Uniquely unqualified to be in charge
A new book about poor leadership questions the common assumption that the heads of most organisations are paragons of virtue, integrity and competencePlanning a climb of Mont Blanc with two friends, we drew up a quick agenda with headings such as: equipment, medication, bookings, training that kind of thing. Item number one on the agenda was . . . leadership.
Oddly enough, there was no great enthusiasm for the role. This should not be surprising, according to Barbara Keller, a Harvard University-based specialist in leadership. In a new book, Bad Leadership, she argues that most of us are happy to be led by others. This is why so often we end up with people who are uniquely unqualified to do the job.
A book about poor leadership is long overdue since most of the literature in this field seems to assume that the heads of most organisations are paragons of virtue, integrity and competence. Far from it, says Ms Kellerman, although she notes that almost the entire field of leadership literature assumes that leadership is synonymous with good leadership.
“Those of us engaged in leadership work seem almost to collude to avoid the ‘elephant in the room' bad leadership,” she writes, adding that this is “tantamount to a medical school that would claim to teach health while ignoring disease.”
She makes the point that Adolf Hitler, one of the worst tyrants in history and, with Joseph Stalin, perhaps her most extreme example of the bad leader, was “brilliantly skilled at inspiring, mobilising and directing followers. His use of coercion notwithstanding, if this is not leadership, what is?” she asks.
One of the biggest problems facing poor leadership, and possibly the most significant reason we are stuck with it, is that so many of us are prepared to tolerate or even support those who are not fit to lead. The reason we do so, says Ms Kellerman, is that it is easier to toe the line than to make trouble.
“To be a well-behaved child is generally not to question the teacher, even when the teacher is somehow bad,” she writes. In the same way, as adults we continue to do as we are told and to play by the rules, even when the rules do not make much sense or are unfair. Too often we follow poor leaders, she says, because the cost of resisting “is demanding in a way that going along is not”.
Another reason that many of us are happy to follow people for whom we may hold little respect is that we tend to crave the kind of simplicity and stability that does not go with the responsibilities of leadership.
This observation suggests that we get the leaders we deserve and if these people are not up to their jobs, then we have only ourselves to blame. We may argue that a business is not a democracy and that bosses are appointed by the board but internal appointments rely on employees who are ambitions, confident and willing enough to step up to a higher level.
Unfortunately ambition and confidence do not necessarily equate to competence. Ms Kellerman identifies seven areas of bad leadership: incompetence, rigidity, intemperance, callousness, being corrupt, insularity and being evil.
Of these traits, perhaps the latter is least present in corporate hierarchies. But it is easy to find more than a smattering of the rest. Most of her corporate examples are well known. These include “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap who slashed his way through various companies during the 1980s and 1990s, Leona Helmsley, the despotic hotel boss who famously noted that “only the little people pay taxes”, and the various corrupt leaders at Tyco, WorldCom and Enron.
While many of these people displayed ugly traits throughout their careers, they often enjoyed the support of investors, analysts and the media before their eventual demise. This was certainly true of Al Dunlap when he headed Scott Paper and during his early days at Sunbeam. It was also true of chairman Ken Lay, chief executive Jeff Skilling and chief finance officer Andy Fastow at Enron. Ms Kellerman argues rightly that “it makes no sense to think of corporate lawbreakers as one breed and corporate gods as another”. If we accept that many of the people she mentions, including those at Enron, were feted as they rose to prominence, we can see that context and the lifecycle of a corporate career are also important features in any assessment of leadership performance.
Had Al Dunlap bowed out of Scott Paper into retirement would he be reviled today as a bad leader? Those who lost their jobs would know the truth of his character but would anybody care about that in the investment community? Had the attack on the World Trade Center never happened, would former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani have been lionised for his crisis leadership?
As Ms Kellerman points out, before 9/11 the mayor had alienated many of his black constituents. “Whatever Mayor Giuliani's legacy as a result of9/11, his callous attitude toward African-American New Yorkers is part of the package,” she writes.
