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Bad Leadership

Scholarly Book Review

LEAD 510 LEADERSHIP IN CONTEXT

May 2009

Jessie D. Stament

Southwestern College

Professional Studies

Introduction

“What is to be done in order to maximize good leadership and minimize bad leadership?” (p. xvi). Today’s society is so intrigued and mesmerized with studying good leadership that few tend to focus on the crippling effects that bad leadership has on both large and small departments, organizations, and corporations throughout the world. In the book Bad Leadership, Barbara Kellerman tries to break through society’s dominating trend of primarily focusing on positive aspects of leadership to bring bad leadership to the forefront of leadership discussion and studies. She provides readers with information to able to recognize characteristics and traits of bad leadership in hopes of preventing bad leaders from damaging and even ruining the very organizations they are entrusted with leading. She acknowledges that bad leadership is a very vague subject, but she hopes to be able to establish some sense of order to the subject.

Kellerman’s target audience includes everyone from leaders to followers, scholars to philosophers, and teachers to students; but primarily she targets every one of us because at some point in our lives we will all be in some position of leadership or followership. She is reaching out to those who continue to neglect the need to study bad leadership, and argues that studying bad leadership is an integral part for truly understanding leadership as a whole. Kellerman claims that in order to truly understand leadership, we must examine leadership in its entirety and that includes studying both the good and the bad.

Kellerman writes, “It is my hope and intention that by discussing and distinguishing among the primary forms of bad leadership, we might ourselves avoid becoming entangled both as bad leaders and as bad followers” (p. 48). Kellerman claims that bad leadership is not a one sided street. She believes that bad leadership includes bad followership and that followers are as much to blame for bad leadership. Her intentions for writing this book are to introduce the need to study bad leadership in leadership studies, define bad leadership since its context is so vague, prevent readers from conforming to bad followership, and to ultimately prevent readers from becoming bad leaders.

Thesis

Kellerman’s thesis is centered on the assumption that bad leadership is not even recognized as a key subject of leadership studies in today’s society, and that if society continues to neglect the subject of bad leadership, society will fail to understand the true meaning of leadership. She writes, “Thus the fundamental proposition of this book: To deny bad leadership equivalence in the conversation and curriculum is misguided, tantamount to a medical school that would claim to teach health while ignoring disease” (p. 11).

Kellerman supports her thesis by primarily focusing on seven different types of bad leadership. Her basis is founded through her studies of hundreds of different leadership cases she has studied and she supports her claims through various references which include scholarly journals, essays, and books. Naturally, as an author would, she includes her own personal opinions on the subject from which she has developed from her own personal, professional, and educational experience. She assumes that readers are either knowledgeable of the persons she is describing or that they may be able to relate these stories to a leader they have encountered sometime in their lives. Before defining the seven types of bad leadership, Kellerman explains that leadership is bad in two distinct ways: ineffectively and unethically.

Main Points

When describing ineffective leadership, she writes, “Ineffective leadership fails to produce the desired change” (p. 33). Ineffective leadership is her premise for her first three typologies because incompetent, rigid, and intemperate leaders usually fail to produce desired changes within their organizations. When describing unethical leadership, Kellerman writes, “Unethical leadership fails to distinguish between right and wrong” (p. 34). Unethical leadership is her premise for the remaining four typologies because callous, corrupt, insular, and evil leaders tend to have no regard for doing the right thing.

Incompetent

Incompetent leadership is the first type of bad leadership that Kellerman discusses. She describes the incompetent leaders as being incompetent because they lack something such as a quality, skill, ability, information, or education. In my workplace, I work with someone who fits the role of an incompetent leader. He lacks the ability to multi-task amongst other things and he is in a position where he leads eight people. His incompetence hurts the department’s ability to successfully accomplish their tasks and continually brings scrutiny upon their department. When asked questions, he provides answers that are never clear cut and causes confusion on the receiving end. Fortunately, his followers are not incompetent. Although they are frustrated, they still make up for his incompetence because they do not want their leader’s incompetence to be what their department is known for.

Rigid

Kellerman describes rigid leaders as, “unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information, or changing times” (p. 76). Leaders are not just rigid because their inabilities and unwillingness to adapt to change; they may also be rigid but also because rigid leaders fear change. I have worked with someone in the past who was a rigid leader. The team would provide new ideas for the project we were working, and he never gave us his full attention. Over time, his unwillingness to entertain new ideas caused his followers to become disgruntled and unresponsive to his demands. He felt that his ideas were the only ones we would use and on more than one occasion the changes he implemented either added non-valued steps to the process which created more work or his ideas failed to produce the desired results. Eight months into the contract, our team was informed that the project would be awarded to another company. Our customer was dissatisfied with the procedures he established and they felt that we were not making the progress they were expecting.

