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# Leadership as the Art of Lying
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/leadership-as-the-art-of-lying/
- Published: 2010-06-07T14:10:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:07:11.000Z
- Description: Leadership as the Art of Lying
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Matthew Lee Anderson, Education

From [Scott Adam's cheeky and amusing piece recommending that you invest in companies you hate](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704025304575285000265955016.html?ref=mereorthodoxy.com):

"When companies make money, we assume they are well-managed. That perception is reinforced by the CEOs of those companies who are happy to tell you all the clever things they did to make it happen. The problem with relying on this source of information is that CEOs are highly skilled in a special form of lying called leadership. Leadership involves convincing employees and investors that the CEO has something called a vision, a type of optimistic hallucination that can come true only in an environment in which the CEO is massively overcompensated and the employees have learned to be less selfish."