The baboon paradox: why bosses look so ugly from behind

Middle managers have a hard enough time as it is, stuck in the sandwich between their boss and their people, having to keep everyone happy. But there’s another phenomenon that makes being half-way up the ladder really difficult, and that’s the restricted view. The only people you can see properly are those in your team below you, who are looking up to you for direction, and the one directly above you, to whom you in turn look for direction (and, lets face it, just in case they might throw or drop something on you without warning.) But the trouble is, when you look down, you see a totally different perspective than when you look up. After a recent visit to London Zoo, I’ve decided to call this the Baboon Paradox.

Imagine looking down on baboons. Sweet faces turned attentively up at you, expectant, all of them seemingly content. As their leader, you smile down at them and nod reassuringly. Yes, your team is doing fine. They’re all great people and really seem to appreciate having you as their leader.

Now lift your gaze upwards to your boss and what do you see? Not his face but his arse, and its not a pleasant sight. Male baboons have possibly the ugliest bum in the animal kingdom. And a female baboon’s rear end isn’t much lovelier.



From lower rungs on a ladder, the imperfections of the person above you are all too plain to see. Could this be why we tend to criticise those above us in organisations more than those below? Is it our distorted perspective? Our boss’s raw selves, their unpolished end, not the one they want their own boss to see but the other end, the one they care a bit less about: that’s the one that stares us daily in the face when we look up.

Yet the people in your team who look up to you seem absolutely fine, don’t they, possibly because they’re only showing you the polished end, the one they want you to see. Given you’re extremely busy and it would cause you an enormous headache to know too much about what’s going on at the other end, you look at their smiling faces and sigh contentedly.

So all leaders need to beware of the Baboon Paradox. How easy it is to criticise those above, whilst forgetting we have a baboon bum ourselves and that those below have no choice but to look at it. The trick would seem to be to polish both ends, for in these days of right-on, democratic organisations where everyone’s views are to be respected, a little modesty when climbing a ladder will go a long way.

Dr Karen Moloney is a psychologist, consultant, writer and speaker, and a director of Moloney Minds.