Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and three degrees from Yale University: an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and both an M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright Fellowships. Kellerman is a co-founder of the International Leadership Association (ILA).
Quotes from This Episode
Dr. Kellerman's Website/Selected Books
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and three degrees from Yale University: an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and both an M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright Fellowships. Kellerman is a co-founder of the International Leadership Association (ILA).
Quotes from This Episode
Dr. Kellerman's Website/Selected Books
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate.
Scott Allen 0:03
Good day everybody. This is Scott Allen and we have a really fun conversation today on the show. We have Barbara Kellerman. Many of you know her as the James McGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard, the Kennedy School of Government that she has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Leadership Quarterly. She's authored so many books Followership, The End of Leadership, she has authored Professionalizing Leadership. And today we're going to talk about Leaders Who Lust. And I'm really excited about this conversation, Barbara, thank you very, very much for coming back to the show. We talked about a year ago, and at that time, we talked about Professionalizing Leadership. And like I said, before the show, I'm about a year behind you. So next summer, we'll get to The Enablers. And I'll put all of your latest work in the show notes so that people can get that as well. But I also said to you, before we started the show, I would love to talk a little bit, I've been having these conversations with Cyn Cherry and Denny Roberts, and really kind of going back to some of these initial conversations where you all, and your name came up often, often, often often, you all gathered these thought leaders from these disparate areas and disparate parts of whether it was Student Affairs, whether it was business, psychology, would you talk about some of those early days of the International leadership Association, and just what some of those conversations were like and how they informed maybe your path forward?
Barbara Kellerman 1:28
Well, I this started, the idea for this, I think originally came out of the University of Maryland, there was a group that had been supported by the Kellogg Foundation, which at the time was very interested in leadership. And it was a time when not many were all that interested in leadership, it has since become rather a hot topic. I sometimes now call it the "leadership industry," because it's a big moneymaker for some people. But at that time, it was not nearly as codified or reified. So the University of Maryland, I was running something called the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership and a woman named will be familiar to many of your listeners, Georgia, Sorenson was there and responsible for the larger enterprise. And we came up with the idea of starting an association that was really geared particularly to people who were specifically interested in leadership and the name of which was I la from the start international leadership association was, you know, worked very well then meaning we wanted it to be not just domestic, but International, meaning we wanted it to be specifically about leadership. And meaning we wanted it to be a professional association, rather like other associations, doctors and lawyers, and management professionals. And we started rather small, but it quickly became apparent that there was not a huge audience for this. And I think that still exists. Now. It's not as if we rival some of these, the ILA rivals some of these other organizations. But it seems to have early on found something of a niche. Yeah. And I think that niche is sustained To this day, I, Cynthia Cherry would know this 1000 times better than mine, but I don't know it. But it seems to me that it has grown somewhat over the years, but it's not as if its numbers are now vast. But they are sustained, and they're growing somewhat. The International part continues. And I think it has lived up to some of its early promises. I think in some ways, it's not quite what I originally envisioned. But that doesn't make any difference. I think people are generally very happy that it exists and very happy to be affiliated with it. And I continue to be very, very supportive of it and glad that it has lasted and been sustained over the years rather than quietly folded, which so often happens with these kinds of initiatives.
Scott Allen 4:20
Well, I can tell you for the last year and four or five months, I've been having conversations with folks in Australia and New Zealand and Europe, and all over the world. And they're members of ILA and it has been my professional home for probably almost a couple of decades at this point probably 15 years. So so with you at with that with so you being a part of that. In the beginning, I say thank you because you created something that definitely changed my life. Otherwise, I'd be stumbling around the Academy of Management with my 30,000 best friends. And would we would just be a network of leadership scholars, we wouldn't have our own thing, right.
Barbara Kellerman 5:07
No, I think that's I think you're really summarizing it very well. I think for those of us who are really just interested in leadership and by the way, I want to throw in the word followership because I like a handful of others are every bit as interested in followership as I am in leadership. I wish it had gained more traction. But that is the idea of followership. But I do think it is continuing to gain traction. As we're starting to real ice, the world is often driven matter all by leaders, but by their followers, especially in the third decade of the 21st century. So I think for people who is specifically interested in leadership and followership, you're quite right, the ILA is, is very much has been, and remains very much their home.