Intemperate

Kellerman holds little regard for intemperate leadership as is shown when she describes it as, “…as unnecessary, as careless and wasteful, as intemperate leadership” (p. 95). Intemperate leaders have no sense of self-control and their behavior can have detrimental effects on their followers and the organization. I have seen this type of leader and the effect they can have on their followers. A site manager I work with has a very short fuse. His intemperate behavior has instilled a sense of fear into his followers. They are afraid to approach him because they never know how he is going to react. This hurts his department, because now employees are less likely to admit to a mistake in fear of the repercussions. If he could learn to control his temper, people would probably feel more comfortable with owning up to a mistake because they would know that he is not going to bite their head off, but instead he is going to guide them to either correct the mistake or prevent the mistake from happening again in the future.

Callous

Kellerman describes callous leaders as leaders who are uncaring or unkind. Callous leaders do not think about their followers’ needs or desires. In my opinion, these types of leaders are some of the worst kinds. How can leaders expect to get the best results if they have no regard for the folks who are doing the majority of the work? A high-level manager in our company falls into this category. He is in charge of the entire logistics department and he has little value for his followers. I understand that he is responsible for managing over 30 employees and that he is very busy, but when he does show face at the warehouse, he does not even have the decency to say hello to the very people that are supporting him. He came by about a week ago to find an employee that has been working for his department for over a year. When he came into the building, the manager, not even knowing the employee he was looking for was standing right in front of him, asked if the employee could tell him where this person was. How does that make the employee feel? This employee works hard everyday to support this manager’s project and he does not even know his name after being with the company for over a year.

Corrupt

Kellerman defines corrupt leaders as leaders who lie, cheat, or steal mostly for profitable gain. She explains that these types of leaders are not limited to just big corporations, and that these types of leaders exist everywhere amongst us from the top executives of an organization to the lowest level managers. I am sure that there have been some leaders I have worked with in the past that are corrupt in some way, and I have been unaware of their actions because they have yet to be caught. But sooner or later they are bound to get caught because most corrupt leaders cannot stop themselves from acting on their greed again. Once corrupt leaders steal or lie once and get away with it, it becomes easier for them and more enticing for them to do it again. Their greed overcomes their value for integrity and honesty as was the case of Andrew Fastow of Enron. His corruptness cost people millions of dollars and ultimately brought the collapse of Enron.

Insular

Insular leaders are those who “establish boundaries between themselves and their followers on the one side, and everyone else on the other” (p. 169). These leaders do not care for anything that is happening outside of their established group. Working in the government contracting industry, I see this type of leader on a daily basis. I work with multiple contractors from different companies to support the same project which can cause a conflict of interest. Working with your competition is tough, but most of us work with a team mentality because we are all striving for the same goals: customer satisfaction. But there are a lot of people who do not see things that way. On my project we work primarily with one other contracting company. Their team leader was notorious for not caring about anybody else but his company’s people. This causes a lot of dissent amongst the team, because he is quick to blame any mistake on our company. His narrow-mindedness detracts from the projects overall goals of supporting the troops overseas with the equipment they need.

Evil

In Kellerman’s typology of bad leadership, evil leaders are the worst type, because they have no regard for others. They impose harm on other people which can be “physical, psychological, or both” (p. 191). It is amazing that such leaders exist in the world. How do followers allow themselves to follow such an evil leader? It is because followers fear these types of leaders so much because these leaders terrorize their followers by inflicting pain or even death on anybody that stands in their way.

Critical Assessment

Kellerman’s work contributes to the Leadership in Context course because she provides a different perspective on how learners should study leadership. Most of our studies are based on leaders who had a positive impact on the followers and organizations they lead. Whereas, Kellerman argues we should also study bad leadership in order to prevent these types of leaders from infecting the organizations we work for. Kellerman claims that valuable lessons can be learned from studying bad leadership. If we only study effective leadership traits, how can we be fully aware of how to avoid the pitfalls of bad leadership?

Kellerman acknowledges the fact that her work is open to argument since bad leaders may possess more than one of the traits she has defined. But she believes that her work brings order to such a difficult subject. She feels that she is providing a tool for readers to use to “cut through the thicket.” Kellerman agrees that typologies can be viewed by readers as a way of labeling leaders a certain way. But she argues that she is not using these typologies to specifically label a leader as one way or another. Kellerman wrote, “Rather, type refers to a pattern of leader and follower behavior that is sustained over time, that has a bad effect, and that is of consequence” (p. 220).

