Barbara Kellerman
1 Bad Authorship
It's not clear what we're supposed to learn from this book. As other reviewers have observed, Kellerman identifies five categories of bad leadership -- but they're ad hoc, arbitrarily derived groupings. Therefore we can't identify systematic causes of bad leadership, which would lead to meaningful prescriptions.
Kellerman uses a broad definition of leadership that encompasses corporate leaders appointed by a board, elected leaders, founders of companies (like Martha Stewart), and self-appointed crazies like Jim Jones. Can we really load all these forms into one category -- and still come up with meaningful conclusions?
As others have noted, Kellerman's bias raises questions about credibility. She faults Bill Clinton for lack of leadership in three separate arenas -- more than any other "leader" in the book. Yet Clinton's health care "failure" can be partly attributed to a huge spending campaign by insurance companies, which she does not mention. His lack of action in Rwanda pales next to foreign policies by leaders who extended wars for political reason and ... well' we won't even go there.
As for the Lewinsky affair, Kellerman writes (p 35) that "tolerance for moral fallibility, even if evident only behind closed doors, has been low." Really? Many American leaders (JFK, LBJ, and others) have had rather varied experiences behind closed doors. Some countries remain baffled by the American concern with our leaders' "moral fallibility." And is Confucius really the appropriate source to cite when discussing modern leaders and their morals? Why not a historian or political scientist?
On page 43, Kellerman refers to Martha Stewart's "charges stemming from insider trading," noting that Stewart can be "mean." Stewart's legal position has been extremely controversial. Several legal scholars have questioned the decision to charge Stewart with lying to federal officials even when she was innocent of the insider trading charges. And where does Kellerman learn about Stewart's leadership style? The references cite popular trade books including an "unauthorized autobiography."
Ironically, one of Kellerman's prescriptions for dealing with "bad leadership" includes "Develop your own sources of information." That's a good idea for authors, too.
Other prescriptions are vague, such as "ensure punishment fits the crime." Who's to decide what fits the crime? Does the public gain from incarcerating a white collar criminal? And who decides what's a crime in the first place? Many reports of misconduct sound like horror stories -- but often the laws are ambiguous and enforcement becomes a showcase for a particular government agency.
"Good" and "bad" aren't always easy to identify and I'm not convinced these simplistic dichotomies are the most useful for education, policy, and yes, even leadership. A book published by HBS press should embody more scholarship and less hype.
2 An In-Depth Study of Bad Leaders.
The writer is considered an expert on leadership, having written many books on the subject. She received her B.A. at Sarah Lawrence College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. She certainly has the pedigree for a good leader.
In this book, however, she concentrates on bad leaders and the reason they fail. On the 'bad side' President Clinton leads the pack, along with former presidents Nixon and Harding. World leaders who were terrible included Hitler, Stalin, and Hussein for the atrocities they did to their own countrymen. In religion, she castigates the leaders of the Catholic church for allowing the child sex abuse which has been around since time immemorial (a long time), the Bakkers, Henry Lyons, and Swaggart.
On the 'light side,' good leaders include Jack Welch, Churchill, and FDR, who in my opinion was unethical by deceiving Americans about his disability and health problems. He had women problems as did JFK and Clinton. She left out Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson, who could have been on either side.
Not only are there bad leaders, but they have followers who are bad, just as the good follow the good. Her use of language to define leadership was interesting, and she made up two words of her own: 'cocreate' and coconstitute.' I have not come across those before and I am a word person.
All leaders should first follow. John C. Maxwell of maximum impact (Direction in Leadership) feels that "Everything rises and falls on leadership motivates individuals to reach their highest potential in the office, at home, and in every personal endeavor." He uses music and leadership as an example. The conductor of an orchestra starts out as a musician playing an instrument as a youth. Todd Duncan has a new book, TIME TRAPS, in which he will empower salespeople to become great leaders in selling and "compel you to maximize your potential in life."
Ms. Kellerman has published essays in 'New York Times,' 'Boston Globe,' 'Christian Science Monitor,' and 'Harvard Business Review.' She has appeared on CNN, PBS, NBC, CBS as political comentator and is now affiliated with Harvard.
3 Good Book on Bad Leadership
This is first a book of examples - of bad leadership. If the author had limited the book to one example after another on bad leadership, then we could toss it on the growing pile of bad books about bad leadership - published since the collapse of Enron. However, this one differs in several important ways.
Kellerman divides bad leadership into a number of different types to include a bit of a surprise, the recognition of evil leadership. In each category, she fearlessly "names names" and discusses each example in varying detail.
In each example, Kellerman looks at six elements: the prologue, the context, the leader, the followers, the web, and the benefit of hindsight. She is one of the few to examine and explain the role of followers in bad leadership. Her bold insights are a unique and welcome commentary, and "good leaders" will learn a great deal in these sections.
