Have leadership myths brought us to the brink?

In a deliciously bitter post, Donald Clark slates leadership theories and asks whether leadership training was the cause of the global economic meltdown.

"Has the cult of ‘leadership’ contributed to megalomaniac behaviour that ultimately led to the financial crisis? All of this leadership lark is quite recent. For years we got by with management training, good old sensible stuff about being nice, clear and organised. Then, around the Millennium, the training world went all evangelical about ‘Leadership’."

Clark echoes many of the thoughts of Francis Wheen in an equally delicious chapter, Old snake-oil, new bottles, in his book How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world.



Clark continues and points out that leadership training has:

"... no solid core of theory it’s a potpourri of ideas. The cult of leadership, a relatively recent phenomenon, was grabbed with glee by the training community. A mishmash of management theory, culled from a few airport management books, they put their slides together and became leadership zealots, simply padding out the word ‘Leadership’ into a course, a miscellany of mumb-jumbo."

He has particularly harsh words for leadership gurus:

"I‘d call these false prophets, as they are basically song and dance men, all performance and no substance. It’s good old fashioned preaching with stories, parables, miracle cures, and live performance."

Though he does not draw the link specifically, this last quote illustrates something I've referred to before, the misuse of the look and feel of religion, sometimes even the substance, as a tool for manipulation and marketing. ENRON was a good example.

Donald Clark continues and questions the popular distinction between management and leadership. He points out that mission statements and hubris have replaced intellectual analysis and common sense. Peter Drucker and Jim Collins according to him had it right, good leadership is no more than good management.

I recall that some years ago the educational authorities in South Africa got on to the vision/mission/leadership bandwagon and exhorted school principals to become CEO's and inspirational leaders. Fortunately sanity prevailed, for as Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton pointed out in their book, Hard facts, dangerous half truths and total nonsense: Profiting from evidence-based management, such jobs come with much responsibility, but little authority and few resources. School principals remained just ordinary managers, hopefully still inspiring the odd child or teacher.



In another context Bob Sutton quotes the populiser of the management / leadership distinction, Warren Bennis:

"Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing."

I wonder what the victims of the subprime crisis, of ENRON and Worldcom, of Fidentia in South Africa, would say to that? Are the mining magnates of the mining companies that are raping South Africa's water resources by strip mining pristine wetlands for coal doing the "right thing"? How about the executive mayors of towns and cities that are flooding our rivers with raw sewerage. Or have they read the latest management tomes in airport bookshops, Hitler's guidelines for inspirational leadership and Manage like Mugabe?