'Leaders are not always heroes. Bad public leadership is a big problem. If we are serious about holding our public leaders to account, then we need to know why they were bad, and why we supported them. Ludger Helms and his distinguished team tackle these difficult questions with sympathy, not cynicism. Their careful and insightful analysis alerts us to the dangers of venal and poorly performing leaders.' – R.A.W. Rhodes, University of Southampton, UK 'Leadership and the lack of it is a central but underexplored issue in the study of contemporary politics. Ludger Helms is to be congratulated for bringing together a group of leading scholars to examine the relationship between leadership and governance.' – William E. Paterson OBE, Aston Centre for Europe, UK In leadership research there is a long tradition of focusing attention on the great and successful leaders and, more recently, on issues of good governance. This study breaks new ground by looking systematically into the manifestations and causes of poor leadership and bad governance in some of the world's most powerful democracies. Focusing on the presidents and prime ministers of the G8 – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan – it explores the complex relationship between weak and ineffective leadership, undemocratic leadership techniques, and bad policies from a broad comparative perspective. What makes leaders weak or bad in different contexts? What are the consequences of their actions and behaviour? And has there been any learning from negative experience? These questions are at the centre of this fascinating joint inquiry that involves a team of truly distinguished leadership scholars. This book will prove invaluable for scholars and students of leadership, political science, contemporary history, and related academic disciplines. Readers with a general interest in public affairs and political history will also find plenty to interest them.

At the heart of the litany of Nigeria's public sector problems is a fundamental crisis of governance. The current crisis of development in Nigeria can be attributed in part to a history of poor governance characterized by corruption, social injustice and political instability. Effective leadership and governance are critical to a country's economic and sociopolitical development. During the 1950s and 1960s Nigerian public sector was regarded as one of the best in Africa, today it is ranked among the worst in the world. The factors isolated include ineffective control of corruption, lack of rule of law, poorly articulated government policies, and poor policy implementations. The implications for Nigeria have been a regressive leadership, poor governance and the lack of social and societal development.

How is Saddam Hussein like Tony Blair? Or Kenneth Lay like Lou Gerstner? Answer: They are, or were, leaders. Many would argue that tyrants, corrupt CEOs, and other abusers of power and authority are not leaders at all--at least not as the word is currently used. But, according to Barbara Kellerman, this assumption is dangerously naive. A provocative departure from conventional thinking, Bad Leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety. Kellerman argues that the dark side of leadership--from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty--is not an aberration. Rather, bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious--and so must be more carefully examined and better understood. Drawing on high-profile, contemporary examples--from Mary Meeker to David Koresh, Bill Clinton to Radovan Karadzic, Al Dunlap to Leona Helmsley--Kellerman explores seven primary types of bad leadership and dissects why and how leaders cross the line from good to bad. The book also illuminates the critical role of followers, revealing how they collaborate with, and sometimes even cause, bad leadership. Daring and counterintuitive, Bad Leadership makes clear that we need to face the dark side to become better leaders and followers ourselves. Barbara Kellerman is research director of the Center for Public Leadership and a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A, James Cook University, language: English, abstract: Poor leadership is undoubtedly one of the main potential factor that can lead an organization to fail. In this paper, the causes of poor leadership are discussed. The resulting impact on employees and the organization itself is also evaluated. Three case studies of great startup companies, namely Atari, Commodore and Motorola are used as examples to describe how poor leadership has been the leading factor to their organizational failures.

A new framework for helping nonprofit organizations maximize the effectiveness of their boards. Written by noted consultants and researchers attuned to the needs of practitioners, Governance as Leadership redefines nonprofit governance. It provides a powerful framework for a new covenant between trustees and executives: more macrogovernance in exchange for less micromanagement. Informed by theories that have transformed the practice of organizational leadership, this book sheds new light on the traditional fiduciary and strategic work of the board and introduces a critical third dimension of effective trusteeship: generative governance. It serves boards as both a resource of fresh approaches to familiar territory and a lucid guide to important new territory, and provides a road map that leads nonprofit trustees and executives to governance as leadership. Governance as Leadership was developed in collaboration with BoardSource, the premier resource for practical information, tools and best practices, training, and leadership development for board members of nonprofit organizations. Through its highly acclaimed programs and services, BoardSource enables organizations to fulfill their missions by helping build effective nonprofit boards and offering credible support in solving tough problems. For the latest in nonprofit governance, visit www.boardsource.org, or call us at 1-800-883-6262.

Governance & Leadership offers a roadmap to better governance - not just in terms of individual leaders but also by suggesting solutions to encourage a fertile and sustainable culture of worldclass leadership. The world is currently experiencing a crisis in leadership - reflected in widespread public distrust and criticism, due to growing incidents of poor leadership and bad decision-making. This is no different for South Africa. The Auditor Report has highlighted the need to strengthen leadership and governance capacities of most of the local government administrations by appointing qualified.

