Comment by _doctor_love

I am of many minds about this. I fully believe in the ego problem, but that's so universal that I don't think it's the only answer.

Software engineers and especially architecture folks tend to have very healthy egos themselves that get in the way of the right thing happening. The worst-case scenario is when someone has a big ego and is technically correct. That can be a very tough nut to crack, and even worse if you pile on emotional and historical baggage.

I don't think we can ever eliminate the problem of bad leaders. I am not even convinced that it is desirable to do so. Everybody has to have room to grow and sometimes a person who later becomes a great leader has to learn what that means by royally fucking up early in their career. People need room to fail and that's true for leaders as well. It's problematic obviously because leaders have outsize impact relative to the general population.

Ultimately I think the real problem is much deeper than work or industry. If you go back in history, bad leaders have always been a problem. Pharaoh blamed the builders for his bad pyramid (or at least didn't think he was part of the issue). The Vasa sank because no-one could contradict or push back on the king -- when people rule by divine right, pushing back on the king is equivalent to pushing back on God. The cathedral collapsed because the bishop insisted it be the tallest one around, then later the roof collapsed, killing many people.

Challenger, Columbia, Chernobyl, the Quebec Bridge, Deepwater Horizon, etc. all these disasters, it's basically an infinite list. We humans have these problems with each other because we have issues with power and authority and control.