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On December 11 of last year, I published a post titled, “Bad Leadership: Why We Steer Clear.” It was based on my longer article of the same name.*

The point of the article was to ask why. Why, given that bad leadership can be as pernicious as ubiquitous, the leadership industry continues studiously to avoid the subject.** To this question I gave four answers which, together, largely explain why we are where we are. Why the leadership industry generally fails even to address bad leadership, not to speak of analyzing it and attempting to contain it.

In my post of December 11, I provided a link to the article, but did not directly answer my own question. The present post does just this.

Why am I returning to this general subject one month into the presidency of Donald Trump? Because Americans especially though not exclusively are living in a time when their democracy is devolving into an autocracy. Because Americans especially though not exclusively are living in a time when the question of who is a bad leader and who a good one has never been more urgent.  

I do not claim that these four reasons are the only reasons. I do claim that they go a long way toward explaining why the leadership industry continues to seek the light as it continues to deny the dark. As if dark did not exist.

Reason # 1: Follow the money. The leadership industry is like every other industry. People are in it to make money. And there is more money to be made, much more money to be made by professing to teach people how to be good leaders than by struggling to unravel the mysteries of bad ones.   

Reason # 2: The Nature of the Human Condition. Humans are not widgets. We are complex beings who behave in complicated ways, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. The complexities of good and bad, including leaders who are capable of being both good and bad, are daunting. Daunting for researchers and teachers, as for coaches and consultants.

Reason # 3: The Matter of Meaning Making.  What does being a “good” leader even mean? A leader who is ethical? A leader who is effective? A leader who is both? What about a leader like Elon Musk, who can fairly be said to have been a “good” leader at some points in the last two decades and a “bad” leader at others? It’s complicated.

Reason # 4: The Breaches Between Us.  Maybe you and I agree on who is a good leader. But maybe not. Chances are good that we do not – even if we’re both from the same country and culture, and both white women. Which leaves us with a problem: how to address bad leadership if we differ even on what constitutes bad and good and how bad and good even pertain?

Granted. The problems associated with addressing bad leadership – even discussing it! – are formidable. Should this stop us from tackling a problem endemic to the human condition? It should not.

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*This is the article referred to above.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17427150241272793

** For my definition of the leadership industry and related discussions, see my books, The End of Leadership (HarperCollins, 2013) and Professionalizing Leadership (Oxford University Press, 2018).

OK, I admit that Winston Churchill did not say it about Vladimir Putin. He said it about Adolf Hitler. But the point’s the same.

In the mid-1930s England was asleep. The British were vaguely aware that Nazi Germany presented a threat. But neither they nor their government wanted to believe it, and so they chose largely to ignore it. To ignore the danger presented by a rearmed and obviously aggressive Germany led by a fascistic and obviously aggressive Hitler. Which was when Churchill’s light began brightly to shine. For he foresaw more clearly than did nearly all his contemporaries that Hitler was a menace not just to Paris and Brussels, not just to Prague and Warsaw, but to London.

Though Churchill’s rhetoric went unheeded, he nevertheless reiterated it. In 1938 Churchill delivered a speech in Parliament – “The Threat to Czechoslovakia” – that echoed his previous warnings and that urged Europe to resist the Nazi menace.

But the story of this year is not ended at Czechoslovakia. It is not ended this month. The might behind the German Dictator increases daily, His appetite may grow with eating. The forces of law and freedom have for a long time known nothing but rebuffs, failures and humiliations. Their influence would be immensely increased by any signs of concerted action and initiative ….

I have bolded the line that stands out. That is a deep psychological insight and, to boot, a literary masterstroke. It applies across time and space to bad leaders who, instead of being stopped, are appeased. It applied in 1938 to Adolf Hitler. It applies in 2025 to Vladimir Putin.

It’s so simple a concept. But the idea that unless it is checked bad leadership always gets worse is, apparently, difficult to grasp. Right, Mr. President?   

          Despite his total lack of recent responsibility, and despite his total failure as recent prognosticator, James Carville remains one of America’s most popular political gurus. His heyday as Democratic consultant was the heyday of Bill Clinton. But because of his over-the top good ole’ boy demeanor, and his over-the-top good ole’ boy speech, Carville remains a media favorite. Just yesterday MSNBC anchor Ari Melber gave the man airtime.