Scott Allen 5:58
Yeah. Well, and just so you know, with a number of scholars that that whole conversation around followership becomes more and more and more prevalent in the dialogue, that they're just bringing it up, whether that's David Day, Ron Riggio, or Bruce Avolio, or Susan Komives as any number of other individuals who are really recognizing, again, you call it the "leadership system," and I and maybe that's a segue into the current book because what I loved about Bad Leadership, was that we really started looking at the leader, the followers and the context, I believe, that's the first book where you really framed it up as such. And in this book, again, you start framing it up. We can't just look at this individual in isolation, what's going on with followers, what's happening in the context? And so "Leaders Who Lust" for listeners, I'm going to read something very quickly to kind of tee things up. And then I'd like to go down kind of a line of questions that I have about the topic because it's a really interesting topic. As I said, I've been spending my summer so far with you, and Dr. (Robert) Livingston. And it's been a good summer, you've been with me in baseball fields, primarily, that's where we've been
Barbara Kellerman 7:17
I will be glad to be on a baseball field with you, Scott, that's just great
Scott Allen 7:21
13U baseball, two hours at a time. I'm the guy who's just in the corner reading when my son's not touching the ball. You write "Leaders who must have a fire in their belly that is impossible to douse. Leaders who lost to have a life force that is impossible to slow, not to speak of stopping. Leaders who must have an appetite so enormous and relentless, it is impossible to ever fully satisfy." So maybe frame up or tee up the background behind your interest. I know you write about it, but tee that up for listeners, and then I'd love to explore some of actually the end of the book.
Barbara Kellerman 8:07
So thank you, Scott, let me just comment on the leadership system point that you made a few moments ago, the leadership system, you're right. When I wrote Bad Leadership, which came out in 2004. I stumbled into this, this framework, I didn't have it as a framework at that time. I realized as I was doing the research, you can't talk about a bad leader without talking about bad followers, and you can't talk about badly isn't bad followers without setting that without putting them in their setting. Yes. Only years later, did it occur to me that I kept repeating that template. And when it occurred to me that's when I if it's not doesn't sound too pompous to say I codified it into something that ever since then, I have called the "Leadership System." In 2016, I published in Daedalus, and the article that I think was titled "Leadership–It's a System, Not a Person!," which really spelled out how I came to this conclusion. And it is fair to say that I now never speak about leadership never write about leadership, without referencing all three components. Which yes brings us to Leaders Who Lust but again, I have taught a course called "The Leadership System. I speak about it all the time I convey and every time I speak about leadership, I speak equally about followership and the setting with which this leadership and followership takes place. So with regard to Leaders Who Lust well, as you know, Scott, at least as well as I am idea of the contemporary leader is a person of balance. And indeed, many leadership scholars talk about how we leaders should be moderate leaders should be, you know, we talk about work/life balance all the time. The idea that some leaders are kind of crazed, not saying that crazy, I'm saying crazed is kind of off. The radar will occasionally reference Steve Jobs. I'm like God, he was, you know, just fanatically dedicated to his work. But Steve Jobs are the kinds of people they're very few and number Elon Musk is another. They are generally thought of as not like the rest of us. And heaven knows that in leadership courses. While we always try to develop leaders, we don't use either Jobs or Musk as a template for what we're trying to teach our students. So leadership, the whole field of leadership development, which actually dominates the leadership industry, how to be a good leader, leaves out this particular kind of almost fanatical leader. However, if you look at which leaders stand out, which ones are really exceptional, by the way, that word can mean good or bad. I'm not putting a value judgment. Oh, my God, how many of them whether in business or in politics, whether American or German, or Russian, or Argentinian? Are people on leaders who were single, tracked, obsessed, and the notion of lust as you read the comment is, they never rest. And I will again invoke my favorite line in all of the leadership literature, which I do with some frequency it is what Churchill said about Hitler in the 1930s, when he was trying to warn the British Parliament that the time was not at all listening about Hitler, which was the line is his great line, as almost everything Churchill said or wrote was "His appetite (that is Hitler's appetite) grows with eating. Hmm, that's what I mean by lust - meaning, the more these leaders have, the more we should say the subtitle of the book, which is very important, yes, leaders who were, but the subtitle is - Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, and Legacy. And every one of those six lusts, which I and my co-author, Todd Pittinsky, extracted from a larger array of lust is being lost as being much the most salient. Every one of them, the word lust implies, if you're a male leader, and you've slept with 1000, women, you want to sleep with 1001, women. If you're a leader who has accrued many, many, many, many millions of dollars, you want to accrue, even though you can't use it, you don't need it, you keep wanting to accrue it. And the same goes for power. And the same goes for success, so forth, and so on. So it implies lust and "leaders who lust" imply leaders who are fanatical, and who are never, ever satisfied, either until they die, or something comes along to stop them other than death.
