Bad Boss Over Age 70?
It’s a symptom of “Founder’s Syndrome”. It seems like the only option is a natural remedy…
What a world we live in.
Most of us don’t think we’ll ever be able to retire.
But some people —politicians, CEOs, the odd billionaire —don’t want to retire.
To a person, they make terrible decisions. And the suffering they’ve presided over is horrific.
Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was born the year the U.S. entered the second World War. At 84, Pelosi was just re-elected for her 20th term in office. A week ago, while visiting a World War II battle site in Luxembourg and wearing “very high heels,” Pelosi fell and broke her hip. She reportedly posed for pictures following the fall, then was rushed to emergency hip replacement surgery, and is now recovering at home in San Francisco.
Mitch McConnell, age 82, is the longest-serving Senator from his home state of Kentucky. He has experienced several falls, and is well-known for “freezing” on camera. Physicians have described McConnell’s inability to speak or move as mini-strokes or partial seizures.
The mental and physical debilitation of California’s senior senator Dianne Feinstein was obvious to everyone. Feinstein suffered from brain inflammation resulting from the shingles virus, and died in office in September 2024 at age 90.
One elderly politician was convinced to step down. Last July, President Joe Biden agreed not to run for re-election after many months where his serious physical and mental decline was obvious to everyone except sycophants and paid representatives.
Founders Syndrome is terrible. It destroys lives. It destroys organizations. It is a national security threat to the United States right now, and to any other nation sharing the problem. We are suffering in the U.S. and internationally right now, because our leaders not only do not have any interest in anything or one but themselves, this has been true for decades.
Those of us who follow public affairs know about the age-related problems with our elected officials. We don’t know what is happening with the unelected ones — although most people know about Anthony Fauci (84), the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who stepped down in 2022. Dr. Fauci presided over the HIV/AIDS epidemic and response and the COVID-19 response. He seems to fit the Founder Syndrome profile almost exactly.
Founders Syndrome: A Personal Perspective
My 40s were darkened, not just by my baby Anthony’s death and the terrible events surrounding it, but also by over half a decade working for an aging founder who made an endless series of poor decisions and refused to step aside, down, or anywhere else but her corner office at our nationally-known organization on Wilshire Blvd. in downtown Los Angeles.
I had to use every bit of skill and strength I had to help the organization I worked for — at the time, an influential and important one — to transition from a founder-oriented, ego-driven one to a more functional one that had a hope of achieving its mission to provide housing and jobs for homeless families with children.
During this time, I sought information about how people had dealt with working for not just a bad boss, but an intractable, ego-driven, reckless leader who was rushing everyone and thing off a cliff in pursuit of awards, honors, recognition, and … “power”.
The organization I worked for wasn’t evil. Few of my co-workers were evil; the overwhelming majority were ethical and hardworking. But we were all followers, not leaders ... at least until the end.
The Founders from the generation my boss was from — the same generation as Biden, McConnell, Pelosi, Fauci — and Donald Trump (at 78, just a bit younger) — will do just about anything to maintain their prestige and power.
Those are their motivators, too. This group is not motivated by concrete achievements to benefit others, and they’re also not mission-driven.
They are only motivated by concrete achievements for themselves.
Overcoming Founders Syndrome
To “fix” the terrible situation I was in at my former workplace, the nationally-recognized, influential organization for homeless families, I had to use every skill I’d ever acquired, and every connection I’d ever made in the nonprofit, philanthropic, and government sector in Los Angeles. Ultimately, to fix the problem, I had to terminate my own job.
I burned a bridge — a big one — with my former boss. Not only would I never speak to her again, I prohibited myself from working in a high-profile position for any other NGO in the Los Angeles area because no one wanted to take her on. I raised considerable money for my organization by assuring big-name donors that they’d never have to speak to my boss; I’d be glad to come by and pick up the check and speak pleasantly with them.
Most people would not be willing to put themselves out of a high-paying job to move an intractable Founder hellbent on taking their organization and everyone else with it down with them.
But I’m not most people.
It’s also worth noting that in the months before this group merged with another, more stable LA-area organization, those of us on the management team agreed to forego pay, in my case for three months, to see to it that the line staff would get paid on time.
