BOOK SUMMARY 95 Bad Leadership
·
Summary written by: Jacqueline van
Dyk
"How did leadership come to be synonymous with good
leadership? Why are we afraid to acknowledge, much less admit to, the dark
side?"
- Bad Leadership, location 193
Reading
about good leadership can be an energizing activity. It’s inspiring to think
about best practices and learn from admirable leaders. In contrast, reading
about bad leadership requires a strong resolve and is best not done at bedtime.
That
said, Barbara Kellerman’s book provides a useful examination of bad leadership
– useful in that an understanding of bad leadership and its damaging effects is
necessary to really understanding good leadership. If we ignore bad leadership,
how can we counter it?
Bad
Leadership covers the spectrum from incompetence
to evil, from ineffective to unethical. It also considers context, motivations,
and conditions, including the perspective of followers.
The Golden Egg
The Dynamics of Bad Leadership
"The
mixture of the ineffective and the unethical in bad leadership can never be
known or measured precisely. This is a truth of the human condition. The
important tasks then are to develop a greater awareness of the dynamics of bad
leadership, and a better understanding of the different ways that leaders’
actions can be both ineffective and unethical."- Bad Leadership, location 665
Kellerman
has determined that bad leadership falls into seven groups: Incompetent, Rigid,
Intemperate, Callous, Corrupt, Insular, and Evil. The groupings move along a
spectrum that begins with incompetence and moves progressively into the
unethical realm.
Starting
with the more benign, she itemizes conditions that lead to incompetence: lack
of experience, lack of education, lack of expertise, lack of drive, lack of
energy, lack of intelligence, lack of stability, lack of emotional
intelligence. It is clear; incompetence exists primarily because something is
lacking. Incompetent leaders can be effective up to a point, but would need to
be willing to change when the circumstances require it if they wish to become
effective leaders.
Kellerman
also itemizes some of the motivations that lead to bad leadership: power,
greed, self-interest ahead of the public interest. As we move along the
spectrum of groupings, what’s evident is a desire for more: more power, more
money, more control, more self-interest. Kellerman concludes that leaders who
cannot or will not control their desire for more will be bad leaders.
The
author offers examples of several well-known bad leaders, ranging from Juan
Antonio Samaranch, the former president of the IOC whose sloppy management led
to widespread corruption of the Olympic Games, to Radovan Karadzic, who
personified evil leadership as the first president of the Bosnian Serb
administration.
I’d
wager that pretty much everyone has experienced the effect of bad leadership of
one form or another. Some of us even bear the scars of those experiences! And
so, when reading these stories, I couldn’t help but consider examples from my
own career. Kellerman’s analysis of bad leadership helped me gain insights and
perspective for my own situation. In that sense, reading the book was,
surprisingly, personally therapeutic.
Gem #1
Followers
"We
can make two important assumptions. First, when leaders commit atrocities and
still stay in power for years on end, their followers are anesthetized,
inflamed, or terrorized—or they are in some way rewarded. Second, when leaders
are evil, at least some followers are also evil."- Bad Leadership, location 3223
Whether The
Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings, the classic
story arc of overcoming the monster always portrays an evil leader who
threatens the protagonist’s homeland. The central character ultimately takes on
and defeats the evil overlord, and yet, along the way, many evil characters are
encountered and thwarted. The road to the primary doer of evil is paved with
followers who are likewise evil. It’s a familiar plot.
Kellerman
makes an easily understood point: Bad leaders would be powerless without
willing or compliant followers. And unethical bad leaders require followers who
are also unethical and evil.
Without
followers, nothing happens, including bad leadership. Together, bad leaders and
followers can bring out the worst in people and leave behind much damage.
As
Kellerman observes, “getting along by going along is one of life’s earliest
lessons”. By and large, we want to get along, we do what we’re told and
we play by the rules. “We follow because the cost of not following, more often
than not, is high.” It can be the cost of job loss or demotion, reputation
damage, or being condemned for being a whistle-blower.
Kellerman
argues that followers of evil leaders are also evil. And that even after evil
leaders move on, their evil can remain embedded in an organization. If evil has
become systemic, then the removal or departure of the primary bad leader will
not resolve the problem.
My
takeaway is that moving on from an evil workplace might be the best strategy
for survival.
Gem #2
Lessons Learned
"Leaders
who do not look after the interests of their followers are not only unethical
but ineffective."- Bad Leadership, location
639
Thankfully,
Kellerman devotes a good chunk of her book to suggestions for how leaders can
strengthen their personal capacity to be a good leader, one who is effective
and ethical. The cautionary tales of incompetent leaders and terrifying tales
of unethical leaders present a strong driver to pay attention to her advice on
how to be a good leader!
One
such piece of advice is to limit your tenure within one leadership role. When
leaders remain in positions of power for too long, they tend to acquire bad
habits.
Advice
particularly relevant to those of us who work in a public service sector:
Remember the mission; don’t lose sight of the mission of your organization. Be
loyal to the whole and not to any single individual. “Share power. When power
is centralized, it is likely to be misused, and that puts a premium on
delegation and collaboration.” And ensure transparency, open discussions and meaningful
participation of all members of the organization and its stakeholders.
On the
personal care front, Kellerman advises to stay healthy, be creative, and
develop a personal support system. She further advises to be reflective; never
lose sight of the importance of self-knowledge, self-control and good habits.
“Balanced
leaders develop healthier organizations.” They make more thoughtful decisions
and lead more effectively.
Kellerman
posits that we promote good leadership by not ignoring bad leadership. To
understand bad leadership, to decode and decipher it, and then to attack it as
we would any disease is essential. She states, “If we have any hope of moving
from bad leadership to better leadership, we must strike a balance between
looking at the light and seeing in the dark”.
The
cost of bad leadership is extremely high. Besides the pain and suffering of
those who are victimized by bad leadership, and the ripple effects on their
circle of colleagues, family and friends, there is a profound and lingering
impact on an organization. The systematic and intentional eradication of bad
leadership should be a priority for any organization; the costs of bad
leadership are that high.
Looking
into the dark was a difficult exercise for me, but a useful one. It instilled
in me a greater appreciation for the necessity and the light of good
leadership.
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