Most works of leadership are written to provide useful tools on how to be an effective or good leader. These books, articles, and essays are written more as self-help or how-to leadership guides aimed at making readers into better leaders. These works emphasize the positive traits and qualities leaders should possess in order to be successful. In the book, Harvard Business Review on Leadership, which is a compilation of essays written by various leadership scholars, not a single essay is dedicated to examining bad leadership and the effects it has on an organization. The different essays focus more on the how’s, what’s, when’s, why’s, and where’s for becoming a better leader. In Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, we see the same recurring theme. The authors of the works focus more on what leaders need to do to be successful and effective. There is little emphasis placed on the importance of studying bad leadership and the valuable insight that can be gained from it. Kellerman feels that we must go one step further and explore the dark side of leadership to fully understand what being a leader is truly about and to protect ourselves from developing the traits of bad leadership. If we are not aware of the traits and qualities of ineffective and unethical leaders, how can we prevent ourselves from becoming one?

Another reason for the need of studying bad leadership is because of the effects bad leadership has on organizations. “Bad leadership is expensive. Under the watch of poor leaders and managers, staff morale declines and workers feel less committed to the organization and its mission. That tends to lead to work of lesser quality and things getting done more slowly” (Vazquez). Kellerman understands that bad leadership does not only affect the individual leader. She writes, “Bad leadership incurs costs not only at the level of the individual but also at the level of the group” (p. 222). Bad leadership is not only costly for the individuals involved; it is costly to the organization as a whole because bad leadership detracts from the ultimate goal of a company: profits. If worker morale declines because of bad leadership, workers are not going to be giving their best effort towards their work which means poorer quality, less productivity, and lower profits. This can be devastating to any company, especially in today’s declining economy.

Personal Reaction

I believe Kellerman’s book is very beneficial for leadership studies and trying to understand what leadership is all about. Leadership scholars have flooded the shelves with so many books on how to be a better leader or what it takes to be a better leader. These works emphasize what values leaders should possess or what qualities are needed in order to be successful. But Kellerman provides a different perspective than most others that I believe makes readers aware of the different types of bad leadership that exist and the consequences these bad leaders endured because of their actions. Before reading this book, I knew that some of the managers I had worked for in the past or currently work with possess bad leadership traits, and now I have a better understanding of those traits and I am more aware of how to recognize these types of leaders. I believe that bad leadership is a topic of great interest because during this class some of my co-workers, friends, and family members saw me studying this book and they asked what it was about and if they could read it when I was done. I think that everyone has encountered bad leadership at some point in their lives and that they are interested in understanding it so that they may avoid the mistakes these bad leaders have made.

We learn some of our most valuable lessons from dealing with both good and bad leaders and apply these lessons to our own leadership style. Having read this book, I feel I have a better understanding of bad leadership and I am more aware of what types of traits bad leaders possess. I think that I know more now of how to detect bad leadership than I did before the class, and I can apply the lessons I learned to make myself a better leader both personally and professionally.

In order to avoid becoming a bad leader, I must first be aware of the traits of bad leadership which I feel I have gained great insight on from reading this book. Incompetent leaders lack certain qualities, traits, or abilities that are necessary to be effective. To ensure I am competent, I try to learn about leadership by continuing my education, staying informed, and sharpening my leadership skills through application. To avoid being rigid, I am open to new ideas and not afraid of implementing change. Rather than fear change, I look forward to it. Change can make processes and productivity better if properly used and a leader must understand that sometimes even the lowest level employees have the greatest ideas. Intemperate leaders are leaders who have no self-control. I always try not to react with immediate emotion. If a situation arises, I like to take a step back and assess the situation before reacting. That is not to say that I am slow to make decisions. But I have seen that making emotional decisions is usually costly. Callous leaders are unkind and uncaring. I believe leaders must be compassionate towards their followers and show genuine care for them. A leader’s success comes from the hard work of their followers. If a leader truly cares for their followers and has their best interests at heart, their followers will want to produce the desired results. Corrupt leaders are those who allow greed to consume them. I am a firm believer in integrity which has been instilled in me through my parents, associates, and from my time in the US Air Force. Insular leaders are those who care only for the people in their group. Nowadays, there are not many departments that function as a single entity. Departments rely on other people in order to complete a task or a job, and without their effort, nothing will get accomplished. For instance, my department relies on logistics, transportation, customers, and many other people in order to get equipment ready for shipment. As a leader, I cannot afford to care only for the people in my department, because if I did, the troops overseas who rely on this gear for their safety will suffer. Evil leaders are those who have no regard for other people. I rely on my Christian faith to never allow me to become an evil person. I believe that evil people have no value for life and are consumed with the need for power. I have no desire for power. I do not view leadership from a power perspective; rather I view leadership as an opportunity to have a positive influence on other people’s lives. The only way to accomplish this is to be aware of bad leadership traits and to apply the lessons I have learned from this book and my experiences to my life.

REFERENCES

Ciulla, Joanne. (2004). Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, Westport, CT: Praeger

Publishers.

Kellerman, Barbara. (2004). Bad Leadership: what it is, how it happens, why it matters,

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Vazquez, Leonardo. (2006). How Bad Leadership Spoils Good Planning.

Retrieved May 6, 2009, from

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