Audiobooks by Barbara Kellerman

Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers

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.

Barbara Kellerman (Author), Linda Jones (Narrator)

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Professionalizing Leadership

Over the last forty years, the leadership industry has grown exponentially. Yet leadership education, training, and development still fall far short. Moreover, leaders are demeaned, degraded, and derided as they never were before. Why? The problem is that leadership has stayed stuck. It has remained an occupation instead of becoming a profession. Unlike medicine and law, leadership has no core curriculum that is considered essential. It has no widely agreed on metric, or criteria for qualification. And it has no professional association to oversee the conduct of its members or assure minimum standards. Professionalizing Leadership looks to a past in which learning to lead was the most important of eruditions. It looks to a present in which learning to lead is as effortless as ubiquitous. And it looks to a future in which learning to be a leader might look different altogether-it might resemble the far more rigorous process of learning to be a doctor or a lawyer. As it stands now, the military is the only major American institution that gets it right. It assumes leadership is a profession that requires those who practice it to be taught in accordance with high professional standards. Barbara Kellerman draws on the military experience specifically to develop a template for learning how to lead generally.

Barbara Kellerman (Author), Marie Hoffman (Narrator)

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