Most of her examples are American but she might have said something similar of Sir Winston Churchill. There can be no doubt that Britain's finest hour was Churchill's too. By 1945 the electorate had tired of his leadership but historically Churchill will never be portrayed as a bad leader. That has to be right. We can find numerous examples of poor leadership in Churchill's career but he was there to lead when it mattered most, and the speeches he made in 1940 restored the resolve of a broken nation.
This is the nature of leadership. Even the best leaders cannot be great leaders all the time. Some of the best chief executives may make the right decisions for years until they make a poor one and they depart. Does that make them bad? No. It means they are not perfect. None of them are, and yet, so often, particularly in those leadership books that clamour to highlight their star qualities, the biggest corporate bosses are celebrated almost as magicians who deserve every penny of their ludicrous pay packages.
The reality is that everyone makes mistakes. Of all the suggestions that Ms Kellerman puts forward for avoiding bad leadership, one of the most sensible is probably her proposal for limiting tenure. Leadership so often turns sour when people are in power for too long.
Wisely she includes advice for followers too, since they must share some of the blame for bad leadership.
But nowhere does she recognise potentially one of the most powerful restraints on wayward corporate leadership: a well-supported and responsible trade union whose members are willing to stand up and be counted when treated unfairly.
At the end of our Mont Blanc meeting we decided to share the leadership, appointing a UK boss, a separate boss for mainland Europe and an operations supremo until we reached the mountain when all responsibility would be handed over to a Frenchman, our Chamonix guide who knows his mountain. There are times to lead and there are times when it can be best to be led.
Bad Leadership, What it is, How it happens, Why it matters, by Barbara Kellerman is published by Harvard Business School Press, price $26.95
糟糕的领导充斥企业
有一种常见的观点认为，大多数机构的首脑都由具备道德、正直和才能的人担当。但一本关于拙劣领导的新书对此提出了质疑。就在我们策划和两位朋友攀登勃朗峰之际，我们迅速制定了一个议程，其中包括这样的标题：装备、药物、预定、训练等等，而排在议程首位的是：领导才能。
