What Followers Can Do about Bad Leaders
Too often, we focus on leaders while neglecting the critical role that followers play in teams, organizations, institutions, and nations. These days, we face major problems with bad leadership, so we’re wise to address what followers can do about bad leaders. In her book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters esteemed leadership scholar Dr. Barbara Kellerman* examines the critical role of followers and shows how they can not only collaborate with bad leadership but sometimes even cause or facilitate it. (When talking about bad leadership, she means ineffective and/or unethical leadership.) More recently, she wrote
BAD Leadership: 7 Types
What is bad leadership? What are its signs? How to know if leaders are good or bad? Esteemed leadership scholar Dr. Barbara Kellerman addressed these questions and more in her book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Kellerman has argued that we’ve been naïve to focus too much on good and great leadership. She makes the case that the dark side of leadership isn’t an aberration. It’s common so we need to stop ignoring it and face it head-on. In Bad Leadership, Kellerman identifies seven primary types of bad leadership. It’s valuable to examine how
Why People Fall for Toxic Leaders
Toxic leaders inflict great damage on our organizations, communities, and nations. They draw us in with bold promises and then turn around and wreak havoc. It’s important to understand the phenomenon of toxic leaders, especially why people fall for them. Before diving in, let’s define terms. When something is toxic, that means it’s poisonous and can cause great harm. When it comes to leaders, it involves inflicting lasting damage and maliciously abusing power. A prominent scholar of toxic leadership, Dr. Jean Lipman-Blumen, founder of the Connective Leadership Institute and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Drucker School of Management at
Great Leaders Prioritize Learning–Why and How
Great leaders prioritize learning because they understand that continuous growth is key to sustained success. Doing so helps them adapt to an ever-changing world while setting an example for their teams. According to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner in The Leadership Challenge, “…researchers have found a strong relationship between learning and leadership effectiveness. Being able to reflect on your experiences, and subsequently to adjust and engage in new behaviors, is the single best predictor of future success in new and different managerial jobs…. Learning is the master skill.” “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can
Unlock the Power of Purpose in Your Work and Leadership
Article Summary: How you can transform your work and leadership with the power of purpose. Excerpts from Gregg Vanourek’s conversation on purposeful leadership and work with best-selling author, Richard Leider, shortly after the release of his new book, The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life (4th edition), with David Shapiro.* +++ Gregg Vanourek: Many people, when they’re doing a job search or contemplating a career change, don’t spend enough time vetting the place where they’re going. With the balance of power between workplace and worker, we tend to defer. We’re just trying to get a paycheck. Richard,
3 Things Ethical Leaders Ask and Say
As a leader, you’re probably under a lot of pressure: Hit your targets. Move faster. Motivate your team. Put out fires. Innovate. And all this while maintaining your organization’s reputation and being ethical. What are key things you can do to uphold what we call the “ethics imperative” (doing the right thing, even when it’s costly or hard)? Here are three things ethical leaders ask and say often: Is this a good organization? Would this serve us all well over time? We’re not doing that. We address each in turn below, with examples. 1. Is this a good organization?
