Donald Trump has landed on yet another magazine cover.
Bloomberg Businessweek, with predictably clever cover art, published the roughly 5,100-word profile of the Republican presidential hopeful Thursday.
The story, written by reporter Max Abelson, contains one of the most biting takedowns yet of the real estate mogul’s management chops (emphasis mine):
Trump is selling himself to America as the king of builders, a flawless dealmaker, and masterful manager. But he isn’t really any of those things. Trump has built few skyscrapers this century, stumbling twice when he’s tried, and struggled with an array of other projects. Meanwhile, his corporate leadership is a kind of teenager’s fantasy of adult office power. From his Trump Tower desk in Midtown Manhattan he controls the teensiest details, rejects hierarchy, and picks top deputies by following his own recipe for promotion.
What’s only hinted at in this passage — but is plainly evident throughout the rest of the article — is Trump’s over-the-top arrogance. Such pomposity may have gotten him where he is now (with, mind you, the help of an inheritance from his father), but he wouldn’t climb very high on today’s corporate ladder.
As my colleague Emily Peck wrote in July, arrogance has become outdated in corporate America. Per her story:
Highly regarded CEOs are nearly six times as likely as poorly regarded CEOs to be considered humble, according to a survey of 1,700 executives across the globe (minus CEOs) released in March by Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm. Weber Shandwick also found more than 50 articles that mentioned “CEO humility” in 2014 — about twice the average number for each year going back a decade or so.
“You have to be real and authentic. It requires having strong character,” the former CEO of Medtronic, Bill George, told The Huffington Post in July. “The Donald Trumps of the world, they make it in politics, not business.”
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