Leadership BS
Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
Jeffrey Pfeffer
Having read it
★★★★☆
Clear, direct and honest about leadership and the many things it gets wrong (and a few it can do well), certainly in its (post-)modern guise. Also proves leadership is not very complicated, it just seems to get treated as a pinnacle of individualism (and profit) in the good times but a collective responsibility (which leadership kind of needs to be treated as anyway) in bad economic times; the mind boggles!
A good passage
People’s desire to see and hear only good things, to ignore contradictory or negative evidence, and thereby build portrayals of leaders on incomplete information, is at once understandable but also unfortunate. A second problem that arises: In the desire to learn only from success, people miss the opportunity to learn from failure, which is often a more promising and interesting teacher.
A second good passage
One reason people leave companies is because they do not feel acknowledged or recognised for their contributions, and one behaviour that provokes irritation is when others take credit for another’s work. Modest leaders are less likely to claim credit for the accomplishments of others and also are more prone to acknowledge what others have done – so modesty should reduce voluntary turnover.
A third good passage
The bottom line: If you have a beneficent environment and a leader who actually cares about you, enjoy and treasure the moment, but don’t expect it to be replicated elsewhere or to even persist indefinitely where you are. The world is often not a just or fair place, our hopes and desires notwithstanding. Get over it. Take care of yourself and watch out for your interests. If others do as well, all the better. To the extent you develop self-reliance and cease relying on leadership myths and stories, you will be much better off, and substantially less likely to confront disappointment and the career consequences that devolve from relying on the unreliable.