portrait of her husband in the new book The Everything Store -- immediately after its publication, she wrote a stinging review (on Amazon.com, of course) calling the book "lopsided and misleading" for focusing too much on "moments of tension" between staff members -- she might not want to push back too hard. By highlighting the Amazon (AMZN) CEO's propensity to berate his staff, Stone may actually be doing him and his company a favor.

    The temper tantrum has not only become a fixture in corporate America, but it has been central to the management style of many of technology's most successful CEOs -- namely Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison -- and management experts say when handled appropriately, this style can even be beneficial to employees and the company as a whole.

    As Stone reveals, Amazon employees have coined a term to capture the boss' outbursts -- "nutters." Among Bezos's favorites are: "Why are you ruining my life?" "If I hear that idea again, I'm doing to have to kill myself," and "We are going to have to supply some human intelligence to this problem." But while such verbal volleys do have their downside -- namely alienated employees who may jump ship -- they also can help spark spectacular achievements

    This has not always been the case. For most of the second half of the 20th century, a kinder, gentler ethos reigned in America's boardrooms. For example, in the 1980s, both Ford (F) and AT&T (T) hired the late W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality management movement. His credo was that to increase efficiency, companies needed to "drive out fear" in workers. In an era when big companies could count on a given market share year after year, so-called caretaker CEOs, who created congenial workplaces, largely ruled.

    With technological change now constantly upending business models, however, visionary leaders are calling the shots instead. These CEOs are remarkably adept at devising ways to change the world, but along with this creativity often comes a host of personality tics. "Many of today's most successful business leaders have a full-blown personality disorder, particularly those in high-tech firms," says Michael Maccoby, president of Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm the Maccoby Group and author of Narcissistic Leaders. Research conducted by students at Stanford University's business school using a questionnaire developed by Maccoby suggests that as many as nine out of 10 tech CEOs suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, whose defining symptoms are an inflated sense of self, a lack of empathy, and occasional "rage attacks." These leaders, Macoby says, simply don't know how to cope with frustration without losing their cool. But while narcissists often have problems in intimate relationships, they are well suited to running companies.

    The volatile leader, of course, is not an entirely new breed. Bezos and his fellow tech titans are all throwbacks to the robber barons of the late 19th century -- the men who first brought America into the industrial age. One key and often overlooked member of that generation was Henry J. Heinz.

    Born in 1844, Heinz was the founder of the eponymous company now synonymous with ketchup, America's slow-moving national sauce (recently purchased by Warren Buffett for $28 billion). But when it was founded in 1876, the H.J. Heinz Company constituted the latest in high-tech. And like Bezos and Jobs, Heinz -- often called "the pickle king" -- was as prickly and creative as they come.