In my book, Bad Leadership, I developed a typology of bad leadership based on two criteria. The first was ineffective, the second was unethical. I argued that all bad leadership is bad in one, or sometimes in both, these two ways.
I further divided what I called the “universe of bad leadership” – that is, all bad leadership – into seven different types. Though the types are no neater than is the human condition, generally they escalated from bad to worse. Thus, the last type of bad leadership, the seventh, was “evil” leadership.
I defined evil leadership as follows: The leader and at least some followers commit atrocities. They use pain as an instrument of power. The harm done to men, women, and children is severe rather than slight. The harm can be physical, psychological, or both.
Note the title of the book is not Bad Leader – it is Bad Leadership. Moreover, my definition of evil leadership does not reference only the person at the top. Rather it is inclusive. It is about “the leader and at least some followers.” Still, I am not now, nor was I when I wrote the book, under any illusions: usually (though not always) evil leadership is driven by a single, identifiable individual who is more highly positioned than anyone else.
This brings us to the case of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who President Joseph Biden has called a “butcher.” Presumably a leader who is a butcher is a leader who is evil. And, presumably, a leader who is a butcher has followers who similarly are evil or, at least, they are willing and able, on orders from on high, to use pain as an instrument of power.
Last night Biden gave a speech in Poland in which, at the end, he said of his Russian counterpart: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” But virtually immediately after he said it, some of his aides insisted that he didn’t really mean it. That Biden’s remark was not to be interpreted as a call for regime change, which for a sitting president is considered bad form.
This is not the first time that Biden has called Putin out. Last week the American was asked by an interviewer if he thought the Russian was “a killer,” to which he, Biden, replied, “I do.” Safe to say, then, that Biden thinks of Putin and those around him as evil. As men – they are all men – who are doing harm to other men, and women, and children, that is not slight, but severe.
Which raises the question of what is to be done? If by now it is widely agreed, at least in the West, that Putin’s leadership is evil leadership how are Western leaders to respond?
There is a famous line (variously attributed), that reads, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” All well and good. But if in the face of evil good men are supposed to do something as opposed to doing nothing, what more precisely should they do?
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Western leaders did not do nothing, they did something. In fact, in one month they did a lot. They shored up Ukraine’s defenses by many measures. They provided Ukraine (and some of the surrounding countries) with massive amounts of humanitarian aid. And they imposed on Russia punishing sanctions. Still, they stopped short of giving Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky everything he wanted and, it appears, they remain nervous about leaning in. About calling outright for the removal of capo di tutti i capi – the boss of all the bosses who is “a butcher” and “a killer.”
Words have meaning – and they have consequences. To label a leader evil, even implicitly, is to imply that heaven and earth should be moved to remove him from his position of power. To this general rule Putin, presumably, is not an exception.