In the last section of the book, the author describes how times are beginning to change, i.e. bad leadership is more obvious that it used to be and consequently more difficult to exercise. Lastly she closes with her best advice on how to avoid bad leadership. In doing so, she offers useful "self-help" lists for both leaders and followers.
Bad Leadership is an easy read and a welcome addition to any management library.
4 Sobering Account of Ways Leadership Goes Awry
I bought this book after hearing Kellerman give a lecture recorded on NPR. Her speech, based on her book Bad Leadership, was precise and purposeful. Not surprisingly, the book contains her precise language and her purpose, which is to show us how leadership, even when in the hands of well-intentioned people, can go wrong. She first argues that too many of us, inundanted with optimistic, often business-oriented books about leadership, assume, erroneously, that leadership is somehow synonymous with goodness and virtue. To the contrary, Kellerman argues, leadership goes wrong more often than not. In what appears to be a reverse pyramid from benign to malignant, Kellerman catalogs the seven deadly sins of leadership: 1. incompetence 2. rigidity 3. intemperance 4. callousness 5. corruption 6. insularity 7. evil.
She gives historical (Hitler) accounts and more contemporary (Rudolph Giuliani, Howell Raines) to illustrate her definitions of bad leadership.
She concludes by prescribing corrective measures. Her book is invaluable in that for us to fully grasp good leadership we must first comprehend its antithesis. A negative definition of leadership in all of its facets is a necessary nudge in the right direction.
5 Unfortunately, a biased and trite view of interesting topic
I've read the book and just heard the author on NPR. While I agree with another reviewer that the view of Clinton is particularly biased, I was willing to overlook the bias if some interesting and rigorous research emerged. Unfortunately, the author's qualitative study reflects more her own ad hoc categories and less a realistic assessment of the leadership behaviors and styles of the subjects.
This is a classic example of bad business, management, and leadership writing not grounded in rigorous empirical research. For better views of rigorous leadership research, start with books by Ed Locke, Pfeffer, and Sutton.
- A Student of Organizational Behavior
6 Seems Biased
Bill Clinton stopped the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans by magnificent leadership when George H Bush had done nothing about it. Clinton worked tiredlessly for peace in Ireland and the Middle East, yet she chooses Bill Clinton as a bad leader. Bill Clinton gets standing ovations when he goes to foreign countries, Bush Jr gets demonstrations showing the American flag with swasticas painted on it. So who is the bad leader? More right wing garbage. What else is new?
7 Is this "Bad Leadership" or just "Bad Writing"?
"Bad Leadership" lists 7 characteristics of bad leadership and gives examples of each. Some examples don't clearly reflect the bad quality being highlighted (e.g. the IOC chairman mentioned as incompetant seems more corrupt and insular). The 7-10 page descriptions of each bad leader are interesting, but rather than focusing on the leadership flaws/failings, the author merely gives a "Reader's Digest" summary of each leader.
However, the worst criticism I have for the book is its extreme redundancy. Every chapter describes the "bad followership" involved, which can be summarized as "Don't follow bad leaders". The author also spends many pages discussing how difficult it is writing such a book.
I hope someone else writes a good book on bad leadership/bad followership, as I find this topic very intriguing. Unfortunately, there seems very little insightful thinking involved in this book, and the fact that this was allowed to be published in this state is a perfect example of "Bad Followership".
8 Unusual and excellent
This is a valuable addition to the leadership literature in an area not frequently addressed. Kellerman begins by asserting, in opposition to some authors on the subject, that leadership can be values-neutral. That is, leadership may be used to serve bad causes as well as good while still remaining "leadership." She also suggests, less controversially, that some individuals in leadership positions do not do it well. She develops these ideas of unethical and inept leadership with very specific and (primarily) recent examples from government, business and nonprofit organizations. By structuring her observations into seven categories she constructs a typology of leadership failure that is, so far as I am aware, unique. Her insights can not only help us to recognize bad leadership when we encounter it as followers, they can help us deal with it more effectively. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the study and practice of leadership.
9 A View From the Dark Side
We live in a time where the news is filled with countries, corporations, and other organizations that are failing to perform as they should. Ms. Kellerman has analyzed several of these and identified fundamental seven types of leadership that are prone to failure.
INCOMPETENT: The leader and at least some followers lack the will or skill to sustain effective action.
RIGID: The leader and at least some of his followers are stiff, unyielding, and unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times.
Intemperate: The leader lacks self-control and is aided and abetted by followers who do not intervene.
CaALLOUS: The leader is uncaring or unkind, he ignores or discounts the needs of the rest of the organization.
CORRUPT: These people lie, cheat, or steal. They put self interest above all else.
INSULAR: They disregard or at least minimize the health and welfare of those outside the small center group.
EVIL: Some leaders and at least some followers commit atrocities.
In each of these catagories, she identifies leaders that illustrate her point. This leads to an understanding of why such bad leadership is harmful to the organization, and if the organization is the political leadership of a country, it is bad for the world.
