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Thinking about ... leadership. Warts and all.

Barbara Kellerman1

  • 1Center for Public Leadership, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Harvard Business Review
|January 16, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Leadership is not inherently moral. Effective leaders, both good and bad, offer valuable lessons. Recognizing the full spectrum of human traits in leaders is crucial for developing better leadership skills.

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Area of Science:

  • Business Studies
  • Leadership Theory
  • Organizational Psychology

Background:

  • Traditional leadership theories often conflated effective leadership with moral virtue.
  • Historical and contemporary examples demonstrate that "great" leaders are not always "good" people.
  • Business leadership literature frequently defines leaders as inherently benevolent, overlooking negative traits.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To challenge the prevailing notion that leadership is synonymous with moral leadership.
  • To argue for the acknowledgment that leadership is not a moral concept.
  • To highlight the importance of learning from both positive and negative leadership examples.

Main Methods:

  • Critical analysis of historical and contemporary leadership examples.
  • Review of prominent business leadership literature and theories.
  • Philosophical examination of the concept of leadership versus morality.

Main Results:

  • Leadership effectiveness is distinct from moral character; "bad" leaders can be highly effective.
  • The assumption of benevolence in leaders is a misrepresentation of the human condition.
  • Effective leadership draws from a full range of human traits, including negative ones.

Conclusions:

  • Leadership is not a moral concept and should be studied as such.
  • Learning from "bad" leaders is as vital as learning from "good" ones for leadership development.
  • Recognizing leaders' capacity for deceit, cowardice, and greed is essential to avoid leadership disaster.

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