17 Steps to a Thriving Ethical Culture
When it comes to promoting ethical behavior in your organization, it’s not just about your own actions. It’s about building an ethical culture in which doing the right thing is not only encouraged but expected, demanded, and incentivized. In such a culture, everybody knows that character counts. They’re committed to pursuing great results (the excellence imperative), but always with integrity (the ethics imperative). The Prevalence of Integrity Problems in Organizations How are organizations doing with integrity issues? Alas, not so good. According to the EY Global Integrity Report 2024 (1): More than one in five (21% of) respondents admit that
How to Prioritize Ethics When Leading People
When leading people, too often leaders focus on performance while neglecting ethical considerations. Big mistake. Many organizations are deficient in their ethical leadership practices. To be truly successful, organizations must not only be excellent but also ethical—and not just now but over time. It’s what we call “triple crown leadership”: excellent, ethical, and enduring. 16 Key Ethical Leadership Practices When Leading People How can you integrate ethical considerations into leading people? Here are 16 key ethical leadership practices: 1. Make a clear and unequivocal commitment to the ethics imperative. That means having an explicit and firm obligation to
How Ethical Leaders Approach Decision-Making
Ethical decision-making is a cornerstone of effective leadership. It influences not only your organization’s reputation but also its long-term success and societal impact. Navigating the complexities of ethical dilemmas is no simple task. Leaders often face pressures, competing interests, and ambiguous situations that challenge their judgment. Unfortunately, many leaders fall short in this critical area. Too often, they crack under pressure, compromise, and sell out. Or prioritize short-term gains. The result? An erosion of trust, which undermines their leadership and harms their organization’s brand. Ways Ethical Leaders Approach Decision-Making Ethical leaders are intentional and strategic about decision-making. Here are
Ethical Leaders: What They Do That Others Don’t
What are the signs of ethical leadership in action—the things that ethical leaders do that others don’t? Ethical leaders pay attention to how their organizations and teams achieve their results. We know from research that honesty is one of the top things people look for in their leaders. And that whether managers are observed to behave ethically or unethically makes an enormous difference on workers. When their managers are observed to behave unethically, workers report feeling much more pressure to behave unethically at work, are much more likely to observe unethical conduct in the workplace, and are much less likely
Business Ethics: How Are Today’s Companies Doing?
Since we’re living in a time of declining trust and confidence in organizations and institutions of all kinds, from Congress and the medical system to televised news and the Supreme Court, it’s fair to ask how we’re doing with business ethics. How prevalent are companies that operate with integrity? What’s the extent of unethical and illegal behavior? How does the picture look not just at the organizational level but also at the individual level, with workers, managers, and board members? Unfortunately, the picture is bleak. The EY Global Integrity Report 2024 is based on a survey of more than 5,000
Leadership, Risk, and Cognitive Biases
Article Summary: What leaders need to know about risk and cognitive biases. Assessing and managing risk is hard enough on its own for leaders, but it’s made even more difficult by cognitive biases. Examples of several cognitive biases and how they can challenge leaders and organizations, plus two techniques for addressing them. +++ When it comes to risk-taking and risk mitigation, leaders need to be aware of the dangers of cognitive biases on decision-making. Esteemed psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his long-time collaborator, Amos Tversky, highlight that humans often have what they call “severe and systematic errors” in their thinking due
The Trump Leadership Playbook–And Why It Matters
Article Summary: It’s no surprise that Donald Trump is an unconventional leader, but it’s less obvious that he’s operating from the leadership playbook of his former fixer, Roy Cohn. And with big implications. Here Gregg Vanourek looks at this topic from a leadership perspective. Updated October 24, 2024. +++ Donald Trump’s approach to leadership is unconventional. To understand his leadership playbook, we need to back up and examine how his former fixer and mentor influenced him. A Fixer and His Client Roy Cohn was famous for being Donald Trump’s “fixer” (well before Michael Cohen arrived on the scene). Since
Toxic Leaders, Susceptible Followers
Article Summary: We have too many toxic leaders in our workplaces, communities, and nations. What are their characteristics? Why do so many people follow them willingly? What makes an environment conducive for them to capture and maintain power? By Gregg Vanourek. +++ As if things weren’t hard enough in our lives, we’re also beset with more than our fair share of toxic leaders. Toxic leaders, according to Jean Lipman-Blumen of Claremont Graduate University and author of The Allure of Toxic Leaders, are: “those individuals who, by virtue of their destructive behaviors and their dysfunctional personal qualities or characteristics, inflict serious
How Workplaces Can Bolster Democracy and Civic Engagement
Do workplaces have a role to play in supporting democracy and promoting civic engagement? Is that a reasonable activity for business and nonprofit organizations, or better left to the government? Leaders, are you dialed in to this issue, or avoiding it like the plague? How to think and go about this? These questions were the subject of a recent event I attended hosted in Denver by CiviCO. The questions are timely and relevant in this current moment of political angst, extreme polarization, and declining trust in institutions of all types across sectors—including government, business, and nonprofit organizations (and especially including
