Books

“PAY ATTENTION. With this simple advice, Barbara Kellerman conveys the powerful message that followers bear the ultimate responsibility for the quality of our leaders…. Using four brilliant profiles…. Kellerman examines and reveals the unique circumstances, but common DNA, shared by bad leaders, but reminds us that the ball’s in our court.”

Stanley McCrystal, General, U.S. Army (ret.)

“Barbara Kellerman has produced an important work that furthers our collective understanding of the interactional nature of leadership. It is a work of scholarly intensity that should be read by scholars and practitioners trying to make sense of the nature of leadership and followership in our post-modern times.” 

Rakesh Khurana, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development and Dean of Harvard College, Harvard University.

“In this path-breaking book, one of the most perceptive and prolific scholars in leadership, Barbara Kellerman, teams up with one of the most talented and promising social scientists, Todd Pittinsky, to pierce an important veil. Instead of telling us what leaders should be like, we learn how they truly are. This is an eye-opening must read.”

David Gergen, White House Advisor to four US Presidents and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School

“Professionalizing Leadership is an indictment of the leadership industry. But it goes far further: it presents an alternative scenario, one in which leadership is not, merely, an occupation, but a profession, like medicine and law. Kellerman extracts from the military some lessons on how leaders can and should be educated, trained, and developed. In so doing, she provides us with an indispensable guide to rethinking and reconstituting leadership learning at a moment when the crisis of leadership is blindingly clear.”

Admiral James Stavridis, United States Navy

“Hard Times is a brilliantly insightful and immensely important book. It’s a tour de force-a passionate, provocative, and persuasive discourse on the extraordinarily complex context that confronts leaders in every waking moment. There is no one better able to tell this story than Kellerman. She is an exceptional writer with an extraordinary breadth and depth of knowledge who never hesitates to tell it like it is. Hard Times is one of those rare books that comes along every so often that gets you to stand up straight and pay attention. Bold, brawny, and sometimes disquieting, it is an essential guide to orienting in these uncertain times. Every leader and student of leadership must read this book. Now!”

James Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge, and the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

“Barbara Kellerman does not play nicely with the other boys and girls – and we are all the better for it. Anyone interested in a penetrating critique of the leadership industry should read this provocative new book from our foremost leadership contrarian.”

Robert Kegan, Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Development, Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

“Bravo to Barbara Kellerman! Building upon a lifetime of scholarship and upon a popular course she has created at Harvard, Kellerman brings between the covers of a single volume the world’s classic literature on leadership. Every thoughtful leader will find deep rich rewards here.”

David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, and former Presidential Advisor.

“At long last, followership brilliantly comes into its own – as leadership. Kellerman is noted for her original and arresting studies in leadership; in Followership, a book rich with historical examples and real-life situations, she offers bold new ideas about the leader-follower interaction.”

James MacGregor Burns, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government, emeritus, Williams College

“Barbara Kellerman’s exciting book, Followership, offers breakthrough insights into why and how people relate to their leaders …. Every leader should read this book to understand how to become more effective in leading.”

Bill George, Author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership

“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.”

From the Foreword by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Ret.)

“This book provides the most authoritative exploration yet published of the obstacles still in the way and strategies for overcoming them. It is packed with insights and understandings from many of the best in the field – all point the way forward. Bravo!”

David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and co-director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School

“If all Kellerman did was remind us of how often our so-called leaders go astray, it would be a useful lesson. But she does far more. This books shows us the crucial differences between good and bad leadership … a superb and important book.”

Mickey Edwards, Vice President of the Aspen Institute

“Kellerman invades a contested terrain few dare to think about, and fewer understand: destructive leadership and its consequences. Bad Leadership is a powerful contribution to our understanding of how bad leaders go wrong, and how they seduce and betray their followers. The book provides no cure, but a way of cauterizing the wounds of power.”

Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California