Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

S3-Ep5: How to Avoid the Bad Leader Trap with Harvard Fellow Barbara Kellerman


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Feb 11 2025 32 mins  
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Guest: Barbara Kellerman, Founding Executive Director, Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership


Bad leadership is everywhere, running the spectrum from simple incompetence to outright evil. So why don’t we do a better job of calling it out, if not fixing it?


Guest Barbara Kellerman shares her ideas and solutions, including how this is seen in both the political and corporate spheres. She also discusses the oft-forgotten but ultimate component for effective leadership: followers.


Here’s what Barbara and Maureen cover:



  • How the leadership development industry, like many others, follows the money…and leaves learning gaps behind;

  • What the global political shifts toward autocracy mean about the poor quality of leadership; and

  • Why understanding followership is so important in creating a good leader.



Produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org .


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RESOURCES:


Learn more about Dr. Kellerman’s work, and read her blogs, on her website at https://barbarakellerman.com/. The article she mentions, “Leadership – It’s a System, Not a Person!”, is available through MIT at https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/145/3/83/27116/Leadership-It-s-a-System-Not-a-Person.



The book behind this interview, The End of Leadership, is available in print at https://amzn.to/3QafDED, and on Kindle at https://amzn.to/4jR1h9W. One of her earlier books that’s a favorite of ours is Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy. It’s in hardback at https://amzn.to/4jO25w8 and Kindle at https://amzn.to/4gxMXQs.



Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.



She’s also written several award-winning books on leadership development. You can peruse and purchase them here.


Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:



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OUR PODCAST TEAM:


Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf


Editor & Producer: Dan Mushalko


Video & Graphics Editor: Devon Mushalko


Booking Producer: Jenna Reik


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Website: InnovativeLeadershipInstitute.com



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About Our Guest:


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 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. From 2015 to 2023 she was listed by Global Gurus as among the “World’s Top 30 Management Professionals.”

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