The Uncanny Valley of Positional Power.

The ‘uncanny valley’ is a concept in robotics and artificial intelligence that describes the eerie or unsettling feeling people often experience when an artificial figure, such as a robot or an animated character, closely resembles a human being but is not quite convincingly lifelike. An artificial figure that becomes almost, but not perfectly, indistinguishable from a real human triggers unease or revulsion.

The more a person wielding positional power pretends to be approachable, friendly, down to earth, and ‘one of us’ - the more we feel repelled by them. The personal anecdotes make us cringe. The little jokes and attempts at humour fall flat. The speeches, emails, newsletters, and ‘management by walking around’ are disturbing.

How do we respond?

Forced to reciprocate in our own uncanny valley of forced smile small talk, ‘likes’ of their digital media posts, applause at their speeches, confected laughter at their humour.

And thus the source of unease and slow, quiet death in so many workplaces.