Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers

Written by Barbara Kellerman

Narrated by Linda Jones

Leadership from Bad to Worse is about how leadership that is bad, invariably, inexorably, gets worse-unless it is somehow, by someone or something, stopped or slowed.

This work draws on four cases of bad leadership-two in political leadership, two in business leadership-to show how it goes from bad to worse. Kellerman finds that bad leadership and bad followership go through four phases of development: 1) Onward and Upward; 2) Followers Join In; 3) Leaders Start In; and 4) Bad to Worse. These findings correctly suggest that the book, in addition to being of theoretical interest, is of practical import. It is intended, deliberately, to serve as an early warning system. By breaking bad leadership and followership into phases-each more ominous and ultimately dangerous than the one preceding-their progression will be easier to predict and detect. And easier, therefore, to slow or, preferably, to stop before they turn toxic.

Bad leadership is a social disease. But unlike diseases that are physical or psychological, it remains at the margins of our collective concerns. Leadership from Bad to Worse is, then, a corrective. Knowing that bad leadership can be checked before it corrupts is knowing that bad and then worse can be, if not completely precluded, then sometimes short-circuited.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781696614641

Barbara Kellerman

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.