I finished Barbara Kellerman's very nice book, Bad Leadership a few weeks ago. I jotted down a number of draft blog ideas and I decided there are two posts I want to do. Today and tomorrow are those posts.
I really liked her book. One way to describe it, is as a series of case studies on bad leadership, arranged according to her seven types of bad leadership. Therefore, the book is mainly one that is descriptive of bad leadership (and bad followership) with some analysis added in to the description. The final two chapters of her book were preliminary suggestions and comments for how we can move from bad leadership to good leadership.
Kellerman begins her final chapter describing the growing numbers of bad leaders and how hard it is to do something about bad leadership. Then she asks: "What is to be done? How can we all, leaders and followers alike begin truly to correct for and prevent bad leadership?"
Of course, this is the million dollar question and she gives her very first core assumption right away.
"First, we cannot stop of slow bad leadership by changing human nature. No amount of preaching or sermonizing, no exhortation to virtuous conduct, uplifting thoughts, or wholesome habits will obviate teh fact that even though our behaviors may change, our nature is constant."
!!!???!!!???!!!???!!!
I don't know exactly what I was expecting her to say, but it sure wan't that! WOW!!!
And for the rest of the chapter she gives a behavioral change program. She gives twelve behavioral principles for bad leaders that would help them become good leaders. But this "begs" another obvious question.
Why would a bad leader want to do those behavioral changes. She or he doesn't want to do those things. There is a reason they are bad leaders. They want to be that kind of leader! Or, they don't want enough, to be a better kind of leader!
The best Kellerman can offer is maybe they will change when they calculate that it is in their best self-interest to become a better leader! For all her descriptive acumen (which was considerable), in the end Kellerman turns out to be a leadership technician of modernity who just doesn't know how to navigate the "soft" inner world of the heart and soul of the leader.
On this matter, Leadership ConneXtions charts out an entirely different path. To borrow her first assumption, I would say it like this:
First, we cannot stop or slow bad leadership
UNLESS/UNTIL we change human nature...
Far from this human nature change being impossible, it is essential.
Theology, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, poetry, arts, novels and more - here are rich veins of centuries (indeed, millenium) long reflections by those who have experienced deep change and who have helped others have the same experiences. They provide guidance and resources for the inner journey... the dive below the water line to the depths of the heart... for soul shaping...
The essential approach of Leadership ConneXtions is to offer leaders, processes of deep change through the ways of spiritual formation that deeply connect them with the life of God and how they can respond through metanoia, palingenesis (over and over, deeper and deeper) and the imitation of Christ.
As Jim Collins noted in his reflections on Level Five Leadership, often a crisis experience of suffering, sickness, failure and loss is needed to launch this process. For those who are willing to walk this road, deep change is possible.
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com
