From one of the pioneers in the field of leadership studies comes a provocative reassessment of how people lead in the digital age: in The End of Leadership, Barbara Kellerman reveals a new way of thinking about leadership—and followership—in the twenty-first century. Building off of the strengths and insights of her work as a scholar and a teacher, Kellerman critically reexamines our most strongly-held assumptions about the role of leadership in driving success. Revealing which of our beliefs have become dangerously out-of-date thanks to advances in social media culture, she also calls into question the value of the so-called “leadership industry” itself. Asking whether leadership can truly be taught, Kellerman forces us to think critically and expansively about how to thrive as leaders in a global information age.
A “highly perceptive” analysis of the crisis of leadership in 21st-century America, written in “an exhilaratingly readable style” (Archie Brown, Oxford University, author of The Myth of the Strong Leader). Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book Leadership has never played a more prominent role in America’s national discourse, and yet our opinions of leaders are at all-time lows. Private sector leaders are widely seen as greedy to the point of being corrupt. Public sector leaders are viewed as incompetent to the point of being inept. And levels of trust in government have plummeted. As the title of this book conveys, leaders in America are experiencing hard times. Barbara Kellerman argues that we focus on leaders, and even on followers, while ignoring an essential element of leadership: context. This book is a corrective. It enables leaders to track the terrain that they must navigate in order to create change. Rather than a handy-dandy manual on what to do and how to do it, Hard Times is structured as a checklist. Twenty-four brief sections cover key aspects of the American landscape. They trace evolutions and revolutions that have revised our norms, transformed our populations and institutions, and shifted our culture. Kellerman’s crash course on context reveals how significant it is to leadership. Clearer still is the fact that leadership is more difficult than it has ever been. It is context that explains why leadership is so fraught with frustration. And it is context that makes evident why leadership will be better exercised if it is better understood. Calling out patterns that emerge from the checklist, Kellerman challenges leaders to do better. This fascinating read will change the way that all of us think about leadership, while compelling us to consider what it means for our future. “Finally a book that explains why leadership is so hard…thought-provoking examples taken from business and government alike.” —Sydney Finkelstein, Tuck School of Business, author of Why Smart Executives Fail
Over the last 40 years, the leadership industry has grown exponentially. Yet leadership education, training, and development still fall far short. Moreover, leaders are demeaned, degraded, and derided as they never were before. Why? The problem is leadership has stayed stuck. It has remained an occupation instead of becoming a profession. Unlike medicine and law, leadership has no core curriculum considered essential. It has no widely agreed on metric, or criteria for qualification. And it has no professional association to oversee the conduct of its members or assure minimum standards. Professionalizing Leadership looks to a past in which learning to lead was the most important of eruditions. It looks to a present in which learning to lead is as effortless as ubiquitous. And it looks to a future in which learning to be a leader might look different altogether - it might resemble the far more rigorous process of learning to be a doctor or a lawyer. As it stands now, the military is the only major American institution that gets it right. It assumes leadership is a profession that requires those who practice it to be taught in accordance with high professional standards. Barbara Kellerman draws on the military experience specifically to develop a template for learning how to lead generally. Leadership in the first quarter of the present century is different from what it was even in the last quarter of the past century - which is why leadership taught casually and carelessly should no longer suffice. Professionalizing Leadership addresses precisely the problem of how to prepare leaders in accordance with professional norms. It provides the template necessary for transforming leadership from dubious occupation to respectable profession.
The COVID-19 pandemic will forever be remembered as a pivotal event in American history. Written by one of the world's foremost experts on leadership and followership, this book centers on the first six months of the pandemic and the crises that ran rampant. The chapters focus less on the former president, Donald Trump, than on his followers: on people complicit in his miserable mismanagement of the crisis in public health. Barbara Kellerman provides clear and compelling evidence that Trump was not entirely to blame for everything that went wrong. Many others were responsible including his base, party, administration, inner circle, Republican elites, members of the media, and even medical experts. Far too many surrendered to the president's demands, despite it being obvious his leadership was fatally flawed. The book testifies to the importance of speaking truth to power, and a willingness to take risks properly to serve the public interest.
Bad leadership in both business and politics is all too common. Yet even when it is clear that leadership is poor, organizations struggle to change it. In Leadership from Bad to Worse, one of the nation's leading leadership scholars looks at bad leadership across a range of organizations and details how and why it inexorably gets worse--and offers pathways for arresting these downward spirals.
