RESEARCH

Don’t Just Blame Bad Leaders

In September, Barbara Kellerman’s new book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, hit the bookstores. Kellerman, research director of the Center for Public Leadership, sat down with the Bulletin to answer the questions her subtitle asks and to discuss how leadership relates to this year’s elections. A portion of that interview follows.

What is bad leadership?
We typically assume that when we use the word “leadership,” we mean good leadership. But, in fact, the world is filled with bad leaders of all kinds. This book is intended to be a corrective, and it also makes very clear that bad leadership is impossible without bad followership. If we have bad leaders, we have them to blame, but every bit as much, we ourselves are at fault.

How does it happen?
It happens because leaders are incompetent, corrupt, or malevolent. But, as I implied earlier, it equally happens because followers sometimes support and even encourage bad leadership. Sometimes followers have something to gain, and sometimes they are afraid that if they don’t go along, they will suffer a penalty of some kind. Of course, some followers are simply bystanders. They allow bad leadership to happen, because trying to slow or even stop it is hard, and sometimes dangerous, work.

What’s an example?
Marian Barry, Jr., the mayor of Washington, who was famous/infamous for his intemperate behavior. Family, friends, and close associates enabled his bad leadership. His bad leadership would not have been possible without those to whom he was close, but who failed to intervene. Similarly, it would not have been possible without followers at a greater remove. In this case, the voters of Washington, DC, who four times over elected him, even after it became apparent that he was, to quote one of the sources I used, “steering Washington into an abyss.”

Voting then is one way to change bad leadership.
Yes, to say the obvious. The low level of voter participation in this country is scandalous and a sure way to get leaders who are less effective than we think we deserve. But the participation of the electorate is not just about voting. If we don’t become involved, and then complain about who’s sitting in the mayor’s office, or the governor’s office, or in the oval office, then, once again, we have only ourselves to blame.