Bad leadership - Why we steer clear

Abstract

The article points out that more than a half century into the modern leader continues virtually entirely to ignore, or at least badly to shortchange, the dark side of leadership. Bad leadership - which is, alas, as ubiquitous as pernicious. Given that bad leaders, and their bad followers, are part of everyday life - in companies and countries, and in cultures of every sort - the question is why leadership experts continue to relegate them. Why do we attempt to develop what is good while continuing even now largely to avoid the utterly urgent question of how to stop bad? On the assumption that bad leaders - including for example political leaders drunk on power and corporate leaders drunk on money - are part of the human condition the question is why we still stick our heads in the sand. To this question the article provides four answers - which in a perfect world would point the way toward a study of leadership that is more pragmatic, more grounded in the world as it is as opposed to how we would like it to be.