Can an industry and its leadership thrive despite dwindling followers?

IN TODAY’S tough times, it seems that everyone is looking for a leader to bring positive changes and glory to the world. Barbara Kellerman’s book, The End of Leadership, critically examines the fact why and how the $50m leadership industry led by America has so far not been able to produce leaders to bring positive changes in the lives of millions of people, marred by socio-economic conflicts. The author highlights how the mechanics of leadership have evolved and changed over the period of time. Kellerman is candid enough to acknowledge the growing gap between teaching and the practice of leadership and leadership industry. She laments that the followers are becoming disillusioned by their leaders. The leadership industry, however, booms while in practice leadership is not able to perform, be it in politics or in industry. The book, The End of Leadership is broken down into two parts. The first part is about the changing relationship of leadership and followers and second in on the booming leadership industry. The author says that leadership, following the golden rule of change is the only constant thing which is subject to change. Earlier, leaders were meant to dominate follower. These days the followers are smarter and stronger and need to be persuaded and recommend by the leaders. The shift is very much evident thoughout the history. Ordinary people like Gandhi, King and Mandela shaped the world in the past 100 years. They communicated with people through influence, rather than to command or dictate, to achieve their goals. These changes are integrated in culture and environment. Even in today’s society, dismantling of power structure is visible. The culture is such that the followers pry into their leaders’ personal lives—and to hold them accountable for what they do is required. WikiLeaks was able to expose and portray some of the global leaders as being inapt, weak and many a times corrupt. The other part of the book examines the leadership industry. There seems, the author says, a worldwide obsession with producing leaders. In the past few years, words like leader and leadership seem embedded in mission and goal of many universities and private institution. The industry has flourished and resulted in mushrooming of several leadership schools, academy or center of leadership. Today the industry has taken a legal and professional shape and attracts highly paid executives. Some of the programmes, despite all the merits, however, have failed to develop good leaders. The author points out that there is no plan to stemming or slowing progress of bad leaders. The entire focus is on the development of new leaders. This area has shown little development and innovation in the past. She emphasised on the fact that one has to understand that current form of leadership, style and functioning is different from what it used to be understood and taught. Keller is optimistic that despite all the ill, the industry has the potential to create strong leaders, good followers and develop discourse intelligence. She says that several assumptions about leadership should be questioned in order to stay relevant in the future. The End of Leadership tells two tales. The first is about change—about how and why leadership and followership have changed over time, especially in the last 40 years. As a result of cultural evolution and technological revolution, the balance of power between leaders and followers has shifted— with leaders becoming weaker and followers stronger. The second narrative is about the leadership industry itself. In this provocative and critical volume, Barbara Kellerman raises questions about leadership as both a scholarly pursuit and a set of practical skills: Does the industry do what it claims to do—grow leaders? Does the research justify the undertaking? Do we adequately measure the results of our efforts?