Scott Allen 13:47
Well, and this is where I want to go almost to the end, because it's towards the end, where you have this list that really, obviously, the entire book stood out for me, I learned a lot about some people that I was not very familiar with. And I think it's, again, the leader/followers/context construct of looking at each of these cases is just wonderful. But to your point, I mean, one of the things you all say is, "lust is value-free" unless can be good. I guess before reading this, I'd always had this just implicit thought that it was a negative always, but at times, it can do great good in the world, right? You write about Mandela, for instance.
Barbara Kellerman 14:27
100%. In that chapter that you're talking about, which is legitimacy has two men featured. One is Nelson Mandela. And the other one is Larry Kramer. Both represented groups that have been marginalized and indeed oppressed and suppressed. In the first case, obviously, South African blacks and in the second case, the American gay community, an oppression that came to a head a particular crisis point during the onset of AIDS, Larry Kramer was absolutely the spearhead of it. I mean, some people will debate it. But I will maintain forevermore that Larry Kramer is one of America's unheralded he died quite recently, by the way, is one of America's unheralded heroes. We honor all kinds of leaders of all kinds of groups. For some reason, we do not honor leaders of gay groups. And Nelson Mandela obviously is one of the great heroes of the 20th century and indeed of all time, but yes, their lusts to make their community move their communities from the margin to the center was absolutely just as you say, Scott, I guess, depending on your point of view, but certainly, I think you and I would agree, and most of your listeners would agree. It was a lust that was for the good, and they are not the only ones in the book whose lust is for the bad. But I certainly take the point of view that the lust to try to legitimize an oppressed group is a good thing. There are other lusts such as the lust for power, which is probably almost always not so wonderful because it implies power over someone. And certainly, the two examples that I use one is Xi Jinping, who even since the book came out, which is like a half a year ago, is proving the point, which is that China is becoming every week or every month or every day, a more I use the word now totalitarian, not simply authoritarian system. And Roger Ailes is the other example that we use a man whose Empire which was FoxNews was so dominated by him that there was really no room for anybody else. Yeah, but there are also people in the book like Tom Brady and Hillary Clinton, whose lust for success. I that they're both in the chapter on lust for success, where we just stand back and look at why you know, as we are talking in mid-2021. Scott, it looks as if Tom Brady is going to keep playing. Yeah, we have to ask ourselves, why does a man like that? What is the point? He's in, I guess he's 44? Now something like that. He's in his mid-40s. He's got all the fame in the world. He's got all the fortune in the world. He's got all the success, all the glamour, the most gorgeous wife, and lovely kids. Why is he still playing? He's still playing because he loves being a leader. He loves being the greatest of all time. He cannot stop and will not stop until time stops him.
Scott Allen 18:29
Well, you speak of Hillary Clinton in that way as well. I mean, she, she just kept putting herself back in the ring, so to speak. And knowing that she would be what's the word? I'm looking for?
Barbara Kellerman 18:45
Brutalized
Scott Allen 18:46
That's the word. That's the word. Right?
Barbara Kellerman 18:49
I mean, that's a perfect way of putting it. She kept stepping back in the ring, even though she knew she'd be punched every which way, every which direction. You look at her, by the way, I have since blogged about her. Because what one of the many things that's fascinating about this woman is how marginalized she is now, you know, during the 2020 presidential campaign, we hardly ever saw Hillary Clinton. It's as if the Biden campaign decided and indeed the Democratic Party more generally. Well, there was something about her that was somewhat toxic. But to the larger point, this was a woman who gave up a safe seat. As Senator from the state of New York. She was widely recognized as being an excellent senator from the state of New York. She would be presiding over the senate as we speak, had she not decided to quit that seat and run again for president so she could not her lust was for success was insatiable, and whether or not it's because She was a woman we can ever have a long discussion about that. But she was punished for it. And interestingly, as I said, even now she seems to me to be punished not just by Republicans who always loathed her men, many of whom, most of whom, but also by Democrats who have effectively sent her to the equivalent of political Siberia.
Scott Allen 20:24
Hmm. Well, and another comment towards the end of the book that the two of you make is that "lust attracts followers." Would you talk a little bit about that? Lust attracts followers?
