In Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers, Barbara Kellerman expands on her long interest in bad leadership. She wrote this book in part because – curiously – so little is written about leadership that is ineffective or unethical or both. (See her earlier book on this subject, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.)
This time she explores what happens to bad leadership once it starts to take root. She finds that once it digs in, invariably it digs in deeper. It goes from bad to worse unless, and until, somehow, by someone or something, it is stopped. This applies to politics, business, education and religion, the media and the military, everywhere and anywhere. In China, Canada, Argentina, and America.
Leaders & Followers
To illustrate progression, the book draws on several cases of people in positions of power and authority who go from bad to worse. Moreover, it points out that the progression is in four different phases. Phases that, critically, are not just about leaders but, equally, about followers.
Kellerman considers bad leadership a disease. A social disease that can be avoided if it is understood and aborted early on. Like physical diseases – cancer is an obvious parallel – it is easier to beat the earlier it is caught. If, in contrast, it is left to grow it metastasizes. It goes from bad to worse.
This book is not just a theoretical exercise. It has practical implications! Knowledge is power. In this case our power can and should spring from the knowledge that bad leadership and followership are not static. So, if they are checked either before they corrupt, or before they corrupt completely, the outcome can be different.