Bad Leadership
BAD LEADERSHIP
What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters
By Barbara Kellerman
Page 1
The book is all about the dark side of leadership and how you individuals get there and what we can do to avoid it. She suggests that leaders do not act alone and are not solely responsible for bad leaderships. There is no leadership without followship. If followers would just not follow a bad leader we could put a stop to the bad leadership. She has two main arguments throughout the book. The first is that leadership is either classified as ineffective or unethical. The second argument is that you can break the whole bad leadership into seven types – incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil. She talks about how writers of other books and schools that study leadership suggest that to become a leader is to become a good leader. The dark side then as she suggests that to limit leadership to good leadership presents three major problems. It is confusing and misleading and does a disservice. She goes on to talk about the reasons why we are bad. She states that “people in a state of nature are not, in the usually sense of the word, good. This is not to insist that people are bad but rather that the human animal cannot be relied on to behave well.”[i] I’m not so sure that I agree with this statement. She brings up a point that in the past, scholars believed that a leader’s traits, such as intelligence, were more important then any other variable when determining a leader’s ability. They now agree that there are other variables that need to be considered such as the situation, the nature of the task at hand, and the followers. Why do we follow leaders who behave badly? She suggests it’s out of our need for safety and self-preservation. Getting along by going along is one of life’s early
Page 2 lessons and so we need simplicity and stability. We do not want to lose our jobs so we keep quiet and keep things simple. Groups go
What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters
By Barbara Kellerman
Page 1
The book is all about the dark side of leadership and how you individuals get there and what we can do to avoid it. She suggests that leaders do not act alone and are not solely responsible for bad leaderships. There is no leadership without followship. If followers would just not follow a bad leader we could put a stop to the bad leadership. She has two main arguments throughout the book. The first is that leadership is either classified as ineffective or unethical. The second argument is that you can break the whole bad leadership into seven types – incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil. She talks about how writers of other books and schools that study leadership suggest that to become a leader is to become a good leader. The dark side then as she suggests that to limit leadership to good leadership presents three major problems. It is confusing and misleading and does a disservice. She goes on to talk about the reasons why we are bad. She states that “people in a state of nature are not, in the usually sense of the word, good. This is not to insist that people are bad but rather that the human animal cannot be relied on to behave well.”[i] I’m not so sure that I agree with this statement. She brings up a point that in the past, scholars believed that a leader’s traits, such as intelligence, were more important then any other variable when determining a leader’s ability. They now agree that there are other variables that need to be considered such as the situation, the nature of the task at hand, and the followers. Why do we follow leaders who behave badly? She suggests it’s out of our need for safety and self-preservation. Getting along by going along is one of life’s early
Page 2 lessons and so we need simplicity and stability. We do not want to lose our jobs so we keep quiet and keep things simple. Groups go
References: Durbin, Andrew J. Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Fifth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company (2007). Kellerman, Barbara. Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Harvard Business School Press (2004). Page 9