          Carville’s last major foray into the public debate was in October, shortly before the presidential election. The New York Times published his guest essay, memorably titled, “Three Reasons I’m Certain Kamala Harris Will Win.” Well, give the man credit for sticking his neck out. But OMG was he wrong! Not only did Harris suffer an ignominious electoral defeat, but the reasons why Carville calculated she would win even then seemed a bit ridiculous. (Reason # 1 she had lots of money. Reason # 2 Trump had been a “repeat electoral loser.” And Reason # 3, feeblest of all, “It’s just a feeling.”)

Still, here is Carville again, this time advising Democratic elites, primarily elected officials, to do nothing. To do nothing no matter what President Donald Trump or his sidekick Elon Musk does or says.

Carville seems not to object to ordinary people doing something, specifically demonstrating against the administration. But he is in no uncertain terms telling Democratic politicians to “Play possum. Just let it go. Don t get in the way of it. Or as we like to say, don’t just stand there, do nothing. Let this germinate…. We don’t need to get in front of it. This freight train is moving. Let’s just get out of the way and then we’re gonna have time.”       

Let’s be clear about who here are the leaders and who the followers: Trump and Musk are the leaders. It is they and only they who are driving the “freight train” to which Carville alludes. Everyone else is a follower, both top Republicans and top Democrats. The very same Democrats who have been driving many of their constituents crazy because they have seemed spineless. Crazy because they have seemed to lack even a pulse. Crazy because they have seemed pathetically weak in the face of overweening strength. When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently told journalist Mara Gay that he finally understood that what the American people wanted from the Democrats – “They want us to beat Trump and stop this shit.” – Gay’s reaction was to write, “It was a welcome sign of life.”

I’m in the same camp. It seems to me that Carville is on the wrong side of history. It seems to me that he’s as wrong about this as he was about the outcome of the presidential election. It seems to me that he should either retire or be retired. It seems to me that the longer we wait to stand up against any tyrant, or any would-be tyrant, the heavier the lift. Finally, it seems to me that what threatens the United States of America is less a crisis of leadership than of followership.

In January 2024, people, some people anyway, took a hissy fit when the CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, had the temerity – or maybe it was the foresight – publicly to praise Donald Trump. Dimon did not say Trump walked on water, but he did applaud some of Trump’s positions such as on, for example, trade and immigration.

A year later the tide has turned. Seems America’s CEOs – including some of the nation’s most powerful, who previously spoke against Trump – cannot line up fast enough behind the American president. Either proactively or reactively many of America’s most prominent chief executive officers are bending the knee to – sucking up to – the man at the Resolute Desk. Elon Musk is, of course, an exception to this general rule. But he is alone in his dispensation.

Their subservience has been in evidence since the day after the November election. No time for grass to grow under their feet – such was the alacrity with which many leaders of America’s biggest businesses rushed to make peace with the president elect. Most visibly tech leaders including Meta’s CEO, Google’s CEO, and Amazon’s founder, whose companies contributed handsomely to the inaugural festivities and who promptly were rewarded with box seats at the inaugural ceremony. As they saw it, their task was to make clear to the Big Man that whatever their objections to him in the past, they were out the window.

Their subservience was in evidence again this week. Leaders like Bezos and Zuckerberg stood by and silently watched as President Trump withdrew from or in some cases dismantled initiatives that were aimed at slowing climate change – an issue on which in the not distant past they were at the forefront.           

In my book, Bad Leadership, I identified seven different types of bad leadership. One of these was Insular Leadership which I defined this way:  The leader and at least some followers minimize or disregard the health and welfare of “the other” – that is, of those outside the group or organization for which they are directly responsible.

I grant that dual loyalties present corporate leaders with a dilemma. Is the first loyalty of a chief executive officer to their shareholders, their board, their employees? Other obvious stakeholders? Or is it, instead, to the public at large, in this case a public that obviously would benefit from climate change that is somewhat controlled as opposed to entirely uncontrolled?   

