To paraphrase Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (1878-1943), an anti-Nazi German general, there are four personality types:

Smart and hard-working (good middle manager)

Stupid and lazy (lots of these around, hire for simple, routine tasks and watch closely)

Smart and lazy (promote to senior management — delegates routine work and keeps his eye on the main prize)

Stupid and hard-working (dangerous to have around, screws up things, should be taken out and shot)

It would be fun to classify presidents accordingly, but my target today is a former boss. He wasn’t very smart, but he put up a good front by deploying rhetorical tricks (e.g., Socratic logic-chopping of a most irritating kind). But he was hard-working, if you call constant motion without a notion (my coinage) hard-working.

His rhetorical tricks and aimless energy impressed outsiders who couldn’t appreciate the damage that he did to the company. Both traits irritated intelligent insiders, who were smart enough to pierce his facade and understand the damage that he did to the company.

He kept his job for 25 years because he had only to impress outsiders — the board of directors and the senior officials of client agencies — who had no idea what he actually did from day to day. Good things were accomplished in spite of him, but the glory reflected on him, undeservedly.