By the end, it wasn’t a job, it was a nightmare. Our CFO had a heart attack on the job and was hospitalized for two weeks. My beloved, unfailingly cheerful coworker broke out into inchoate rage one day when we’d gone without pay — yet again — and our boss had called her in and demanded that she send around a birthday card and contribution request for gifts.
For herself.
I almost had an aneurysm the day the giant $20,000 conference table arrived. Yes, our Founder had spent $20,000 on a gigantic oak table when I was driving all over LA picking up checks to make payroll.
A lady came from Chicago to help us, sent by one of the top California foundations. She was advertised as a “change agent” and she went around to everyone and interviewed them about their jobs and roles.
It was she who told me about Founder’s Syndrome. That was over a decade ago, and the problem is now well-known.
Who would have thought that a problem that plagued nonprofit organizations, college and university departments, hospitals and clinics, startups, and family-owned businesses, would also affect the nation’s political system?
Although our Founder had started our organization over 20 years earlier, I was the only person in my position to have ever survived longer than 6 months working for her.
My baby Anthony died the second night I was on that job, and I had stayed late to meet the Board of Directors. If I hadn’t — he’d still be alive.
This isn’t actually a digression. It’s part of the gravitationally linked orbits of the leader and follower.
Our Founder was not universally evil. She had a caring, compassionate side. She stood by me after Anthony’s death and earned my loyalty in return. But — this organization was not a battlefield. She was not my field general, and I was not her battlefront lieutenant.
Our Founder isn’t just the same age as the septuagenarians and octogenarians who are clinging to political and economic power in the United States, she is one of them and her attitudes are their attitudes. She adored and idolized Nancy Pelosi, for example — and there was no ideological component. Some of these people may well be individually kind.
But to a person, their decisions, their attitudes, and their capabilities are completely at odds with those that are needed for today’s society and world.
This type of Founder:
Surrounds themselves with incompetent people who are easy to control.
Equates control with power.
Equates power with happiness and success.
Desires awards and recognition.
Demands fealty and loyalty at all times
Is unreceptive or actively hostile to questions or …
Criticism in any form.
I was one of the only people at our organization who not only would challenge our Founder’s edicts and concepts, but who could suggest anything outside of her wheelhouse with any success.
So, here is this group in national leadership in the U.S., and although a couple have either died or stepped down, several of them have been re-elected and will be continuing. Things have gotten bad enough that — like my organization during the months we were struggling to meet payroll — people are asking this question: is the U.S. Empire at an end?
How can any large organization survive with this type of self-destructive and intractable leadership?
Like the organization I worked for in downtown Los Angeles, it has that dire, hopeless, desperate feeling about it.
Thanks to my taking the initiative to speak with board members and other stakeholders, and calling in help, our organization merged with another larger organization which had a stronger financial base and more experience. The other group wasn’t innovative, but it was stable. All of the regular employees kept their jobs. All of the housing complexes remained and no one lost their home.
Over time, there’s been more change.
Success is not a million people on the streets, ever-declining life expectancies, ever-declining pay and benefits, young people reluctant to have children, and no one under age 50 able to buy a home. Success is not endless overseas wars, fully-funded genocide, and forced military recruitment to sacrifice lives for someone else’s personal profit.
How can a nation reach Mars or move forward in any other way, when three-quarters of people are fat, sick, and nearly dead, and those who are not, are working two and three jobs just to survive?
Is one solution to the United States’ problems a merger with Canada and Mexico and the incorporation of different perspectives and younger leadership?
Well, some might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
I’m just a dumb sci-fi writer.
It's not only old folks who can pick this up running a business or country- many of the current Internet-based wealthy people suffer from it as well, despite being much younger. When power is concentrated in the hands of one or a few, the age of the leadership doesn't matter if bad things are constantly done.
An ideological and personality-type consistency governs these sorts of situations. The Founder may have isolated good qualities, but overall they are narcissists and sociopaths. They want power not to do anything with it--not even evil--but just to have it. What they most want is the ability to tell everybody 'no'.
America never should have been an empire. Its end can't come too soon.