Barbara Kellerman 20:39
You know, I think, first of all, I think all of us are hard-wired. You know this is one of the great leadership conversations. I, you know, we're supposed to like, again, we're supposed to not want to follow people who are extreme, whatever that extreme is. But we are first of all hardwired in my view, I think there's ample evidence just the way animals are. other primates certainly am other animals, certainly hardwired. There's a reason we've heard the expression man, I know the sound sexist, but you'll forgive me, I hope, "man on a white horse," "a hero in history." Those are phrases that come from some place. And they come because it is the nature of the human condition. Too long for us to seek a great leader, somebody who will save us from ourselves who will lead us to a land of milk and honey. So, uh, so it is with, leaders who lust, they seem to have an energy, a life force, a zeal, and a dedication to a particular goal. And we, we look at them with a measure of awe. And in some cases, we really, really, really do want to follow the way they lead. Whether it is Warren Buffett with those annual conferences that they used to have, I was
Scott Allen 22:14
just gonna I was just gonna mention him. Yeah,
Barbara Kellerman 22:16
You know, people go "he's not a leader," yeah, he is a leader! We admire Warren Buffett for his curious mix of personal modesty on the one hand, but that's the accumulation of fortune on the other. And he is called it's not called the "Oracle of Omaha" for nothing. Yeah, people are attracted to his mix of folksy-apparent folksy wisdom, and incredible genius at making money. And for many, many years now, these days, but hey his heyday may well be over, but for many, many years, he would say that his legions of followers buy this or buy that and they would buy this or buy that and they would listen to every word that came out of his mouth. Yeah. So, again, these people have an appeal. I mean, Roger Ailes was, in many ways for many people off to work for young people stayed, you know, including women who were in a culture widely understood now to be one of sexual harassment. Yes, but if they thought they had a chance of making it in Fox News, Roger Ailes is dictatorial. Somewhat abusive ways notwithstanding, they stayed, they didn't have to say they could have quit.
Scott Allen 23:32
predatory. predatory is another word, right?
Barbara Kellerman 23:44
They stayed, most of them stayed crossing their fingers that they would succeed at Fox News. So we can look over and over again at these people. And by the way, I should throw in Trump. Trump is not a figure, deliberately in this particular book. He is, by the way, the star of my next book, The Enablers. But he's not a figure in this particular book. But you can't think of leaders who lost without thinking of Donald Trump. Donald Trump did not ever lust for power even though it's normally thought that he did, No his lust was for money but his show of money is ostentatious. This is brazenness again it's I don't have to tell and I'm here were any of your listeners was enormously attractive and remains interestingly again as we speak in mid-2021. Even now, though, he's in the background. We damn well know that if he appeared at some rally or another, he would bring out his base, which many of whom would remain as rabidly interested in fervently supportive of Donald Trump as they were four years ago...
Scott Allen 24:50
This brings me to a question. Can some of these folks that you highlight these case studies? Could there be multiple lusts that they're chasing? We've got JFK, is it? Is it just sex or is it sex? power? legitimacy? Right? Is it? Is it all of those? I mean, led not legitimacy in the larger context. Maybe somewhat but legitimacy within his family? Yeah. How do you think about that?
Barbara Kellerman 25:32
I think about it this way, Scott...human beings are not widgets. Yeah. It's like in Bad Leadership. One of the characters in bad leadership was Bill Clinton. And I chose a single example, which was Bill Clinton in Rwanda. Yep. Which he himself later said, was the biggest single mistake he ever made to permit that genocide to unfold. He was not allowed, by the way, Boutros Boutros Ghali was head of the UN at that point. So he was by no means alone. They were other world leaders. But I singled him out not because I was trying to say that Bill Clinton was across the board an awful leader, but because he did one very bad thing that allowed what is often called the most efficient genocide in human history to happen. Um, and as I said, he himself regarded his biggest mistake. So when I say human beings are not widgets, I say they are complicated. And you are quite right to say that justice Bill Clinton was bad on Rwanda, which is not exactly what you said. But the implication is, he could be good and indeed was in many other ways. So it is with lust. Yeah, John Kennedy, will be remembered for many things. His lust for power will not be among them. His lust for money will not be among them. Yes, he wanted to succeed, of course, otherwise, he would never become president. But if anything, it is said about him that his father wanted to succeed more than he did. His father planted the seed when the first son died, but the next son should be President of the United States. John Kennedy was striking for his lust for success, excuse me, his lust for sex. It is an astonishment now to read what went on in the early 1960s, in the White House. Yeah, the man was insatiable. We didn't know it or understand it at the time he remained married. But again, if we look at it now, and the other person that is described in this regard is the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Yeah, both men were in positions of power to be sure. But what was arguably the most striking thing about them was their absolutely flat-out, highly risky, insatiable lust for sex. By the way, sex is an interesting one, because no woman even then would have ever gotten away with that kind of thing. But when we look at the presidency of John Kennedy now, he stands out in several different ways, remarkably good-looking at appealing and attractive. But if you know about his presidency, in some detail, the lust for sex, this insatiable drive, non-stoppable, frequent, obsessive lust for sex surely stands at the top of the list of what singles him out and makes him different from what I think it's safe to say any other...certainly President of the United States, not to say that other presidents have had. Other women have not had other women in their lives that are other than their wives. But this was again, lust, meaning, lots of lots of other women and insatiable.