The track record of business leaders who collaborate meekly and mutely with political leaders is not good. More precisely, mixing profits and politics can be good for them personally and professionally and, in fairness, for the companies for which they are responsible. But if the relationship is too close – corporate leaders too dependent on political leaders – the outcomes for everyone else are much more likely to be bad than good. Sometimes even very bad or very, very bad.

To every rule there are exceptions. I have a rule I always follow. Except when I don’t. As today.

The rule is never to post a piece written by someone else. But as this piece by M. Gessen is so important, and so completely in keeping with my previous post – “For Followers Who Want to FIGHT Not Follow” – for your information and edification I am reposting Gessen’s contribution.*

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*In case the link does not work, the piece appeared in the New York Times dated February 8. It’s titled, “The Chilling Consequences of Going Along with Trump.”

It’s impossible to be interested in leadership and followership without being riveted by what’s happening and not happening during these first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. It’s not like being unable to look away from the proverbial car crash. It’s more like being unable to look away from a series of car crashes, a sequence that’s rapid-fire and never-ending.

This post assumes that what Trump – along with Elon Musk – has done and not done since January 20^th is “bad.” Objectionable or even highly objectionable to some considerable part of the American body politic. It asks what if anything those who object, but who have less power and authority than Trump and Musk, can do to stop the two men from continuing what many consider their unconstitutional power grab.

It’s a question I’ve struggled with for years. How when the need to do so something as opposed to nothing is urgent, do people from all walks of life and every station take on the high and mighty, especially if the high and mighty seem virtually impregnable, untouchable?

There’s a body of literature that addresses this question. But it’s small and it’s not a magic bullet. For once people are in positions of power, they can pull the levers of power. This not only makes it difficult to stop or even slow them, but sometimes it puts those who try to do so at risk, even great risk.

Trump was inaugurated on January 20^th. For some unfathomable reason, during the first few weeks of his presidency the opposition, most obviously the nation’s leading Democrats, seemed stunned. As if they’d been hit on the head with a two by four. Why? They knew damn well what was coming – and if they didn’t, they were idiots.

First, we knew what we were getting. Trump never hid who he was, or with whom he was politically aligned, or what he intended to do if reelected. Moreover, for years we’ve had the evidence we need to know that Republicans, especially but not exclusively congressional Republicans, would virtually without exception be supine. Second, while Inauguration Day was in late January, Election Day was in early November. In other words, Trump’s opponents had not weeks to strategize how they would take him on, but months. Three months! What took the Democrats so long even to begin to get their act together?! To start to figure out how to take on two men in positions of great power who, to boot, have access to two of the biggest bullhorns in the world? Trump the bully pulpit. Musk X.

This post cannot possibly be all-encompassing. For those who want to take on Trump I cannot in a several paragraphs prescribe a course of action. What I can do here, however, is to provide suggestions for followers who want to fight. And what I can do here, however, is to recommend books on how followers – those with less power, authority, and influence than others – can take on leaders they think are behaving badly.

Seven Suggestions for Followers Who Want to FIGHT not Follow

1. Remember: speed is exceedingly important. The longer people wait to object – whether in the streets or in the halls of Congress, whether in a court of law or as a member of a union or any other organization, whether as an individual or part of a group – the deeper their slog, the steeper their climb.
2. Remember: numbers matter. Usually, though not always, the larger the protest, the better.
3. Remember: first be strategic, then tactical. Develop a plan, then decide how to implement it.  
4. Remember: organization is important. There are protests – however defined, whatever their form – that are spontaneous and without an obvious leader or organizer. But in general, these are less long-lived and successful than their more disciplined and coherent counterparts.  
5. Remember: embrace anger. Some of the most successful protests ever, anywhere, everywhere, have been notable for their levels of rage and outrage.
6. Remember: words matter. Don’t shoot from the hip. Think about how to express, how best to communicate, that which aggravates, even infuriates you. That makes you so unhappy and upset that you feel you must express yourself publicly, not just privately.
7. Remember: symbols speak volumes. These include signs, slogans, logos and songs. These include names and nicknames and whatever gimmicks send the message you intend.

Seven Recommendations for Books about Followers Who Want to FIGHT Not Follow

Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro, Power for All (Simon and Schuster, 2021).

Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower (Berrett-Koehler., 2009).

Ira Chaleff, Intelligent Disobedience (MLF Books, 2021).

Ira Chaleff, How to Stop a Tyrant (Wonderwell Press, 2024).

Barbara Kellerman, Followership (Harvard Business School Press, 2008).

Barbara Kellerman, The Enablers (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Barbara Kellerman, Leadership from Bad to Worse, (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time.

So famously said Winston Churchill in 1947, when democracies, notwithstanding their postwar struggles, were still flush from their victory over the Nazis. Even now most Americans would agree that Churchill was right. Even now most Americans would agree that living in a democracy is better than living in an autocracy.  But perhaps for the first time, Churchill’s observation should be challenged – even argued.

What if the most powerful autocracy in the world is running reasonably well and the most powerful democracy in the world is not? What if the deficits of democracy are becoming increasingly apparent? And what if the same can be said about the benefits of autocracy?

As I write, the United States is stumbling if not crumbling – no surprise given it’s being led by two men swinging a sledgehammer. And, as I write, China is steady as she goes – no surprise given it’s being led by a smart, sane strongman who’s helmed the ship of state since 2012.

This is not by any stretch to say that China is problem free. It is not. But for better and worse the Chinese government has been stable for well over a decade while the United States government has lurched from pillar to post. During the same stretch that China has been governed by a single individual, President Xi Jinping, and a single party, the Chinese Communist Party, the United States has been governed first by Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021), then by Democratic President Joe Biden (2021-2025), and then back again to Republican Trump (2025-2029). This time along with political newbie and newfound sidekick, Elon Musk.  

Moreover, when both presidents came into office (in Trump’s case the second time), they did nothing so fast as to undo legacies left by their immediate predeccessors. In 2021 Biden promptly issued a string of executive orders intent on erasing as much as he could as fast as he could of Trump. And in 2025 Trump did the same, intent on erasing as much as he could as fast as he could of Biden. Is this any way to run a railroad? Can you imagine Apple or JPMorgan doing a one-eighty, a total U turn every four years?

The United States though is not alone. Other democracies are also having a hard time – for example, Germany and France, Japan and South Korea. Is it then possible that for a constellation of causes democracy and the 21^st century are incompatible? That there is something about this moment in history – especially the breathtaking changes in culture and technology – that makes good democratic governance exceedingly difficult to sustain? Is it possible that changing governments every few years as democracies are wont to do – even if in response to the will of the people – is ill-suited to an era in which leaders who are free to engage in long-term planning are greatly advantaged while leaders who are not, and who are, to boot, constantly being distracted by detractors, are greatly disadvantaged?

Let’s be clear: President Xi has benefited – and in many ways so has China – from his being left alone. Left alone to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it – and carefully to consider the future without much if any, intrusion or interruption.

No question that Xi – self-appointed leader for life – is far more dictatorial now than he was a decade ago. Similarly, no question that the Chinese people are far more subject to state and party control – in every aspect of their lives, from the cradle to the grave – than they were a decade ago. But from a geopolitical perspective China has gained against the United States. Moreover, given the times in which we live there is no good evidence that the U.S. will have the competence and consistency to slow its greatest competitor ever. For China is far more fearsome an opponent than the Soviet Union was even in its heyday.  

This post is not about the current American president. Nor is it about the current Chinese president. Rather it is about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the American and Chinese leadership systems in the 21^st century.

In just the last week two things became clear.

First, China is giving the United States a run for its money on technology. The impact of DeepSeek on the American psyche has been profound and properly so. Not for nothing have the revelations about DeepSeek been dubbed a Sputnik moment: they made clear to Americans along with the rest of the world that so far as artificial intelligence is concerned, they are not invincible. Not only will China not be a bystander, it will be a formidable competitor.

Second, China is giving the United States a run for its money on the military. China now has the largest army in the world. China now has the largest navy in the world. And China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. OK, you might say, how much does this matter? Consider this. What does it say about Xi’s military ambitions that he is building in Beijing a military command center projected to be 10 times larger than the Pentagon?

