Dr. Barbara Kellerman - Leadership from Bad to Worse

Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen

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Dr. Barbara Kellerman is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Center, and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over twenty years. Kellerman has held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Christopher Newport, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She also served as Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at the University of Maryland.
Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and her M.A. M.Phil., and Ph.D. (in Political Science) degrees from Yale University. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright fellowships. At Uppsala (1996-97), she held the Fulbright Chair in American Studies. Kellerman was cofounder of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and is author and editor of many books. Kellerman has also appeared on media outlets such as CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, and BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Review.
Barbara Kellerman has spoken to audiences all over the world including in Beijing, Toronto, Moscow, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Munich, Seoul, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Berlin, Shanghai, Sao Paolo, Kyoto, and Sydney. She received the Wilbur M. McFeeley award from the National Management Association for her pioneering work on leadership and followership, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association. From 2015 to 2023, she was listed by Global Gurus as among the “World’s Top 30 Management Professionals.”
A Quote From Kellerman

• "Bad leadership is a disease. It’s not a physical disease. It’s a social disease no less invasive or destructive than its physical counterpart. Unless and until we recognize the parallel, bad leadership will remain incurable, impossible to root out in the future any more than in the past. Sad. No, tragic."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Website: Barbara Kellerman
• Blog Post: Leadership Gender Gap: Redux

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Register for ILA's 26th Global Conference in Chicago, IL - November 7-10, 2024.

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: The Leader's Edge

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

Chapter

1. Exploring Bad Leadership (00:00:00)

2. Phases of Leaders' Decline (00:17:10)

3. Challenges in Leadership and Gender Gap (00:25:38)

4. Challenging Perspectives on Leadership (00:36:15)