Scott Allen 28:57
Yeah. And, in the book, you talk about how lust is rare, but also just a powerful motivator you to say perhaps the most powerful motivator, this lust for wealth. And again, I love how in the section on Warren Buffett, we go back into his backstory a little bit. Let's talk let's look at the context. What's the backstory on Warren Buffett that created this figure who has this, as you would say, insatiable lust for amassing wealth, right? But it's a powerful motivator for these individuals. It's jet fuel.
Barbara Kellerman 29:34
It's wonderfully put, I should have used that expression. It's not the usual airplane fuel. jet fuel,
Scott Allen 29:43
and there's a lot of it!
Barbara Kellerman 29:45
You know, it's a powerful motivator, because it's a life force, and most of us don't have it. Yeah. It's not like ambition. It's not like greed. It's not like a desperate want. It's something really Really? Not typically, by the way, it's not. It's interestingly not often referred to this life force. We know that it exists. So separating it from the leadership point. We know that there are some people who are driven and obsessive who have this lifeforce. But they're not widely studied. They're not at all studied. They're not written about. And yet they check, they often change the world. If you look at the great whether they are scientists or explorers, what is an explorer, one of the great explorers of human history. They're obsessive, they're driven, they're crazed. They're people who lust, that characteristic or trait has not been singled out for study. And so we decided to do it.
Scott Allen 30:54
Yeah. I love it. It's, it's a wonderful book. It was a wonderful read. And, again, I learned a lot about some of these individuals that I had not heard of Larry Kramer, I had not heard that story. Harvey Milk of you know, I'm very familiar with Harvey Milk and, and his story. But Larry Kramer, I didn't know it. And so it was a really wonderful opportunity to learn about some individuals. Charles Koch, I didn't I, of course, I've heard of the Koch brothers. But I didn't know the backstory on that. And so I think your framing of this topic is really and that last, that last component, it's a powerful motivator, perhaps the most powerful motivator. It's very, very interesting.
Barbara Kellerman 31:41
Thank you, Scott. I'm glad you liked it. Lovely to speak with you.
Scott Allen 31:45
Well, let me ask you one final question before we wind down for the day. Yes. What have you been reading? What have you been thinking about consuming that has your wheels turning as of late?
Barbara Kellerman 31:59
Well, I tend to keep thinking every leadership book I write is my last each time over I swear, never doing another
Scott Allen 32:08
Barbara! Are you lustful about book writing?
Barbara Kellerman 32:10
Oh, that's a great question. I would have even a few years ago, I would have said no. And now I look in the mirror and I'm beginning to wonder what is going on with me? This is not to my friends tease me about this endlessly my family. But it does. You know, I never bored with a subject that interests us both.
Scott Allen 32:31
Yes.
Barbara Kellerman 32:31
I never ever find I've been in this field for many, many years. I've never been bored with it. I'm always interested in it. Um, and I would say the best answer I can give you set aside the specifics of what I'm reading. And it refers back to what you mentioned early on in the book I did in 2004. Bad leadership, I think, at this point in my life between The Enablers and the subtitle of that is "How Team Trump Failed the Pandemic and Failed America." And as its title implies, Trump is at the center, but he's really not the center. The center of the book is his enablers. It is a book about followership. It is a book about how bad followership enables bad leadership to happen. Wow, all about his followers, not about Trump. And the book that I'm now starting slowly to work on is, again about bad leadership and bad followership because it remains I think, Scott, as far as I'm concerned, 99% of the vast contemporary literature on leadership, and we know there are a billion books out there is focused on how to produce a good leader. And way too little attention, way too little attention is how to stop a bad one. And so this next book, I think, is going to be focused on that. So I think I tend to, you know, when I'm writing and I would say, I tend to read mostly stuff that relates to what I'm writing about.
Scott Allen 34:24
Well, Barbara, as I said, I'm a year behind you. So maybe next summer we can talk about The Enablers.
Barbara Kellerman 34:33
Sounds great. Thank you very much, Scott. I appreciated the conversation.
Scott Allen 34:37
Thank you so much for the work that you do. I
Barbara Kellerman 34:39
I hope our paths crossed in the next few months, or at least the next year.
Scott Allen 34:43
Sounds good. Take care, be Well, bye-bye.
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