Sure, maybe it’s just for show. But maybe not. Maybe size matters. Maybe size especially matters when it’s coupled with a leader who has boundless ambition and no competition. Maybe size especially matters given China’s arch-rival has a crippling case of whiplash that has no prospect of being cured anytime soon. And maybe size especially matters when democratic centrism gives way to nationalism, populism, and extremism. Which, even if they don’t further flower do damage. Damage to individuals. Damage to the state. Damage to democracy.

Let’s assume for a moment that my argument is valid. That there are certain things about this moment in history that make democratic governance difficult, or even, at least some of the time, impossible. What might a good democrat do? For starters, think big! The problems that bedevil liberal democracies are not small, nor are they familiar. They are large, and they are new, which means they require solutions that similarly are large, and new. Unfortunately I have yet to hear the leaders of the Democratic opposition – Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Ken Martin – say a single syllable that begins even to rise to the occasion.

OK, so you can tell from the title of this post no way I’m thinking it’ll be a woman. But I do think there will be a man, a single individual who emerges as leader. As unambiguous leader of the American opposition.

Anyone familiar with my work knows I am not leader centric. I have argued for years that leadership is not a person. It is a system with three parts, each of which is equally important: 1) leader; 2) followers; 3) contexts.

But there are situations in which one or another of these three parts is more important than the other two. For example, Los Angeles is now a story not about a single individual such as the mayor, or the governor of California. Nor is it about Angelinos generally. Rather for months if not years to come the story of the city will be about context: about Los Angeles as a safe and secure place in which to live and work.

So, hard to tell what the United States will look like, say, two years from now. But my best guess is that the landscape – and I don’t mean just the political landscape – will still be dominated by President Donald Trump. This suggests that if the Democrats want to take away his power they will have to have a leader worthy of the task. A leader capable of capturing not just American hearts and minds – but their attention and imagination.

No ordinary leader will do – Trump is too forceful a presence. Even when he stumbles, he looms, he’s larger than life, he steals the spotlight. So, the opposition will need a man at the helm – please, ladies, don’t mess with the messenger – who is his match. Who, like Trump, dominates. Who, like Trump, is magnetic. Who, like Trump, sucks the air out of the room.

Suggestions? Nominations?

Think of this post as a lesson. A history lesson. It has nothing whatsoever to do with politics in the present. It’s only about politics past.

Have I made myself clear? This post is only about politics in the past. This means that any parallels to the present are purely, entirely, totally and wholly and completely coincidental.

In my most recent book, Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers, I make two primary points. As the book’s title suggests, first, I write based on overwhelming evidence that if bad leadership is not stopped or at least slowed, it gets worse just as sure as night follows day.

Second, I write based on overwhelming evidence that bad leadership goes from bad to worse over time, in predictable phases. Over and over again, in every case of leadership that goes from bad to worse, the progression is the same. It is in four phases that unfold like clockwork, from one case of bad leadership in one time and place to another case of bad leadership in another time and place.

In Chapter 4 of the book, “The Phases of Development,” I introduce the four phases by drawing on a single example: Adolf Hitler. The book is not about Hitler. I simply use him and his assertion of power, and then more power, as an introductory case in point.

In Phase I, Onward and Upward, Hitler did what bad leaders initially do: they promise the moon and the stars. Of course, all leaders try to persuade their followers that under them the future will be better than the past. But leaders like Hitler take this to the extreme. Hitler promised his people that under him Germany would rise from the ashes, become a great nation, and then the most mighty, and glorious the world had ever seen.

In Phase II, Followers Join In, Hitler solidified his political base. Throughout the 1930s, Hitler’s hold over the German people grew ever stronger. To the point where in time it became a stranglehold. Hitler’s powers of persuasion, especially his oratory, were immense, and he used them to full effect. Moreover he backed up what he said with what he did. He had zero compunctions about using his increasingly dictatorial powers to ram through his increasingly compliant parliament laws so restrictive they would’ve been regarded as inconceivable just a couple of years earlier.

In Phase III, Leader Starts In, Hitler began executing policies and programs that by any measure were “bad.” For example, in 1935, two years after he came to power, Hitler got passed the Nuremburg Laws, intended to address “the Jewish question.” As I wrote in Leadership from Bad to Worse, the passage of these laws reduced Jews to second-class status in a single stroke, and they were the precursor to the genocidal policies that followed several years later.

