The End of Leadership

About the Book

Over the past thirty years, leadership has become a mantra in our culture—a path to power and money, a road to personal and professional success, and a mechanism for creating change that has spawned its own lucrative worldwide industry. Yet why does government remain riddled with inept, corrupt, or badly behaved leaders Why is business filled with leaders who are venal, self-centered, and seek more power and influence than they can exercise wisely and well Why, for all attention to ethics, is corruption and malfeasance so pervasive

The End of Leadership offers a critical rethinking of the “leadership industry”, challenging the idea that leadership can be taught. Breaking with common wisdom, Barbara Kellerman argues that while leaders always were and still are the focus of our collective attention, they have never been as central to success as we think. Even in times past, when leaders had far more power, authority, and influence, they were vulnerable to forces beyond their control, forces that limited their options and constrained their behaviors. In the twenty-first century, she argues, these forces are stronger, more variegated, and more numerous than they ever were before, relegating current notions of leadership to the dustbin of history. Instead, she offers an alterative model that better reflects—and adddresses—contemporary political and organizational realities.
 

About the Author :
Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was the founding executive director of the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership and served as its research director. She was ranked by Forbes.com among the Top 50 Business Thinkers in 2009 and by Leadership Excellence in the top 15 of the 100 "best minds on leadership" in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 she was given the Wilbur M. McFeeley Award for her pioneering work on leadership and followership. She is author and editor of many books, including, most recently, Bad Leadership, Followership, and Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence.

Review :
"In this wide-ranging critique, Kellerman enumerates the numerous contradictions, inconsistencies, and irrelevance of what passes for leadership thought and training today. Before you purchase or attend any of what the multi-billion dollar leadership industry is selling, read this book!" -- Jeffrey Pfeffer, Thomas D. Dee II Professor, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and author of Power: Why Some People Have It-and Others Don't "Barbara Kellerman does not play nicely with the other boys and girls-and we are all the better for it. Anyone interested in a penetrating critique of the leadership industry should read this provocative new book from our foremost leadership contrarian." -- Robert Kegan, Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development, Harvard University Graduate School of Education "In this compelling book, Kellerman brings critical new insights to longstanding questions about the importance of leaders...essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of leadership both in theory and practice." -- Deborah Rhode, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Stanford Law School "After pioneering work on followership and bad leadership, now Kellerman provocatively dissects what she calls the leadership industry. She offers suggestions on how to think far bigger and more expansively if we are to cope with leading in a global information age." -- Joseph S. Nye, Jr., University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard and author of The Future of Power "A timely, considered and comprehensive examination of how leadership has changed and how and why we lost faith in leaders; how the leadership industry went wrong - and the steps needed to put it right" -- Rob Goffee, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, London Business School "'Mind the Gap' could be the subtitle of Kellerman's disturbingly honest and indispensable book. The 'gap' Kellerman urges us to mind is the hoary disconnect between what the leadership industry produces about best practices and what leaders who read our books actually practice." -- Warren Bennis, University Professor, University of Southern California and author of Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership "Kellerman's honest and astute critique makes it clear that the gurus in her own field have work to do if they want to remain relevant." -- Kirkus Reviews A well-written chronicle of the evolution and devolution of the leadership profession and a substantiated indictment of the leadership development industry.Essential. -- Choice Reviews Online