奇怪的是，没有人对这个角色有多少热情。哈佛大学研究领导能力的专家芭芭拉?科勒曼（Barbara Kellerman）认为，我们不必对此感到惊讶。她在新书《糟糕的领导》中的论点是，我们大多数人都喜欢被别人领导。这就是为何往往是最不配当领导的人成了我们的领导。
这本探讨领导能力拙劣的书早就应该出台了，因为这个领域的书籍似乎都有一个假设，认为大多数机构的主管都具备道德、正直、才能等优点。科勒曼女士说，其实情况远非如此，但她也指出，几乎所有关于领导才能的书，都假定领导才能就是指优秀的领导才能。
“我们那些从事领导研究的人似乎都在回避谈及这个显而易见的领导能力拙劣的问题。”她写道，这就“如同一家医学院宣称教授保健卫生，但却忽略疾病。”
她指出，历史上最坏的独裁者之一希特勒（以及坏领导人中最极端的例子斯大林）“非常擅于激发、动员和引导追随者。姑不论他的铁腕统治，如果那不是领导能力，又是什么呢？”她问道。
领导水平低下的最大问题之一（这可能也是我们无法从这泥潭脱身的最重要原因），就在于我们许多人都愿意容忍甚至支持那些不称职的人来做领导。科勒曼女士说，我们这么做是因为服从命令比制造麻烦更容易。
她在书中写道，“做一个乖孩子，通常是指不对老师提出质疑，即使这个老师很糟糕也不吭声。”同样地，作为成年人，我们也是遵照吩咐去做事，并会严守规矩，而不管这些规矩是否违反常理或不公平。她说，我们往往服从差劲的领导人，因为抵抗的代价“很高，而服从则无此担忧。”
我们许多人之所以乐于服从那些我们几乎毫不尊敬的人，还有另一原因：我们往往渴望一切简单而稳定，但这又与领导的责任相悖。
上述分析意味着我们得到了理所应得的领导，如果这些领导人不称职，也只能怪我们自己。我们也许会辩解说，经营一家公司不是在搞民主，老板是董事会任命的，而内部任命也需要胸怀雄心壮志、有足够信心和意志力向更高职位升迁的职员。
可惜雄心壮志和信心未必等同于能力。科勒曼女士列出了拙劣领导的7个方面：无能、刻板、放恣、无情、贪污、偏狭、邪恶。
在这些特征中，最后一项在公司各个层面中均属少见，但其余各项却很容易发现。对于科勒曼女士列举的大部分案例，人们都耳熟能详。其中包括绰号“链锯”的阿尔?邓拉普（Al Dunlap），他于80和90年代纵横多家公司如入无人之境；还有以霸道著称的酒店业大亨利昂娜?赫尔姆斯利（Leona Helmsley），她曾经说过一句很出名的话：“只有小人物才交税。”另外还有泰科（Tyco）、世通（WorlldCom）、安然（Enron）等公司的腐败领导人。
尽管这么多人在他们职业生涯中都显示出丑陋的一面，但在最终垮台前，他们都得到了来自投资人、分析师和媒体的追捧。阿尔?邓拉普在他领导斯科特纸业公司（Scott Paper）以及在Sunbeam公司早期时就是这样。安然公司的董事长肯?莱（Ken Lay）、首席执行官杰夫?斯基林（Jeff Skilling）和财务总监安迪?法斯托（Andy Fastow）也是如此。科勒曼女士说得很对，“把公司内的犯法者视为一类人而把公司中的贤能视作另一类人，这是毫无意义的。”如果我们同意：像她提到的安然之类的人在名气上升时受到追捧，我们也能看清楚，在任何对领导能力的评估中，一个人的企业生涯背景和职业生命周期也是重要的评估因素。
要是当初阿尔?邓拉普从斯科特纸业主动退休，今天他会被指责为糟糕的领导者吗？虽然那些丢了工作的人对他的真实品格十分清楚，但是在投资界会有人关心这点吗？假如世界贸易中心的撞机事件从未发生，纽约前市长鲁道夫?朱里安尼（Rudolph Giuliani）的危机领导能力会被称颂吗？
正如科勒曼女士所指出，在9/11事件之前，朱里安尼疏远了他的黑人选民。“无论朱里安尼市长因为9/11事件留下了什么遗产，他对纽约黑人无动于衷的态度也是这遗产的一部分。”她写道。
她列举的大多数例子均来自美国，但她也许已经说出了某些与温斯顿?丘吉尔爵士相似的情况。毫无疑问，英国最辉煌的时刻也属于丘吉尔，但是到1945年，选民们已经厌倦了他的领导，然而历史绝不会将他说成是糟糕的领导人。结果只能是这样：在丘吉尔的一生中，我们可以发现他很多领导拙劣的恶例，但是他总是在最关键的时刻领导我们。他在1940年所作的那些演说，挽回了一个残缺不振的国家决心。
这就是领导能力的本质。即使最出色的领导人也不可能永远是伟大的领导人。有些优秀的首席执行官可能连续多年决策正确，直到有一天决策失误，他们也只得离职。这能说明他们水平差吗？不。这只是说明他们还不够完美。世上没有完美的人。可是，尤其在那些喧嚣着突出大公司老板才能超卓、以及探讨领导能力的书里，老板们几乎成了魔术师，他们都值得收取公司赏予的每一分钱巨额报酬。
但实际上，每个人都会犯错误。在科勒曼女士提出的避免领导失误的所有建议中，最明智的应是有关限制任期的提议。当人们在位时间太长时，他们的领导水平常常会下降。
她也明智地对领导人的追随者提出了忠告，因为他们也必须为领导水平拙劣而承担部分责任。
但是，她在书中没有认识到，能对姿意妄为的公司领导产生最有力的限制因素之一，就是得到充分支持、肯负责任的工会组织，当遭受不公正待遇时，它的成员愿意站出来反对。
在我们讨论攀登勃朗峰的会议即将结束时，我们决定共同分担一下登山队的领导角色，并先后任命一位英国老总，一名来自欧洲大陆的老总，以及一位精于运作的领导人。到勃朗峰的时候再把领导权交给一位法国人，也就是精通沙莫尼山谷地区的向导。有的时候我们充当领导者；但有的时候最好还是让别人来领导。
《糟糕的领导――如何定义、如何发生、为何需要认真对待》，芭芭拉?科勒曼著，哈佛商学院出版社出版，定价：26.95美元。