A provocative departure from conventional thinking, Bad Leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety Kellerman argues that the dark side of leadership-;from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty-;is not an aberration. Rather bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious-;and so must be more carefully examined and better understood. Drawing on high-profile contemporary examples-;from Mary Meeker to David Koresh, Bill Clinton to Radovan Karadzic, Al Dunlap to Leona Helmsley-;Kellerman explores seven primary types of bad leadership and dissects why and how leaders cross the line from good to bad. The book also illuminates the critical role of followers, revealing how they collaborate in, and sometimes even cause, bad leadership. Daring and counterintuitive, Bad Leadership makes clear that we need to face the dark side in order to become better leaders and followers ourselves.
In a striking departure from past practices, Barbara Kellerman explores the fact that although we persist in viewing political and business leadership separately, the similarities between them far outweigh the differences. Kellerman claims that thinking of government and corporate leaders as a breed apart contributes to the dysfunctional gap between them, and she argues that in order to tackle those political, economic, and social problems that are the most intractable, political and business leaders will have no choice but to work together.
In the early twentieth century, a young Australian woman became one of the highest paid and most adored Hollywood and vaudeville stars of the day. Her name was Annette Kellerman. Born into a musical family in suburban Sydney in 1886, Annette's first love was performing. Yet when she took up swimming to overcome a childhood illness, she quickly found herself breaking records and beating the boys and loving it. When the Depression hit, Annette and her father headed for England to seek their fortune. It was to be the start of a dazzling international career. After winning over Londoners with her death-defying swims in the Thames and the English Channel, she was soon wowing them at the Palladium with her trademark vaudeville act: a performance that included diving into a giant glass tank where she captivated the crowds with her graceful and athletic underwater ballet. Hollywood beckoned and Annette quickly became the darling of the silent film era, starring in the first-ever million-dollar film, Daughter of the Gods. She was soon a household name; dubbed The Perfect Woman', crowds queued for blocks to see her on the screen, men flocked to catch a glimpse her provocative costumes or lack thereof-and women thronged to hear her views on health and fitness. Annette's life was often controversial but always exhilarating, and was immortalised in the 1950s Esther Williams classic The Million Dollar Mermaid. Yet she was to end her days alone and penniless on Queensland's Gold Coast, selling her old fur coat to pay the bills. Strong minded and fiercely brave, Annette Kellerman high-dived onto the international stage, challenging preconceptions of how women should look, act and think, and capturing the hearts of a generation. Here, for the first time ever, is her extraordinary story.
The first section of this book details the authors' conception of presidential leadership and establishes the historical, constitutional, and international contexts within which Presidents must operate. The second section consists of six non-crisis case studies of presidential efforts to exercise leadership in foreign affairs. The cases also show how Presidents attempt to initiate--as opposed to primarily react to--international change: Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, Johnson's involvement in the Vietnam War, Nixon's overtures to the Communist superpowers, Carter's Middle East initiatives, Reagan's campaign for military superiority, and Bush's approach to foreign-policy leadership. In each case, the authors analyze the President's objectives, the domestic and international situation at the time, the method of implementation, and the degree of success. ISBN 0-312-03603-5 (pbk.): $18.65.
These writings have evolved properly over living many years on the planet and enjoying observations of my fellow man. It's about learning how to flow within the rhythm of all “LIFE FORMS” and laughing about silly things incredulous human beings do. It’s about loving the human race, and living everywhere on the planet at one time; it’s about you! Note: There is no intention on my part to be cogent as these writings have come about from a knowing heart! Upon using the words man and he, I am referring to the Homo Sapien species which include both male/female gender as we know it at the time of these writings.
This book provides the most comprehensive account to date of women's persistent underrepresentation in leadership roles, why it matters, and what can be done to change it.
Great. Just what I didn´t want to hear. My life´s in the hands of a hitman and a thief. I´m one lucky girl." Angela hung up the phone. The sergeant told her the cab was in front of the station. "Thanks," she said. "Would you give Detective Carter a message for me?" "Sure." "Tell him I hope I never see him again." The ´Family´ believes Angela killed her husband and stole incriminating evidence against the family. On the run for two years, she´s finally come back to reclaim the son she left behind.
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