Finally in Phase IV, Bad to Worse,Hitler had full and free rein. Full and free rein completely to dominate the German people. Full and free rein to shake up starting in 1936 the international order. Full and free rein three years later to start the Second World War. And, finally, full and free rein beginning in the early 1940s to annihilate or to try to, especially but not exclusively every Jew in Europe.

To be clear, Hitler did not, nor could he have done what he did alone. The progression to which I allude was led by Hitler. But alongside were cadres of his followers, ranging from those up close and personal, his acolytes, to those at a great remove, ordinary Germans caught, voluntarily or involuntarily, in the Fuehrer’s web. Put directly, there can be no bad leaders without bad followers. There can be no bad leadership without bad followership.

Similarly, bad leadership can be stopped ONLY by good followership. Good followers stop or at least they slow bad leaders. No bad leader ever wakes up one fine morning and says, “Oh, golly, gee, I’ve been bad. I must, I will, change my errant ways!” Bad leaders can be, will be, stopped ONLY if someone(s) stops them.  

Oh, did I mention this post was a lesson? A history lesson. Did I mention it has nothing whatsoever to do with politics in the present?  It’s about politics in the past. It’s only about politics past. Which means that any parallels to the present are purely, entirely, totally and wholly and completely coincidental.

Sorry, girls, that’s the way it always was, that’s the way it still is.

Among great apes – of which we, we humans, are one – males typically dominate, females typically submit. Not always. There are nuances and differences. Still, the principle mostly holds.

Over eons nothing much has changed. From pre-human history throughout human history the situation remains generally the same. World affairs are conducted and controlled nearly entirely by males. Most obviously wars. Males, men, are big on war. Either they love it or for other reasons are driven to engage in it. Maybe both.

The war in Europe between Russia and Ukraine is spearheaded by men. The war in the Middle East between Hamas and Israel is spearheaded by men. And though I’m no expert on Africa I have every reason to believe that the wars in Africa are spearheaded if not entirely by men, then nearly so.

Most Americans don’t pay much if any attention to Africa. Still, it should be noted that Africa now has more armed discord than at any time since at least 1946. “An unprecedented explosion of conflicts” is carving “a trail of death and destruction across the breadth of Africa – from Mali near the continent’s western edge all the way to Somalia on its eastern Horn.” *

What gives? Why have men always done this and why do they still? At the most fundamental level, going back to prehistory, males have wanted to dominate if not conquer for sex, for procreation and pleasure, and for territory, to maintain power and exercise control. In his book, Why We Fight, Christopher Blattman, list additional reasons for going to war, such as leaders whose interests remain unchecked, high levels of fear and uncertainty, and misperceptions in every direction. Whatever the specifics though, the generality applies. With few exceptions it’s men who start wars and, notwithstanding some women in some militaries, it’s men who fight wars. When it comes to matters of war and peace, fact is that women and of course children remain mostly at the mercy of men.        

But no need for war for Americans, especially now, to be aware of how male-dominated remains their culture. Not just our political culture, our culture more generally. President Donald Trump is driven every moment of every day to prove just how manly he is. His nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is likely to be confirmed by the male dominated Senate despite his wretched record, personal and professional, when it comes to females. Tech bros from Elon Musk on down now loom large not only over their own domains but over ours. Trump has elevated the status of Dana White, chief executive officer of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, beyond anything he, or we, could have imagined. And, of course, abortion which used to be legal in every American state is now in many states illegal or ridiculously, unconscionably, difficult to obtain.

To all this our response – the response of women to what men are doing – is shall we say, muted. First time Trump was elected president, in 2016, at least we said something and did something. We protested loudly and proudly. This time around nada, zilch. Seems we’ve been stunned into silence – which means we’ve been stunned into submission.

I’m pretty savvy when it comes to the subject of women and leadership. It’s soil I’ve tilled for years. So, I’m not shocked that we are where we are. But I am surprised.   

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*https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/africa-has-entered-a-new-era-of-war-c6171d8e