The End of Leadership by Barbara Kellerman

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Synopsis

From the author of BAD LEADERSHIP comes a provocative look at how both leadership and the industry that has been built around it are based on flawed assumptions about how humans lead and follow--assumptions that have been rendered obsolete in the digital age.Harper Business The author of the acclaimed Bad Leadership offers a provocative reassessment that critically breaks down assumptions about how people lead and follow-assumptions that are obsolete in the... more

From the author of BAD LEADERSHIP comes a provocative look at how both leadership and the industry that has been built around it are based on flawed assumptions about how humans lead and follow--assumptions that have been rendered obsolete in the digital age.Harper Business The author of the acclaimed Bad Leadership offers a provocative reassessment that critically breaks down assumptions about how people lead and follow-assumptions that are obsolete in the digital age-and offers a new way of thinking for the twenty-first century Over the past thirty years, leadership has become a mantra in our culture-a path to power and money, a road to personal and professional success, and a mechanism for creating change that has spawned its own lucrative worldwide industry. Yet why does government remain riddled with inept, corrupt, or badly behaved leaders? Why is business filled with leaders who are venal, self-centered, and seek more power and influence than they can exercise wisely and well? Why, for all attention to ethics, is corruption and malfeasance so pervasive?The End of Leadership offers a critical rethinking of the "leadership industry", challenging the idea that leadership can be taught. Breaking with common wisdom, Barbara Kellerman argues that while leaders always were and still are the focus of our collective attention, they have never been as central to success as we think. Even in times past, when leaders had far more power, authority, and influence, they were vulnerable to forces beyond their control, forces that limited their options and constrained their behaviors. In the twenty-first century, she argues, these forces are stronger, more variegated, and more numerous than they ever were before, relegating current notions of leadership to the dustbin of history. Instead, she offers an alterative model that better reflects-and adddresses-contemporary political and organizational realities. less

About Barbara Kellerman

Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was the Founding... more

Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership and served as the Center's Research Director. She is author and editor of many books including Leadership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives; The Political Presidency: Practice of Leadership; and Reinventing Leadership: Making the Connection Between Politics and Business. She lives in Connecticut. less