In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development supported the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to deliver basic healthcare to 90 percent of the population, at a cost of $4.50 a head. The program played a vital role in improving the country's health; the number of children dying before the age of five dropped by 100,000 a year. But accounting standards at the Ministry of Public Health concerned the United States Special Investigator General for Afghanistan. There was no evidence of malfeasance, nor argument about the success of the program. For all that the results were fantastic, receipts were not in order. The investigator called for the health program to be suspended because of "financial management deficiencies" at the ministry. This case illustrates a growing problem: an important and justified focus on corruption as a barrier to development has led to policy change in aid agencies that is damaging the potential for aid to deliver results. Donors have treated corruption as an issue they can measure and improve, and from which they can insulate their projects at acceptable costs by controlling processes and monitoring receipts. Results Not Receipts highlights the weak link between donors’ preferred measures of corruption and development outcomes related to our limited ability to measure the problem. It discusses the costs of the standard anti-corruption tools of fiduciary controls and centralized delivery, and it suggests a different approach to tackling the problem of corruption in development: focus on outcomes.

Sierra Leone is in her final phase of a Post-civil War rebuilding after twelve years of what has been dubbed one of the most devastating civil conflicts in Modern African History. Since the advent and end of the conflict a lot has been written in the forms of documentaries, reportages, commentaries, satires and academic textbooks by journalists, academics, politicians, former heads of state and political analysts. However, this book- `A New Perspective On Governance, Leadership, Conflict and Nation Building in Sierra Leone.', is different. It presents a new outlook in the sense that it is incisive, analytical, honest, educative and thought-provoking at the same time. The key message that runs through the veins of the theme is state renewal informed by new thinking spectacles that efficiently configure the manner in which the management of state leadership and governance is articulated for the benefits of the common good. The author, Solomon E. Berewa was one of the key actors- Chief Government Negotiator and stakeholder of the peace deals in his capacity as Minister of Justice and Attorney General and Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. He has written this masterpiece authoritatively by throwing fresh lights on the serious political issues and questions which have blurred the significance of the past and the present. Like any sincere agent of nation building, after a traumatic experience such as the one Sierra Leone went through, the rationale of the author is to build bridges across the board, political spectrums. In his estimation, it is only by looking into the past with open mind and sincerity, learn tangible lessons and act on them meticulously, that nations can be in position to surmount current challenges for the good and durability of a better tomorrow. Post-war Sierra Leone needs to have faith in this philosophy and crown it as the cornerstone in this crucial period of political and socio-economic renewal.

Why do smart and experienced leaders make flawed, even catastrophic, decisions? Why do people keep believing they have made the right choice, even with the disastrous result staring them in the face? And how can you be sure you're making the right decision--without the benefit of hindsight? Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, and Andrew Campbell show how the usually beneficial processes of the human mind can become traps when we face big decisions. The authors show how the shortcuts our brains have learned to take over millennia of evolution can derail our decision making. Think Again offers a powerful model for making better decisions, describing the key red flags to watch for and detailing the decision-making safeguards we need. Using examples from business, politics, and history, Think Again deconstructs bad decisions, as they unfolded in real time, to show how you can avoid the same fate.

The concepts of leadership and the specific role of government leadership in meeting the basic needs of the people seem poorly defined in many areas of African society. Many people in these poor societies seem desperate and anxious for service, contrary to what many external observers may seem to think as a state of contentment. This creates a management dilemma why government fails to deliver despite high expectations of the electorate. The case of Africa was studied using Ghana as an example of such societies where one can observe phenomenon from examples of traditional leadership of chiefs with certain powers but limited responsibilities that may not be clearly defined for modern development of the society. Whiles recognizing traditional leadership, people in these societies find themselves with shifted locus of power and control, owing loyalty and allegiance to some other elected leaders who seem not concerned about the interests of the electorate, even where very high taxes are collected and people have the money to pay for services. The case of Ghana was examined using a qualitative case study. Selected businesspersons were interviewed in the Accra-Tema metropolitan area to examine their experiences, expectations and perceptions of the leadership, using one indicator of business performance: the quality of utility service delivery regarding water, electricity, telephone and garbage. As well known and found by the World Bank and local Private Enterprise Foundation [PEF] and business groups, electricity and telephone services are indispensable elements of any modern business. In the 1990s, the facsimile machine became part of modern business to enhance data delivery in addition to voice transmission, and in 2006 the Internet and electronic mail have become an almost integral part of global business communication for more than ten years. The needs for these business tools become more critical if businesses have to compete at the global level in free-enterprise markets usually imposed by Western donor and lender conditions. Water and garbage service not only affect health in any society, but in Africa poor sewage treatment and open sewage are directly related to mosquito breeding and malaria. Malaria was reported to kill 15,000 children under five years of age and 2,000 pregnant women in 2005, and seem to reduce the average life expectancy of people in some sectors of the nation by more than six years (GhanaHomePage, 2006, May 12). The research study on Ghana by this author showed that inefficient service delivery was found to impact about 90% of businesses in almost all sectors, despite a high [73%] expectation from leadership. Despite the call for overseas investors, first-dial successful completion rate of telephone transmission from California to Ghana was only 4%, most fax machines tried were not functional, and more than 95% of the participant business managers and owners used in the study did not have regular use of the Internet. Fifty-six (56) types of leadership perceptions based on the culture evolved and were grouped into common themes, and compared with a similar study in the United States of America. Cultural factors were explored in order to understand the challenges in Ghana's socio-economic development compared with Euro-American and Asian-Confucian cultures. This book is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the PhD degree at Capella University's School of Business and Technology [Organization and Management - Leadership Option] in June 2006. I wish to acknowledge the help of Capella University as well as the supervision of Dr. Godwin Igein and Dr. Stephen Tvorik of the School of Business and Technology, and Dr. Kwesi Ngissah of Oakland, California who acted as outside dissertation committee member.