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I
f you think that much of what you read and
hear from leadership gurus is BS, you have
a supporter in Jeffrey Pfeffer. At first glance
he’s an unlikely backer since he’s a leadership
guru himself. But he’s a professor of organizational
behaviour at the Stanford Graduate School of Busi-
ness and a fierce advocate of evidence-based man-
agement, as exemplified in his incisive book
Hard
Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense,
co-written with colleague Robert Sutton, and his
newest work, brashly titled,
Leadership BS
.
“Sometimes–not always, but some of the time–do-
ing precisely the opposite of what the leadership
industry prescribes produces better outcomes.
What’s more, doing the opposite of what the lead-
ership industry advocates is sometimes a much
better, more reliable path to individual success,” he
writes in
Leadership BS
.
He starts with a historical analogy: Around the
turn of the 20th Century, medical practices in the
United States were dismal, with people hawking
untested and unproven cures. The Carnegie Foun-
dation commissioned Abraham Flexner to study
medical education and his transformational report
led to formal licensing and a focus on seeking evi-
dence for medical advice.
Today’s leadership industry parallels the medical
field before Flexner, with anybody able to put out a
shingle and no requirement that an individual has
even read the relevant social science research. “The
leadership industry also has its share of quacks and
sham artists who sell promises and stories, some
true, some not, but all of them inspirational and
comfortable, with not much follow-up to see what
really does work and what doesn’t. And much like
the field of medicine prior to Flexner, what speaks
the loudest in the leadership industry seems to be
money, rather than evidence-based, useful knowl-
edge. The way leadership gurus try to demon-
strate their legitimacy is not through their scien-
tific knowledge or accomplishments but rather by
achieving public notoriety – be it the requisite TED
talks, blog posts, Twitter followers, or books filled
with leadership advice that might or might not be
valid and useful,” he says.
He argues the leadership gurus offer a well-in-
tentioned, values-laden set of prescriptions filled
with “shoulds” and “oughts” that are mostly not
representative of people in leadership roles, not
implementable, and may be fundamentally mis-
guided.
He believes the leadership industry has failed:
“Good intentions notwithstanding, there is pre-
cious little evidence that any of the recommenda-
tions have had a positive impact.” A big problem
is that much leadership training and development
has become like a form of lay preaching. Inspiring
stories are told about heroic leaders and excep-
tional organizations. That uplifts the recipients of
the message but doesn’t seem to change much in
actual workplaces. “Regardless of all the time and
money spent on leadership, the situation in work-
places…. is dire with disengaged, disaffected, and
dissatisfied employees everywhere,” he notes.
He probes six key messages from the gurus–au-
thenticity, modesty, telling the truth, trust, leaders
shouldn’t eat first, and taking care of others first–
that on the surface sound reasonable but he sug-
gests may not be wise.
He points on authenticity to Alison Davis-Blake,
the respected dean of the University of Michigan’s
Ross School of Business. She was so quiet and in-
troverted as a doctoral student her professors were
wondering when she would speak up. The authen-
tic her, therefore, would be a flop in the high-pro-
file position of business school dean. To succeed,
she needs to be inauthentic–not her genuine self.
“The last thing a leader needs to be at crucial
The Leader’s Bookshelf
Harvey Schachter
Leadership BS
By Jeffrey Pfeffer
Harper
Business,
259 pages,
$36.99
26
/ Canadian Government Executive
// April 2016
“The ability to misrepresent reality is a crucial–maybe the most
crucial–leadership skill,” Pfeffer provocatively suggests.